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The Official City Newsletter for Arden Hills Residents June 2014 center turn lane is 14 feet wide. Along the side of the thru lanes there are two- foot wide shoulders. Parking will not be permitted on the shoulders. Gateway Boulevard and Court Gateway Boulevard (1,600 feet long) and Gateway Court (420 feet long) were con- structed in 1998. The surface of both streets will be milled to a depth of two inches and replaced with a two-inch lift. Existing curb and gutter will remain in place. Utility work Utility improvements will include aban- doning an undersized eight-inch water Lake resources need to be preserved. Lakes provide wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and visual aesthetics that add value to the surround- ing homes, parks, and businesses. Howev- er, with development come impermeable surfaces (e.g. streets, driveways, parking lots) that increase the flow of nutrients and silt directly into lakes (e.g. through storm drains). This inflow nourishes ugly, unhealthy blooms of algae in the lakes and makes them shallower. It takes a village The Karth Lake Improvement District Board (KLID Board) has partnered with neighbors living on Karth Lake, the City, the Rice Creek Watershed District, the Arden Hills Foundation, the Department of Natural Resources, the Metropoli- tan Council and others to maintain and improve Karth Lake water quality over the past several years. (For brevity I will refer to this team as “we” throughout this article.) Significant improvements We have measured the Karth Lake water quality every two weeks from May through October since 2006. The resul- tant data show that actions we have taken to improve water quality have reduced phosphorus (an algae nutrient) by 33 percent, reduced algae by 84 percent and increased clarity over 300 percent. All three measures surpass state standards. (See table on page four.) Here are some of the actions we have taken: Rain gardens Runoff from Nursery Hill Lane and Court feeds into Karth Lake. When these streets were repaved in 2011, the KLID Board worked with the City and the Watershed District to agree on the design and place- ment of rain gardens that would receive and filter all the runoff from these streets. The City built the rain gardens and pro- vided over 1,200 plants. Members of the Karth Lake Improvement District reports positive water-quality news Continued on page 5 Continued on page 4 Road construction set for Round Lake Road vicinity this summer Look for construction on Round Lake Road, Gateway Court, and Gateway Boulevard this summer. Improvements to the roadways as well as public utilities are getting underway. Construction is expected to begin in June and be substantially complete by Septem- ber. The area is predominantly developed with commercial, light industrial, and manufacturing busi- nesses. Round Lake Road Round Lake Road was last paved in 1992 and re-aligned around the Holiday gas sta- tion in 1999. The roadway reveals signs of distress including transverse and longitu- dinal cracking, rutting, and deterioration of the pavement surface. The improvements to Round Lake Road will occur from 1,000 feet south of Highway 96 to Gateway Boulevard (2,655 feet long). The road will be widened to 42 feet, which will accommodate two lanes of traffic with a center turn lane. The street will be built to a ten-ton Municipal State Aid standard with concrete curb and gutter. In addition, an eight-foot wide walking trail will be constructed on the east side of the street that will connect to the bituminous trail just east of the Holiday station. The two thru lanes are 12 feet wide and the by Steve Heikkila, Economic Development Committee member by Gary Gerding, Karth Lake Improvement District Board member KLID Board and other neighbors helped to plant the rain gardens and agreed to maintain them. Predator fish The oxygen in the lake during winter can become depleted, causing a fish kill. Preda- Karth Lake is located in the northeast corner of Arden Hills, just west of Lexington Avenue and south of Highway 96.