LID Formation Goes Stealth Wabasha County confirmed during a recent board meeting that discussions with Olmsted County personnel have occurred to further the formation of the LID (Lake Improvement District) and to define the boundaries and properties that will be included in a soon to be resurrected Lake Improvement District. Wabasha was reluctant to share the list of property owners slated for LID inclusion at this time and only stated they are looking at the value of those properties. The LID was legitimately terminated in 2012 by Wabasha County (Norman, Harms, Roschen) to protect Wabasha lakeshore property owners from inequitable property tax assessments for funding the restoration project given the discriminant practices & questionable ethics that marred the LID formation process. Wabasha District 3 Commissioner Don Springer vowed to re-establish the LID in his 2012 Commissioner campaign which now begs the question, Under who’s direction and authority are county employees working on LID development and formation? and, How will they establish a LID this time around? Following are minutes from the 5/15/2013 Lake Zumbro Improvement Association meeting … County Commissioner (Don Springer): The Wabasha County board met with the Olmsted County board to inform them they are interested in rejoining the Lake Improvement District. The LID is expected to be reinstated in the next 4-6 months. Lake Zumbro Forever (Sheldon King) gave an update on the Lake Zumbro restoration project: - An additional $1.5 million is needed to complete the project as planned. The actual dredging will take $6 million and another $500,000 is needed for engineering. LZF will also start to look at what dredging can be accomplished with a total of $6 million dollars. - In addition there will be disposal fees that will need to be covered. Dean Albertson is researching obtaining additional money from the state level and an attempt is being made to obtain money from the Army Corp of Engineers at the Federal level. - In addition, material that is dredged is good material for growing hay so may be able to generate cash flow to help with the disposal fees. - The earliest the lake restoration project could be completed would be in 2015: The LID will need 4-6 months to be reinstated, time for engineering is needed, and obtaining the required permits can take an additional 9 months. Zumbro Watershed Partnership (Lawrence Svien): - Nearing completion of the project to identify the 50 biggest areas of sediment contribution to the Zumbro watershed. The next step will be to develop tools to address these areas. - Water sampling for sediment is planned for 13 sites in the Zumbro watershed area. Samples will also be taken at the RPU water flow gauging sites, which will allow more precision in determining how much sediment is flowing. The sampling will also occur during high level water events. - State legislation has passed a law that allows management of an entire watershed area rather than within a county.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:03:53 +0000
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