Groundwater report tells how we might monitor — and remediate — rare water resources

Grass-of-Parnassus, a member of the Saxifrage family, blooms Aug. through Oct. in calcareous fens. Photo: USGS.

In April 2005, the District commissioned hydrologists Rich Brasch and Mark Janovec, of Bonestroo Rosene Anderlik & Associates to undertake a water monitoring survey. Bonestroo presented the Groundwater Monitoring Strategy report at the November 2005 board meeting and will put finishing touches on the plan, providing additional cost quotes for implementation activities, at the January 2006 meeting.

Brasch suggests that the primary goal of the District's program was "to figure out what was being done to monitor the health of water resources, what condition the resources were in, and try to recommend an appropriate role for the District in supplementing others’ monitoring efforts at a time when state agencies have lost money and terminated some efforts, starting in 2002 with the budget crunch."

Gathering coherent data

To date, our knowledge of the water resources in the District has come from many different and not necessarily well-coordinated sources. One index of this is the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's Minnesota Ground Water Directory, which lists 10 different state agencies along that are responsible for ground water. And this is not to account for federal agencies, like the United States Geological Survey, or local agencies, like the Met Council.

What does the groundwater report look like? While they're not exactly bedtime reading, these densely packed 41 pages, plus photos, tables, and maps, do provide a good, solid look at what the District has by way of water and what sorts of things we'll need to do to protect, restore, or enhance these resources.

To develop the new groundwater-monitoring stragegy, the consultants undertook the following measures:

• Identified and located groundwater-dependent resources
• Evaluated the resources
• Identified past and current monitoring activities, and their results, for these resources
• Wrote the report, which summarizes results and gives cost estimates for monitoring and remediation

Section 2 of the report describes the District's general hydrogeology, especially that of rare resources like calcareous fens and trout streams. (Click here for a list of articles we've done, over the years, on fens and trout streams within the District.) Based in part on the expertise of DNR wetlands specialist Jeanette Leete, Section 3 evaluates the most important resources in the District. Later sections recommend specific monitoring programs and reconstructive actions like controlling invasive plant species at the fringes of fens and restoring Nicols Fen in Eagan. (See the Oct. 2004 News article on the condition of Nicols Fen.)

Surprise, surprise, surprise

Rich Brasch, the report's co-author, says the most surprising thing he learned in surveying our resources and writing the report was simply "the number of really unique groundwater-dependent surface-water resources in the District. You have fens and trout streams with very unique environments that are recognized throughout the state, places like Seminary Fen, in Chanhassen, and Savage Fen, in Savage. There are also some good-size fens that a lot of people don’t know about." Yes, we can be picknicking at Ft. Snelling State Park, Brasch agrees, and not even realize there are three fens within the park boundaries with rare ecosystems, Ft. Snelling Fen and Quarry Island fen, both just south of Gun Club Lake and north of Hwy. 13 (click here for map), and Nicols Fen, in Eagan, just northeast of Hwys. 77 and 13.

One sign that people don't know about such fens, or (in the past, at least) care about them, is that there are sizable deposits of construction debris at Ft. Snelling Fen, ranging from two to 18 feet in depth. (This debris might have been deposited before Ft. Snelling State Park was established, in 1962.) If the debris is to be removed, the District might first study whether such removal will reveal intact peat layers that can support native fen species like sterile sedge, beaked spike-rush, and grass-of-Parnassus.

Beaked spike-rush.

(For a fine account, in words and photos, of calcareous fen ecosystems, see the USGS's Steve Eggers and Donald Reed's online account.)

Protecting fens: it's the law

"We want the public to know about these rare resources," says Brasch, "so that they can appreciate how unique they are and can help protect them. True, they are protected by state regulations, which say thou shalt not adversely affect our fens." Fens have been protected, since 1991, by the state’s Wetland Conservation Act. "But all citizens have to do their bit, too, to make sure we're not hurting these rare and delicate ecoystems."

If we are to visit the fens, he continues, "we have to be very careful about how we do it. We have to know what we’re walking on and through, and access has to be very carefully controlled so as not to affect rare species or the hydrology that underpins the whole environment." One good way to educate the public is through publications like this. Another would be interpretive signage, a part of the District's long-term educational mission, which would alert the public to the rareness and fragility of the environment they're visiting.

But what, specifically, did the groundwater report discover and recommend?

For a quick overview, go to the summary table of priorities the firm is recommending for monitoring and remediating fens and trout streams.

Here's to our health

Monitoring the health of fens and streams, finally, is more than a little like monitoring the health of human beings. "For sure, not all resources are created equal," says hydrologist Brasch. "It's just like people, from a health standpoint. You’ve got to take into account what the body's current condition is," whether that's a water body or a human body, "assess what the quality could be, and then tailor your management strategy to that. If there's a development threat to a well known water resource, like Eagle Creek, a lot of interested people will get involved and active in protecting the resource." But the bigger threat is when development goes merrily along, "impacting something of value," Brasch concludes, "and we don’t even know it’s there or know the significance of it or what makes it tick till it's too late."

That kind of ignorance or inattention would be the worst folly. Which is precisely why the District is stepping in where others fear to tread.

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