City Council to consider putting Lake Mitchell dredging loan to public vote

Jun. 30—MITCHELL — The fate of the proposed Lake Mitchell dredging project that was stalled by the city council could soon be in the hands of residents.

After the Mitchell City Council struck down a $25 million state loan application that would have funded a lake dredging project, Mayor Bob Everson hasn't given up on the plan. In response to the council's deadlocked vote on June 20 — which denied the loan application from moving forward since the mayor couldn't break the tie vote — Everson is calling on a new city council on Wednesday to approve a resolution that would put the $25 million loan application on a ballot in a September special election.

"It will be the same SRF loan and same $25 million loan application that we will be going for, and we're trying to get it done before any more interest rate hikes happen," Everson said. "A simple majority (on the council) will have to say yes, and we would put it to a public vote."

If the council approves the resolution, voters would decide on proceeding with the loan application. The vote would not be a bond issue related directly to residents' property taxes such as the Mitchell High School athletic facility in June.

The 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 5 City Council meeting will mark the first for newly elected council members Mike Bathke and Tim Goldammer. They will be tasked to vote on the $25 million loan application, which the city would pay off over a 30-year period, if approved.

The city is aiming to use the loan to fund a mechanical dredging project that would entail a drawdown of water, allowing heavy equipment to remove sediment from the lake bottom. Barr Engineering, a Minnesota-based firm, recommended the project as the most effective and cost-friendly option to reduce the phosphorus levels causing the lake's harmful algae blooms. The entire project is estimated to cost roughly $53 million with recommended annual $500,000 alum treatments and interest rate payments included in the estimate.

Although the council will be made up of two new members, three of the four council members who voted against the loan application at the June 20 meeting will be voting on the resolution to put it to a public vote.

The council's new makeup will include Bathke and Goldammer, along with members Kevin McCardle, Dan Sabers and John Doescher, who voted against the loan application. They are joined by Marty Barington, Susan Tjarks and Jeff Smith, who voted to support the loan for dredging in June. Longtime members Dan Allen and Steve Rice are leaving the council after their terms expired.

Dredging supporters have dubbed the lake as one of the city's biggest assets in dire need of serious improvements after decades of algae woes have plagued the body of water. Opponents say the high price tag of dredging and the phosphorus loads funneling into the lake via the 350,000-acre Firesteel watershed, which drains into the lake, are major obstacles standing in the way of beginning an in-lake solution.

While the city is pushing to advance the mechanical dredging project that was a product of a two-year long study by a team of engineers, a Mitchell native and avid lake user has come up with a different plan to restore Lake Mitchell's ailing water quality plagued by algae.

After delving into the mechanical dredging project laid out by Barr Engineering in May, Mitchell's Jordan Hanson began exploring other less costly options on his own. On Thursday, Hanson presented his plan in front of a about 40 Mitchell residents, city officials and lake enthusiasts.

Hanson's approach to reversing the lake's algae woes was based on recommendations from several out-of-state biologists who haven't visited the lake and entails restoring the ecosystem by planting more vegetation along the shorelines and using underwater aeration systems to naturally reduce the algae. Installing 40 aeration systems throughout the lake, Hanson said, was estimated to cost roughly $2.4 million over a five-year period as quoted by Iowa-based Bjornsen Pond Management.

To break down the aeration method, Hanson compared the lake to a giant fish tank. The aeration bubblers placed in fish tanks used to keep the water clean would produce the same type of effect on Lake Mitchell, he said.

"If you unplug the bubbler on the bottom of a fish tank, what would happen in a couple weeks? It would fill with algae. Aeration is the most recommended, natural water cleaning method through a process called destratification. Lakes and ponds need oxygen, and all aquatic life needs oxygen," Hanson said. "Proper lake aeration will help reduce the overall acclamation of organic sediment on the bottom layer of the water body, potentially prolonging or preventing the need for dredging."

Hanson pitched using electricity from lake residents' homes to power the aeration systems, which would hinge on residents volunteering the use of their electricity.

By planting more vegetation and cattails along the shorelines, Hanson explained why he believes it would be another key step toward reducing algae. He criticized the city's past decisions decades prior to remove cattails from the lake for housing developments and other reasons, along with ongoing shoreline tree removal work.

"Once you kill all of that natural vegetation, vegetation is a byproduct of oxygen, our lake can stratify with hot water and cold water on the bottom," Hanson said.

The annual alum recommendations from Barr Engineering in addition to dredging the sediment has Hanson questioning the effectiveness of the proposed dredging project.

"If dredging works, then why do we need alum?" Hanson questioned. "I think everyone was pretty disappointed in the lake vote, so I came up with my own solution."

In June, leaders from Barr Engineering previously explained alum treatments — a natural chemical used in lakes to mitigate high phosphorus levels — are effective long-term management tactics to preserve water quality following a dredging project and tackle areas where dredging won't occur. Roughly 70% of the lake sediment is planned to be dredged, according to Eric Lund, of Barr Engineering.

Hanson's restoration plan for the lake was met with mixed support among the group of residents who attended and watched online.

Everson watched Hanson's presentation and said the city explored a similar approach a few years ago prior to deciding dredging was the ideal path forward. The city brought leaders of a lake restoration company called EverBlue Lakes to investigate the body of water and Firesteel watershed. EverBlue Lakes uses aeration systems and discharging beneficial bacteria in lakes to eat harmful blue-green algae, according to the company's website.

The rough costs of using EverBlue Lakes' aeration and bacteria methods were higher than the lake dredging project, according to Everson. Ultimately, city officials collectively decided dredging as the path forward to reverse the algae woes hampering Lake Mitchell.

"We brought the gentleman who owns the EverBlue company, and he spent a day looking at the chemical composition of the lake and phosphorus readings. They also put an enzyme in the lake that's a bio-dredging method. However, the price was above current dredging costs," Everson said, noting the method EverBlue Lakes laid out would take up to a decade to remove the phosphorus-rich sediment causing algae blooms.

Past lake studies done by Fyra Engineering and Barr Engineering also recommended against an aeration and bio-dredging approach to restoring the lake's water quality.

Among the residents who attended Hanson's presentation was Joe Kippes, president of Friends of Firesteel, a nonprofit organization formed to raise money for a future lake dredging project.

Although Kippes said some of Hanson's suggestions like implementing more vegetation such as cattails are good strategies toward maintaining the lake post-dredging, he isn't sold on using aeration to tackle the algae issues. Kippes said past studies on the lake's water column indicated there isn't a big disparity between oxygen levels on the lake bottom and the surface area of the water like Hanson claimed.

"There wasn't a great disparity between oxygen levels at the bottom of the lake and those at the top. The idea of introducing oxygen at the base of the lake isn't going to do what it could since it's already there. The people we hired as experts suggested it wasn't the best option. I think what was presented should be considered as a lake maintenance possibility," Kippes said of Hanson's plan.

Lake resident Boyd Reimnitz was impressed with the strategy Hanson laid out and said it's an approach that "brings life and biology into the lake."

"This brings biology and life into the lake whereas draining the lake and removing the sediment will add depth. But are you going to benefit? When you fill the lake back up, you're still going to have some problems there," Reimnitz said. "This isn't a miracle. This is going to take time."