Minneapolis Park Board panel advances long-stalled Hiawatha Golf Course redesign
Written by Susan Du on August 17, 2022
Excerpt:
The Planning Committee approved the plan 3-1, with commissioners Cathy Abene, Elizabeth Shaffer and Tom Olsen in favor and Alicia D. Smith against. Becky Alper was absent.
The committee vote means the course redesign is one step closer to full approval. The plan's fate is not certain, however, as it has neared passage in the past without crossing the finish line.
Key Facts from the Article:
A new water quality memo from Barr Engineering, the firm that the Park Board consulted for the creation of the Hiawatha Golf Course master plan, found that from 2016 to 2021 the board pumped an annual average of more than 420 million gallons of groundwater from the course. That exceeds the latest temporary water appropriation permit of 400 million gallons a year that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources issued for Hiawatha in expectation that the Park Board would find a permanent solution to its water problems.
Total phosphorus concentrations in the golf course ponds are two to three times that of Lake Hiawatha, which is already considered impaired for excess nutrients by the state Pollution Control Agency, according to the Barr memo. The average phosphorus loads to Lake Hiawatha are estimated to be 368 pounds a year.