Dear Park Board Members:
Theoretically--and only theoretically--it would be such a gas to open a headrace and a tailrace and watch the river run through it. However, I've climbed around those falls and Hennepin and Nicollet Islands and poked my nose into "the ruins" before they became official Ruins. It's a very special place. The Dakota called it sacred and posited the notion that Owamenah, a powerful spirit, lived at the falls.
Nonetheless, from all the industrial uses we have made of the river in such a very short time as 144 years have put an enormous amount of pressure on the river where it is most fragile in it's first big step down to the sea beyond New Orleans.
We have installed a mill pond and head races and tailraces and 2.9 miles of tunnels, NSP, turned Boom island into a peninsula, Built several bridges, one not so very long ago, removed five tiny islands below the falls to create the lock and dam, first dug out 1st St., the refilled it with junk of whatever nature of decay and pollution. The stream bed cannot take much more punishment. There is only another 1100 feet of caprock behind the falls, and it gets thinner until it ends at the 1100' mark.
Even though the falls themselves and the existing head and tail races have taken our attention, I'm saying that the whole area, from Basset Creek to Minnehaha Creek is very fragile from the uses we have made of the river.
I know that a lot of people dreamed this mill ruins history park into being and it is disappointing not to be able to fulfill all of the parts of the dream. When I first read about it, I thought it was a great idea. I hate giving up the dream myself. But the river is a delicate being at Minneapolis and I think we have already disturbed it as much as we dare.
Yours,
Wizard Marks, Central Neighborhood
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