06-09-2004 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Gervais Lake Association, March 31, 2004 Page 3 4. New waters from Maplewood Mall area There are several parcels currently being developed west of the Maplewood Mall. One of these large areas is what is now called the Legacy Village project. We have received development plans for approximately half of this land, and the other half will be submitted for permits within the next year or two. The only other area that will be developed is the old Country View Golf Course. This area will have good accessibility when the new County Road D project is completed. The owner is currently trying to market this property. This property will likely be auto - oriented and high density residential. The land on the south side of Beam Avenue will not be developed - -this is entirely within flooding easements or easements for the KSTP radio towers. This is the area that is currently managed by the District for water quality. All of this development, including the golf course, has been included in the District's hydrologic modeling for the watershed. Flows have been calculated using runoff levels for commercial and high density residential development. These flows are included in the models for flood levels for Gervais Lake and for the water quality treatment provided in the District's capital improvements. Therefore, these developments will not contribute to higher water levels and flood levels within the Phalen chain of lakes. All District plans for our projects and studies for flood levels assume full development of all vacant land within the watershed. Since we know this will occur at some point in the near future, all planning is based on full development. Also, all new developments within Maplewood will be required to have on -site treatment of stormwater runoff. These treatment systems typically include both open water ponds to control rate of runoff and infiltration systems to reduce the total volume of runoff. Maplewood has been very aggressive in using volume reduction techniques in new developments. We anticipate that due to this development approach, rates and flood levels will be below District estimates. 5. H.B. Fuller heating and cooling waters H.B. Fuller Company does have an exemption for once - through cooling waters. This exemption is provided in state law. The permit that H.B. Fuller receives is a DNR groundwater pumping permit. The old permit provided for a maximum of 185 million gallons per year. H.B. Fuller's historical average over the last 15 years has been approximately 90 million gallons per year. The DNR permit is up for renewal, and there is currently some controversy over whether to reduce the permit to the annual average amount that H.B. Fuller has been using or to maintain it at the higher level. H.B. Fuller has been arguing that the permit should be maintained at the higher level because they are ultimately planning for this to be the international headquarters for H.B. Fuller, and having considerably more office and research facilities on the site could require the additional capacity for the system. The H.B. Fuller cooling water enters the pond near its oldest research lab and then enters Willow Lake. The lake has an outlet control structure and outlet berm which restricts the outlet flow from Willow Lake into Willow Creek. This ultimately flows down along Highway 61 into Kohlman Lake. Even though the permitted volume of water appears to be an extremely large number, this is a very low amount compared to the stormwater runoff volumes. We have run some rough calculations and determined that the maximum pumping volume of H.B. Fuller would have no measurable effect on lake levels. On an annualized basis, this amount of pumping would raise Willow Lake only 0.02 feet per day. This is not measurable compared to the stormwater runoff impacts to Willow Lake and the Phalen chain of lakes. In summary, you list your concern for the increased frequency of the lake levels reaching your 860.0 high water level. We recognize that this has occurred more in the last several years than in previous decades; however, please understand that since 1993 we have been in an extremely wet, above - average rain cycle - 2 0 -