HomeMy WebLinkAboutDUNES GOLF COURSESorry, but I had to leave at 8:00, the night of the planning meeting on January 22, so I totally missed any of the discussions. I have a few thoughts and that is the creek and the railroad
and the old house at the end of 103rd Street.
First, I'm a very avid walker at the Dunes SNA. I also worked at the SPP refinery and can well remember our maintenance guys talking about dumping barrels at the Dunes. Bad time, but
without it, that area would likely have been housed many years ago.
The creek is one of two in Cottage Grove that runs 24/7. The other one is the discharge of the Ravine County Park Lake that goes underneath Highway 61 and under the CP tracks and then
meets up with the waste water effluent of 3M, before it all discharges into the Mississippi, underneath the BN tracks on the river. I have been there many times before 9/11.
Since that time of 9/11, I have done almost all of my walking at the Dunes SNA and a lot of those walks have taken me on the golf course area, from the Dead Man’s Curve trestle, south
to the Dunes SNA. I usually park at the north lot and walk the Dunes SNA loop, above and below, returning to my car. This golf course creek is commanded by the beaver population. At
the north end of the old golf course, 2 paved cart paths (close to each other) are bridged over the creek. There are 2 sizeable ponds. One is to the west of the cart paths, the other
is along the west side of the rail tracks. Depending on where the beavers put their dam, a large portion of the first creek backs up. They used to put in a simple narrow width dam near
one of the cart bridges. In recent years, they put in a wide dam between the cart path and the rail tracks. The first pond is long from north to south along the west side of the BN
tracks. This pond is right across the BN tracks to the long pond on the Dunes side of the tracks. The water springs on the east side (Dunes SNA) create this flow. The 2 ponds are connected
by a culvert pipe about 12 inches in diameter at the base of the BN rail bed. I have seen this pipe on my walks when Doc used to take out the dam right next to one of the cart bridges.
Now the pipe is covered by a few feet of water, hence a Dunes SNA walk makes one walk around the south end of the pond on the east side of the tracks and that level of the pond has
been high for several years. The water level on both sides of the tracks is also that much higher.
I have asked myself for a few years now- how will this all work when the housing goes in? The depth to the Prairie Du Chien bedrock is under 50 feet and most of that soil is post glacial
sand. Water passes easily through sand. Will some new home owners get flooded or do the engineers have plans for these shifting water levels? Are people going to have basements? If
so, they might have wet basements. Water tables will be shifting.
The Beavers- do they get evicted by the project or will they evict themselves? The beavers have been there before us. They have no regard for us and will chew up the new residential
trees faster than they can be planted. The maps I saw at City Hall show that there will be considerable tinkering with that wetland.
I always was told that it takes about 18 dozen hoops to go through to mess with creeks and wetlands with permitting and all of the state rules with disturbing these kinds of waterways...
or have the engineers (or whatever they are) taken this all into consideration?
Speaking of the 2 ponds, I saw on the development maps tonight that in the northeast corner of the development, that some the new homes will wrap around the north pond. Huh??? Some of
those homes are right against the tracks. Trains can derail anywhere, and a derailment there would put rail car right through a house with no problem. I have often
questioned the businesses along Highway 61 (Allina Clinic and all the rest) and how vulnerable they would be. I go to Allina once a year and it's on my mind when I'm talking to my doctor.
Two maps were shown at the planning meeting and one did not have the northeast corner homes on it. The second map did. Just maybe, someone else thought of this. Regardless, a little
way to the south you have a little cul de sac that is just as close to the tracks.
Train surveyors are meticulous and precise in cutting and filling and make the route the most level. That is why the rail bed is about 15 feet higher than ground level. Maybe folks who
want a home there should be warned of a remote possibility.
Trains- sometimes they sit on the tracks at the Dunes when they are backed up. They can be backed stopped going to Hastings or the other way, going to Newport. BN comes from Prescott
and CP comes from Hastings. Those are BN Tracks at the Dunes and CP tracks are along Highway 61. They use each other's tracks between Hastings and Newport. Are folks going to enjoy
those idling trains in that area? They buzz by pretty often. I learned that up to a hundred trains can pass through Cottage Grove in a day. If they are split between both of the companies
lines, that's 50 a day at the Dunes. Seem like a lot, but at 2 trains per hour at the Dunes, one would have 46 a day. I have had up to 6 trains pass on my 1-hour Dunes walk. I hope
the new neighbors keep their little kids off of those inviting rails. There are now whistleless crossings from Newport to Hastings and Prescott. The only train whistling I hear on my
walks are at the County 19 3M Canadian Pacific crossing. One is only warned of trains by their noise. Sometimes on my walks, I don’t hear them until they are about 100 yards from me.
