Page 63 - MARINAOFTHEYEAR

CHALLENGE THREE: Water. Too much and too little.
The Lake Minnetonka Conservation District and Minnehaha Creek Water Shed District
installed a dam on Lake Minnetonka in the early 80’s. There has always been a natural “land
bridge” dam that when water reached 929.4’ above sea level, the water would simply flow over
the dam and the lake would maintain it’s water height. However, when the new dam was
installed, humans got involved. The dam’s purpose is not to maintain the water of Lake
Minnetonka. It’s goal is to keep the creek below the dam to prevent the creek from flooding.

Lake Minnetonka does not have tidal influence. In fact, our normal fluctuation is about 6” over
the year. The lake is actually a stream fed, spring fed, and run-off lake. It is most affected by
run-off. In Minnesota we have an average of 28” of rain a year and our lake has an evaporation
rate of 30” a year. That is why, when the Minnehaha Creek Water Shed District releases water
from Lake Minnetonka in the fall it’s quite a gamble. It’s possible that water will never come
back!

Let’s go back to the Summer of 1987. Our lake level was 2’ below the Ordinary High Water
Mark. We lost slips because they went dry. The lake dropped to 927.71 and the forecasters
said it would take a decade to get the water back. Well, then the “Super Storm” dropped 10” of
ran in 6 hours. Two days later the lake was a foot higher at 928.62.

BUT, this was only temporary.

The lake continued to drop. By the Fall of 1988 we were at 926 over 3’ below the high water
mark. By February 1990 we had dropped to 925.41. We had to do something. Our permanent
dock was dry 10 slips, the guys on the gas dock used the ropes on the gas dock to rappel down
to hand the customers the gas nozzle. The big boats left the lake for the river. It was a mess.
We had a floating dock built for us and launched it in the spring. We did one unique thing.
Because the water was so low, we got permits to temporarily start this new dock at the ending
point of the old dock. That means we kept the old “main walk” of the original dock temporarily
and our first slips were actually where then end of the dock normally was!

When the water finally returned we pulled the floating dock back to where it should be.
We were happy with the floating dock always being a consistent 37” above the water, never
worrying about water level again.

OR SO WE THOUGHT.

Flash ahead 24 years to the summer of 2014. We mentioned the land dam and the water level
never being able to go over the ordinary high water mark of 929.4 – hahahahaha never say
never. We had the opposite problem. It would not quit raining. It was miserable.
The floating dock did fine. But the permanent dock that would never ever flood, did. The
water rose 8” over the dock walkway. At first customers were “entertained” and were “good
sports” about walking on the dock under water. Then it became miserable. The lake level hit
931.11 an all time high, 2’ above flood stage. We actually installed what we coined the, “Dock
on a Dock”. The LMCD implemented a “High Water Emergency” and it was 8 weeks of
minimum wake only. No skiing, tubing, wake boarding, no nothing except minimum wake.

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