Changing water levels on the Mississippi River

The falls on the north side of the Third Avene Bridge looked liked this on Monday, October 19th.  Pretty typical day.

A week later on the 26th it was like this.  No more water flowing over the concrete spillway.  That green slime looks nasty.  You can see the spikes poking out of the concrete on the left side that is preventing that giant tree from going over.  How many trees have to collect here before somebody moves those off?   That's not mother nature controlling the water flow.  What's going on upstream?  The Coon Rapids Dam is what's upstream.  The dam was just reopened in July of this year after two years of renovation.  The old rubber gates were replaced with steel gates.  It has been normal procedure to raise or lower the water levels of the pool above the dam each fall and spring so I can only assume that what I see here has something to do with that.  I should have gone out to look at my favorite trash picking spots to see what new stuff was exposed along the shore when the water was this low.

By the time I had the chance to do some trash picking the water levels had changed again. Yesterday I took a walk to survey my Mississippi Mile and see what's been going on.  Bassett Creek is now nice and full.

We are past the prime fall colors but I am still enjoying the leaves on the ground.  There were so many beer bottles and cans dumped just on the other side of this barrier and down the hill.  Oh, why do you people make it so difficult for me!  Ha, I got most of them anyways.

Some clean up at First Bridge Beach.  See that big chunk of stryofoam block.  I pick up a fair amount of marine styrofoam but this is the biggest piece I've found.  (Not good for birds and marine life)  One thing I noticed yesterday is that some of the trash cans along my mile are gone.  I get it.  Winter is coming and less park use.  It just makes it less convenient for me.  Water fountains are turned off and sealed up.

Time to head back home.

In the Water

There are some interesting things in the water between the Hennepin Bridge and the Third Avenue Bridge.

The old Hennepin Steel Arch Bridge over the Mississippi was demolished 25 years ago.  I can't say that I remember this event and I don't know how they demolished it or what was done with it but probably some of what I see in the river is left over from that event.  Does it matter that it is in the river or should it be cleaned up?  If it is steel, does it have some value to be recycled?  Does it harm anything to just leave it be?

The fish don't seem to mind.

I think that is a lid from a Park and Rec trash barrel

Missing Park bench?  Yes, definitely.

The shoreline in this area still needs to be cleaned up.  It is a thirty foot drop from the top of the retaining wall.  There is absolutely no way to get down there without either a canoe or an industrial ladder.  Get on it City of Minneapolis!  This is a prime tourist walking area.

Over the Fence Part II

Last spring I went over the guard rail to this little area between the Hennepin Bridge and the Third Avenue Bridge. In the spring part of it was still underwater so I couldn't work on the far end.  There's a blue barrel over to the left pinned into the corner of tree debris.  That will probably be there until someone shoves it back out into the river and it makes its way into the lock and dam.

                   

That's the old Post Office up there on the other side of the guard rail.  Once you're over the fence there is a little path that someone has worked to clear out.  I brought two large garbage sacks with me but after 30 minutes decided I wasn't going to finish and stopped after I filled up the one bag.  There was the usual stuff plus sunglasses, fishing lures, a baseball, and an old radio.

The garbage is thick down here.  

The thing that I find interesting about this spot is that tourists come here from downtown to look at the river. I see them look at the river and then look down to the garbage.  They look horrified and probably a bit surprised.  Maybe expecting better from Minnesota.  We can spend $$$ on the new Viking's stadium just a few blocks away but can't seem to clean up our own riverfront.

Back up through the clearing.  Enough for one walk.

Inside the Third Avenue Bridge

The Third Avenue Bridge is a beautiful S shaped bridge from 1918 that connects downtown with St. Anthony Main.  It was repaired in 1980 and needs more work again. Concrete has chipped away in unsightly patches and graffiti ruins the grace of the old bridge. When I have walked by the base of the bridge on the St. Anthony Main side I've noticed the scattered trash inside that first section of the bridge.

That little fence is not much of a barrier to this section of the bridge. I have wondered about what was inside other than trash. 

There is some interesting stencil work on the near wall but not much else that is worth viewing.  There are 3 to 4 bags of trash inside that space.  I picked up one bag.  The rest can be another walk.