Nonprofit aims to restore, preserve parts of Lake Pepin

RED WING, Minn. (KTTC) – A nonprofit organization is making it its mission to restore part of Lake Pepin near Red Wing and Bay City, Wisconsin.

According to the nonprofit Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance (LPLA), Lake Pepin, part of the Mississippi River, is at risk of disappearing due to sediment in its waters. LPLA said sediment is a normal part of the geological process, but sediment in Lake Pepin has increased over the last few decades.

"As ag [agriculture] has taken over more of the landscape, water doesn't sink into the soil and sink into the ground water," LPLA Program Director Alex Keilty said. "It rolls right into the rivers and ditches and down into the valley. So, all of the sediment ends up settling in the Mississippi River."

LPLA said it's likely the upper third of the lake will be unsuitable for recreation by the end of this century, with the entire lake filled in within 400-years, unless something is done about it. LPLA said a part of the solution is building new islands to repair ecosystems.

LPLA broke ground last year on a $34 million project involves using dredged sand to build a new island where the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin intersect near Bay City. According to LPLA, the money comes from federal funding and private donors.

Other partners in the project include Pepin County, Wisconsin, Ducks Unlimited, Minnesota Heritage, city of Red Wing, village of Bay City, Wisconsin, village of Stockholm, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Waterfowl Stamp, Wisconsin Cherish Outdoors, and Wisconsin DNR Rivers Account.

"This mark designated the area for loss of floodplain forest, water quality issues, loss of backwater duck diversity; a suite of issues that was causing the habitat to decline," Mississippi River Biologist Brenda Kelly said.

The project consists of a system that dredges sand from one part of the lake, feeds it through a large pipe and then pumps it back out so it can be used to build and island.

One island has been built so far. The plan is to incorporate some topsoil into some of the islands to promote growth of vegetation and other wildlife habitat.

Kelly said not only does a dried-up lake hurt the ecosystem, but it also hurts the economy, as the area is widely used for recreational activities like boating and camping. She said a boat landing in Bay City is currently unusable due to the low water level.

"We're going to do all this work; we're going to create all these wetlands" she said. "We're going to do back water depth areas. We want to protect the integrity of that. Somebody in my boat asked, what does that mean and what's protecting it? What's the longevity? These projects are engineered and constructed to last 50 years."