Two Harbors City Council Faced with a Difficult Decision

For the past four years, staff at the Lake County Soil and Water Conservation District have been working on a plan to clean up stormwater that drains into Agate Bay. Last summer, and twice In the last few months, E. coli has been detected in the waters of the Bay and the beach has had to be shut down for a total of 10 days. Part of the effort to filter stormwater run-off is evidenced in the work that has been done to eradicate in­vasive plants that have grown along the shore­line. Staff from Lake County SWCD initi­ated that work at the end of last summer. Another aspect of the plan has been to install a two stage filtration system on land owned partially by the DNR, between Lighthouse Point Road and Water­front Street. The two stage filtration sys­tem would combine a swale and biochar to filter out pollutants be­fore they reach Agate Bay. The new system would occupy space where the current drainage system is al­ready located.

The folks at Lake County SWCD re­ceived a grant for $750,000 to finance the project and on Monday night, asked the Council to autho­rize the execution of a memorandum be­tween the City and the SWCD to move for­ward with seeking bids for the construction on the filtration system. Though the Council has previously sup­ported this plan, they voted 5 to 1 against authorizing the execu­tion of the memoran­dum.

The unfortunate re­ality is that the plan to clean up storm water draining into the Bay runs up against the de­veloping plans to revi­talize the Two Harbors waterfront. Both the waterfront develop­ment and keeping the Bay free of E.coli are important to the citi­zens of Two Harbors. This left the Council with a difficult deci­sion because wording in the grant documents may not allow for fu­ture adjustments to the drainage system once it is installed. Since design plans for oth­er aspects of the wa­terfront revitalization are still taking shape, the city could face le­gal ramifications if it becomes necessary to move the swale at a later date. Nobody wants to see $750,000 of grant money go into the needed effort to keep E.coli out of Ag­ate Bay and then have to come up with a sim­ilar amount because that system needs to be moved.

There was a signifi­cant amount of discus­sion over this situation with people speaking both for and against moving forward with the SWCD plan. Though the plan was voted down, the City Attorney will look at the grant agreement so that he can advise the council on the le­gal parameters of the grant. The council will hopefully revisit the issue at their next meeting. Whether or not they can give the SWCD the green light on the filtration system at this time, remains to be seen.

In other business, the work to complete utility upgrades in the 300 to 500 blocks of 4th Avenue is nearing completion. Progress has been slower than expected due to weath­er and the fact that there was a significant amount of rock that had to be cut through to install the water and sewer systems. Joe Rhein, of Bolton & Menk informed the council that paving will begin soon.

The residents of Ward 4 finally have a new representative on the city council. By a unanimous vote, Bar­bara Omarzu was ap­pointed to the position.

The next Two Har­bors City Council meeting will be held on August 25^th at 5:30.