In Eagan's Battle for Clean Water, a Powerful New Partnership

Only one of the 22 locally managed lakes in Eagan is polluted enough to be listed as "impaired" by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

But for Eagan Water Resources Coordinator Eric Macbeth, one is too many.

Macbeth is on the front lines of Eagan's battle for local water quality. And thanks to an ambitious new grant partnership approved last week between Eagan and the MPCA, he will have plenty of work to keep him busy for the next two years.

As part of the partnership agreement, the city will match a $167,000 MPCA grant with $168,600 drawn from its own coffers. That money, totaling $335,600, will be used over the next three years to evaluate eight lakes within city limits, including Bald Lake, LeMay Lake, Bur Oaks Pond and Pitts Lake, among others.

City officials will take secchi disk readings to measure water clarity, test for dissolved oxygen in the water, measure the chemical concentrations of phosphorous, chlorophyll and nitrogen in the water and conduct other tests to determine the overall health of the lake, Macbeth said. The city will also take a close look at the watershed and storm sewer systems feeding into those lakes in a effort to identify where the pollutants affecting the lakes are coming from.

Fish Lake is the only local lake currently listed by the MPCA as impaired for phosporous concentrations, although Schwanz Lake was at one point listed before the city took action to improve water quality there.

But many other lakes in the city may be close to the "impaired" threshold, Macbeth noted in the grant proposal he sent to the MPCA.

The MPCA sets statewide water quality standards for a number of criteria, including bacteria, turbidity and mercury. If a lake fails to meet those standards, it earns an "impaired" status.

The planned water evaluations and testing, Macbeth said, are a "pre-emptive strike"—an effort to assess water quality and take corrective measures before any more local lakes hit the MPCA's "impaired" list. In 2008, there were more than 2,500 water bodies in Minnesota listed for toxics and conventional pollutants.

This isn't the first time the city has investigated its local lakes. In 1990, the Eagan City Council approved its first water quality plan, and in 1994 and 1995, the MPCA funded studies of Fish Lake and Schwanz Lake.

In 2007, the city created a Water Quality and Wetland Management Plan that prioritized all of Eagan's lakes based on the level public use, existing water quality and other factors, Macbeth said. Finally, in 2010, the MPCA helped fund evaluations of Thomas Lake and Blackhawk Lake.

By evaluating eight lakes, Macbeth hopes the city will be able to identify potential problems and take action to protect the water quality of those lakes so that they can be enjoyed by local residents. The city also plans to host three separate public meetings over the course of the project to bring Eaganites into the fold.

“Once things get impaired, you're under legal binding to do stuff," Macbeth said. "We’ll do it when we have to, but we’d rather try to prevent it."

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