I would imagine most folks will get used to the rumbles and clanging and noisy rolling stock. BN, like the beavers have also been there before us-1886.
It can’t happen here? Don’t fool yourself. Derailments aren't often but here is one that happened a few miles south of the Dunes. It only has to happen once:
https://www.republicaneagle.com/news/train-derails-sends-cars-into-mississippi/article_871c301c-a047-5c55-b8a9-16e9d649dc04.html
As for the old house on the south side of 103rd. It's got those 2 foot thick walls. It's dated back to the 1850s. How many other homes do we have in town that are that old? That old
house and little barn are the ones pictured in the attachments I included. Make no mistake. That is the same house. The dormers aren't on the house yet and the barn looks great. Today
the barn is crumbling, but maybe the house is worth saving. I have to go to Europe and Luxembourg to see homes like that. Those kinds of walls and homes go back hundreds of years over
there. Now I hear that the lift station for the sanitary sewer is going there and the house will be removed. They can put that lift station somewhere else.
In the one photo version of the old house, you can see that is was the Fritz house. I know the O'Boyles once owned that property, as well as the Cowan and the Radusch families. At the
Dunes SNA parking lot, that rectangular woods had the old farmstead in the southeast corner. It was owned by the Krusemarks, Wallaces, Brunswolds, Nicholls, Gaffneys and Okeys, just
to name a few. O'Boyles- I used to take CarrolI to the old Stillwater Courthouse when we were on the advisory committee. Helen- she was a Kocak and graduated with my Dad's sister Delores
Kuntz. I guess I'm just an old guy living in the past and I've only been on this side of the river for 50 years. I just enjoy seeing these old areas and try to imagine what it was like
to farm
those fields and make it through those difficult winters. I'm just sore as hell at the changes I have seen in the last 2 years down there. These changes are just a foreshadowing of what
is to come.
It’s the wildlife that has already been disturbed. The field north of the Dunes SNA parking lot used to harbor geese, swans and all kind of migratory birds in the fall, feeding on Zywiec’s
freshly cut fields. Those fields are gone for a sewer and road project. I don’t need my headlight on early morning walks across the top of the Dunes SNA- Ideal has street lights and
so do the new warehouses. There are now two model homes just east of the Dunes SNA property with a promise of many more to come. The homes across the Dunes SNA parking lot have eliminated
the pathway of the deer. The deer and coyotes don’t know the golf course from the SNA and use each as their safe haven. I haven’t seen turkeys at the Dunes in 2 years or the occasional
otter. I don’t pay much attention to the smaller critters.
I can’t imagine the animals being restricted to the Dunes SNA. It’s the west half of Section 29. That would be an area of one half of a square mile, but it’s smaller than that because
of the taper of the property at the southwest end, where Mooer’s Lake is.
It makes me proud to see birders at certain times of the year. They come from all over. One guy comes from Northfield. He lives next to Nerstrand State Park. He told me the Dunes is
the best place he has ever visited for birds. I ran into a 75 year old lady from south Minneapolis, 2 days in a row who was looking for some kind of Henslow Sparrow.
It’s nice to have a legacy that others regard so highly, outside of our community. If the golf course goes, then the Dunes SNA will be surrounded to the north, west and east. We are
lucky for Mooer’s Lake to the south. All you have to do is leave the golf course and the SNA alone. Everyone in Cottage Grove should be aware of all of the geographic and geologic attributes
we have, that separate us from the rest. We don’t have to be like the rest.
Need more reasons to save the golf course? I have a hundred more reasons. Don't get upset with Dave Gustafson or Pulte or Rachel. If not them, there would be others. No one out there
is dumb enough to make that kind of purchase without being assured ahead of time of a profit. They are not the folks who changed the zoning of the golf course.
A concerned Cottage Grove resident- Herb Reckinger