Ordinance 17-99 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Russell and Elizabeth Melton 2150 Otter Lake Drive White Bear Lake, MN 55110 (651) 407-9283 August 18, 1999 Members of the City Council Honorable Mayor Sullivan Ladies and Gentlemen: We have asked you to partially vacate a drainage easement to accommodate a hockey rink on our property. By doing so, you will not be sanctioning any reduction in compensatory storage for drainage water on Oak Brook Peninsula. WHAT WE HAVE DONE TO THE PROPERTY THAT COULD HAVE AFFECTED THE EASEMENT: We have done nothing to reduce the amount of water that can be stored on the easement. Since we built our house in 1997, we have made two changes which could arguably affect the storage capacity of the easement: 1) We enlarged the pond that was on the property; and 2) We built a hockey rink. The first change increased the capacity for storage of water. The second has had no effect on water storage. As part of landscaping our yard, we enlarged the pond on our property. The City, the DNR and the Rice Creek Watershed District were all notified about this. They sent inspectors and worked with Russell to approve the changes to the pond. The pond was dug specifically to prevent sediment running into the wetlands to the east of the property. The part closest to the street was dug to a 3' level. The next area was dug to 2' and the narrow channel closest to the wetlands was dug to 1&1/2'. At first, we apparently dug too close to the wetlands, but that area was restored and the authorities had no further issues.