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SS S 2ND IN A SERIES OF ARTICLES ON WATER MANAGEMENT By Dick Gray, FOUNDER OF THE FRESHWATER SOCIETY e Minnehaha Creek Watershed r` District (MCWD) is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year,. which should be a proud time for everyone involved with the organization. During the 40 years since its inception, the MCWD Board has not only managed the 129 lakes in its district, but also eight major creeks and hundreds of wetlands. The watershed's drainage area includes 183 square miles and 29 cities and towns. Lake Minnetonka is one of the 129 lakes whose water flows gently- under most conditions- from west to east on its journey via the Minnehaha Creek to the Mississippi River and the oceans beyond. A watershed is defined as "a well-defined drainage area." Water will flow to the lowest point in any geographic area, many times following an ambiguous route. Therefore, a watershed district encompasses a drainage area whose waters may come from diverse locations but have a common destination. Some districts have no outlet or release for the inflow and therefore are closed systems. An example of a closed watershed system is Great Salt Lake. It has a catchment basin of 21,500 square miles and is fed by three major rivers (Bear, Jordan, and Weber) whose waters are heavily laden with minerals from mountain erosion. The waters have no place to go but into the catchment basin with no outlet. Here, continual evaporation concentrates the minerals to raise the lake's average salinity percentage to as high as 27%. Ocean water is 3.5% salinity. Great Salt Lake has accurately been called America's Dead Sea. Its waters have contained as much 25 nanograms of methyl-mercury per FACETS December 2007 ~ ~~~ ~~ ~` - ~~~~ - - .. - i T^, _ ~_ M~ t - k -- ~T ~~ ; _ _ ~ ~yrna~m ~a~~ ~ ~ If [I ~~ til iaM - J >d . ;'fi'r-~=-, . r~` WateMwn T ,~ is -: ~,~ r .~ - '~ - ~ r ~~ ~F '~ :y ` . y Orono il c_ ' ~ r i .e h ~1 ~ ~ l ~~ ~ ~~ ~ , ~ 4'~""~ 4~ ~ j arc At~neF ~ _ . i r ;?i ~ . ,- Deep s ~~' ~. ,: I~ a rte' j`ti r ~ - ~~ ~ ~ ~ r ~~~ ~, .~- ;.. ~~ z` t "' Waconia T vp I 0 2.5 liter of water. Water bodies in the lived with my family on the shores state of Florida have been issued of Minnehaha Creek during some of consumption advisories with just the dry 15 years of the great drought one nanogram per liter. Fish do not from 1929 to 1943. I played softball live in the Great Salt Lake. An open watershed district is one in which waters draining a district flow to their lowest geographical point and the accumulated waters leave the district through a defined flowage, leading to an ocean or sea, zero feet above sea level. The MCWD is such a district, with the waters converging into Minnehaha Creek then plunging over Minnehaha Fall commemorated by Longfellow in 1853 with "The Song of Hiawatha." After the waters pass over Minnehaha falls they travel to the Mississippi River en route to the oceans of the world. During my high school days, I on the bone-dry creek bed, skated on ice- whose water was obtained from multiple garden hoses. I cut my own Lincoln logs from willows as they struggled to re-grow. How powerful was the message to protect and preserve our waters once the rains returned. The state of Minnesota is dependant upon rain and snow as precipitation to maintain water s, levels in its lakes, rivers, streams, groundwaters, and aquifers. Other sources of water beyond precipitation do not exist, which is the reason water levels drop so quickly when a prolonged dry spell is experienced. During the great drought, Lake Minnetonka's water continued on next page