Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) employee Ilena Berg came before the county board on November 24, 2015 with an update on the effort by Cook and Lake County Soil and Water Conservation Districts to make a One Watershed, One Plan for the Lake Superior North Watershed.
Over the course of the last year, said Berg, both a policy and advisory committee has met to develop this document. One Watershed, One Plan doesn’t cover the entire county, just from the Laurentian Divide on down, she said.
Asked if the current Cook County water plan would be included, Berg said 90 percent of the 2014 plan would be incorporated into the new plan.
Commissioner Ginny Storlie asked if lake associations had any input, and Berg said yes.
Funding, said Berg, comes through her office, the state, and by primarily writing and obtaining grants. “That’s the way it works up here,” she added.
Following the December 14 roll out, Berg said commissioners will have 60 days to review and comment on the draft plan, followed by a public hearing. Soil and Water will then have 90 days to review the document before next spring when it is hoped to be completed and in place.
Berg said the One Watershed, One Plan would be a supporting piece to the county’s updated Comprehensive Land Use Guide.
Commissioner Heidi Doo-Kirk asked Berg if she thought the completed plan would help the county obtain funding for highway department ditching projects, and Berg said yes, it should help.
“It’s an important plan. I’m really excited,” said Berg. Request to remove Flute Reed culverts
Commissioner Frank Moe asked the board to take action to remove 10 five-foot long, 10-feet high, 13½-ton, concrete culverts the county has stored on county property near Flute Reed River since 2006.
The culverts are an eyesore, Moe said, adding the land they sit on could be put to much better use because of its historical value as a former CCC camp. He said another use would better suit the property other than a place to dump concrete culverts.
Moe said the county once promised to remove the culverts, but three different county engineers and four different county maintenance directors so far haven’t been able to get the job done.
Highway Engineer David Betts wasn’t at the meeting, but Maintenance Supervisor Russ Klegstad and Highway Department Administrative Assistant Lisa Sorlie were on hand.
When asked why the concrete behemoths remained in place all these years, Klegstad said it was because they are extremely heavy and hard to move. He estimated it would cost $20,000 to bring a big crane in to move them—and because they were valued at roughly $6,000, they had some potential value to the county. He said it was a “six of one and half a dozen of another” problem with no clear answers. He added that if the county moved them, the cost would fall on citizens. He also said the culverts were too big for another nearby culvert replacement project, and he couldn’t see where the county would have any use for them.
Moe called for a motion asking for the culverts to be removed by April 1, 2016. Commissioner Garry Gamble asked to table the motion until Engineer Betts could be at the meeting.
When Moe didn’t get a second he took the board to task, saying the board had approved adding aesthetic enhancements on one bridge and agreed to pay for work on another bridge while this project sat idle.
“We [Hovland residents] are asking for fair treatment, I strongly disagree with the vote to table it,” he said.
Moe said a few other things he later apologized for, telling the board, “I spoke too strongly. I get hot and emotional. I want to apologize. This is a passionate topic for me and many in my district.”
Commissioners Doo- Kirk, Storlie and Jan Sivertson said they weren’t opposed to seeing the culverts removed, but they needed to hear from Betts before making any decisions. They asked Klegstad to consider putting the culverts up for sale online, targeting other counties who may have a use for them, or seeing if he could find a local buyer.
Klegstad said those were good ideas and said he would take them to Betts.
Gamble then proposed a motion. He read, “… Commissioners will take no action on agenda items that fall under a department head’s jurisdiction without the head of that department being present to answer potential questions raised by elected officials; excepting when such action items come with a recommendation from the corresponding head of that department.”
Gamble’s motion failed to get a second and Board Chair Doo-Kirk asked that this be discussed at a future board meeting. In the meantime, Sorlie thought Betts could attend the next board meeting and commissioners could get his take on the Hovland culverts. Until then, unless someone has a very large crane, the culverts aren’t going anywhere.
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