On Thursday, June 3, 2004, at 10:37 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Again I welcome interest and debate about the Upper River and upper river
development.
Dyna Sluyter has responded to my attempts to address her questions and I
would like to answer her comments. I have a feeling I won't be getting the last
word on this.
Dyna suggests that we go back to the drawing board.
I think that this is on the drawing board and we need to draw the future of
the River.
John, if that's true it's refreshing to hear, but the billion dollar plan is still on the city's website and I can only assume that that plan to level block after block of the Northside is still the goal.
Dyna: the Upper Harbor has been badly managed and neglected.
Agreed.
I believe that The City paid $500,000 to reacquire land that it sold for a
dollar- that doesn't sound like great management and it is current city policy
not put additional money into the Harbor.
Which amounts to neglect.
It seems odd, but I think that coal that is off loaded at the harbor then
goes by truck to the St. Paul Campus (downriver) to their heating plant.
What I was saying about dredge material is-
I don't think there is anything preventing the City from closing the Harbor
if they have an alternate site for dredge material - like the site under the
35W bridge.
There has also been foundry coal, salt, and many other commodities shipped through the Port of Minneapolis. And even the little two barge tows are taking hundreds of trucks off our crumbling streets.
I love seeing the Patrick Gannoway and the Minneapolis pushing barges up
(and down river) and I have been accustomed to these lakes we have made out of
this river. In the big picture, the health of the river has more impact than
the barge traffic for the working class (or the non working class). The river
has more economic impact as a river than as a road. I do know people who make
The barge traffic has little impact on the health of the river- the river ecosystem has long ago adapted and attempts to "restore" the river will be fruitless. But the barge traffic has huge effects on the economic health of a whole region. Consider the effects of giving the NIMBYs there dream at ending river naviagtion- how would the midwest get it's crops to markets? Trucks are clearly out of the question- it takes nearly a thousand trucks to handle the load carried by one 15 barge tow. The rail infrastructure paralleling the river could needs billions of dollars in rebuilding in environmentally sensitive areas to handle the traffic. So for better or worse we are stuck with the 9 foot channel.
their living from commerce on the river.
_http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/docs/poolplans/EPP_Dec2003.pdf_
(http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/docs/poolplans/EPP_Dec2003.pdf) is an Army Corps study to
both keep barge traffic and restore a more natural and healthy River (Pool 1)
Which represents a reasonable compromise rather than the urban planning gone mad of the city's master plan.
I have been to the Upper Harbor Terminal, I have been on a barge.
So take a look at the railroad on the map and see how CP Rail funnels crops from the Dakotas and western Minnesota into the Northside. Then note that unlike BNSF and UP, CP welcomes interchange from other railroads and thusly is also the outlet for TC&W, Minnesota Prairie Line, Sisseton & Milbank, and probably a few other shortlines I forgot. If you're a co-op elevator on these lines that serve western Minnesota and the Dakotas you are captive to that network of railroads and the only feasible outlet for your crops is through North Minneapolis to the river. Then follow the river south and see the horrendous condition of the tracks south of Savanna- in no way could those tracks handle the barge's volume without extensive upgrading. Also note the narrowness of the gorges- do you really want them desecrated to allow double tracking in area of such great natural beauty?
Dyna says:
So could we Northsiders make these decisions ourselves without the
inevitable meddling of the more gentrified neighborhoods who think they
know what's best for us?
Probably not because your section of the river is part of the National Park
Service- Minnesota National River and Recreation Area, part of the DNR
critical area plan, a regional and city amenity. There are Northsiders working on
this.
Thanks for letting us know that those of us who live and work along the river have no voice in these decisions.
Dyna says: The Park Board can't afford to maintain what they already have.
Right and I want them to acquire 90 more acres and take them off the tax
roles. We wouldn't have a Park system if we hadn't answered this question. The
maintenance is a very real and very challenging question and is maybe the
biggest problem to solve. But I believe it is solvable.
Sadly we have probably reached the point where we can no longer expand the park system's turf.
Dyna says: Given that the plan calls for leveling GAF, is this a waste of
money
or admission that the plan is being abandoned?
It is a thirty year plan involving willing sellers. GAF isn't going anywhere
soon and they are willing to work with us to improve their landscaping to
improve water Quality.
Which should be the model for a river front revival instead of the city's "clear cutting" master plan.
Dyna says: Does your committee even know where the original riverbank is?
According to Barr Engineering there is a lot of fill, debris, garbage, and
some polluted soil covering the original riverbank in the Phase 1 area,
requiring filtration ponds rather than infiltration ponds. The Hawthorne Area
Community Council has been active on watershed issues for more than a decade.
I was referring to the fact that a lot of the river front is filled in- for example I remember the river in front of the Park Board's offices being filled with what appeared to be dredgings around 1970 or so. The land the building actually sits on may be fill made of clinkers and such from when that site was the CNW coach yard. So if we're going to "restore" the river the Park Board can start by tearing down their offices....
from 3 blocks from where the river used to be and 4 blocks away from where it is now on the Northside,
Dyna Sluyter
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