With every wetland drained and home, parking lot and street built, Minnesotans were shooting more and more phosphorus into the Chain of Lakes. Algae and cyanobacteria were taking full advantage.
A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency report found that Cedar Lake, the first in the chain, had nearly three times the phosphorus it had before development. Along with that phosphorus, a toxic stew of pet waste, fertilizers, pesticides, chemicals and oils was piped directly into the lakes from lawns and streets through stormwater systems.
Paddleboaders on Cedar Lake on an August Sunday. Without the conservation efforts of previous decades, such activity would be impossible by now due to pollution. (Anthony Soufflé/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
While the lakes are inside Minneapolis city boundaries, much of the land that drains into the lakes is outside the city’s jurisdiction.
It was immediately clear that Minneapolis would not be able to fix the problem alone. Spurred on by citizens, the city formed a Clean Water Partnership with several agencies and organizations including the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, St. Louis Park, Edina and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District.
They divided up the $12.4 million cost of the restoration project and started work in 1995. First, they found the key areas where much of the pollution was entering the chain, which happened to be on parkland already publicly owned.
They restored Cedar Meadows, an old marsh on the western end of Cedar Lake that was covered up and filled in with dredge spoils in 1918. A walking bridge crosses the marsh now, where thriving cattails and native plants soak up hundreds of pounds of phosphorus a year before it can enter the lake.