During the summer of 2021, improvements will be made to the wastewater collection/treatment pond at the bottom of 8th Avenue West in the Grand Marais Recreation Park.
Ilena Hansel explained how that would happen to the Grand Marais city council at the council’s May 13 meeting.
Hansel, who serves as the county Soil and Water Conservation District Manager, said she was approached “a year, a year and a half ago,” by city administrator Mike Roth to assist in improving the water catchment.
The pond, which drains into Lake Superior, is often muddy. Ilena said the goal wasn’t to increase the size of the collection pool, “but make it more efficient and function as it should.”
She stated that repairing the vegetation around the pond to make it look and function better is also a goal. Also, the outlet for the basin is undersized, she added.
First flow data must be collected, and a plan of correction must be made, said Hansel. Funds to pay for the engineering work and the improvements will run about $230,000 She noted there was currently a $10,000 grant to pay for design work.
“I’m feeling hopeful that grants could pay for this,” she said.
Originally the goal was to write grants for this work for 2020, but as Hansel noted, “Due to the COVID-19, we missed a chance to do that this spring.”
The new aim is to capture flow data and finalize goals and objectives during spring of 2021 with the work done in that summer.
Hansel said the pond would require maintenance every so often to clean up the sediment. The vegetation will clean up some of it, she added, noting, “This will be a low maintenance project.”
Council thanked Hansel and approved the project to move forward. No motion was required.
“We need to mitigate the stormwater as much as we can before it gets to Lake Superior,” said Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith DeCoux.
Wearing facemasks in Grand Marais
Some businesses in Grand Marais require their customers to wear facemasks while others don’t. The city was asked to weigh in on this matter and offer guidance. City administrator Mike Roth pointed out that the city has no legal authority to require people to wear masks. Still, after some discussion, the council decided to offer the following advice:
“The City of Grand Marais encourages adherence to the CDC recommendations to social distance where possible and wear cloth face coverings where not. These best practices allow us as a community to serve each other as best we can during the COVID emergency. Please respect the rules of each individual establishment.”
• A public hearing will be held for three lots in the business park, said councilor Anton Moody, adding that each lot has a sale pending. Anton also said the last two houses built by One Roof Housing were sold.
• Councilor Kelly Swearingen asked if the city and county could get together to repair 4th Avenue West behind the Little League field. It’s already an unmitigated pothole vehicle damaging disaster that continues to get worse each year as it is left without being repaired. The hold up is that the road is co-owned between the city and county, and no one wants to pay to fix it.
Swearengen said she was concerned that when summer traffic is routed off of Highway 61 to County Road 7 during the Fall River Bridge replacement this summer that traffic will increase on 4th Avenue West.
“I’m thinking some more locals would like to use 4th Avenue West. Is there any way we can do anything about it?”
Mayor Arrowsmith DeCcoux said the city had made some progress with County Engineer Krysten Foster on 4th Avenue West, but that ended when Krysten left for a different job. One plan could be for the city to take over maintenance of the road but first ask for the county to help pay to fix it, said the mayor.
Councilor Swearengen suggested sending a letter to the commissioners asking for their help.
Councilor Moody asked if the city could have a mill and overlay on the road and then share the bill with the county.
“Do we have the authority to do this and negotiate the shared cost back to the county? It seems like a pretty opportune time. Can we send them a bill? You can’t drive 55 mph on that road. You can’t drive 15 mph on that road,” he said.
“No, we can’t send them a bill,” replied Mike Roth.
Roth said the city could try to work out an ownership deal with the county, adding the city could also “throw some money at it and hire an engineer and get this done.”
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