STILLWATER, Minn. — For decades, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has tracked the health of our waterways and the yearly results can often be discouraging. Nearly 3,000 lakes and rivers in Minnesota are on the 2022 Impaired Waters List.
But this year there were also signs of hope. More than 50 bodies of water were de-listed, including Lily Lake in Stillwater, which could end up being a source of inspiration for others looking to change water quality for the better.
The Stillwater community spent more than two decades investing time and resources to improving the conditions on the lake.
"This is a big deal," said Del Peterson, a Lily Lake Association board member who first joined the "Save Lily Lake" campaign back in 1998. "This used to be a major, major recreational area in Stillwater. It used to be the swimming beach."
But as development in Stillwater grew around the lake in the 1970s and 80s, problems with storm water runoff built too.
"When you do that it brings the pollutants that come off the streets and off the lawns," Peterson said. "So over time, there had been a build up of phosphorus."
That phosphorus led to persistent problems with harmful algae blooms, and by 2002, Lily Lake landed on the state's impaired waters list.
"We have been working for 20 years to get off that list," said Angie Hong with the East Metro Resource Education Program.
When Angie Hong says "we" she means it. As leader of the East Metro Water Resource Education Program, she spent years working with hundreds of community volunteers to keep storm drains clear and to build up a network of community rain gardens to treat and remove stormwater pollution.
In the last year, they took that effort to another level.
"We have this huge infiltration basin that's right here near the lake,” Hong said. “It has iron-enhanced sand in it, which helps to pull phosphorus out of storm water runoff. This project alone is taking 32 pounds of phosphorus from the storm water flow to the lake, which might not sound like a lot, but each pound of phosphorus can grow 500 pounds of algae."
That ability to curb new runoff, gave the community a chance to focus on the existing pollution in the water this past summer by applying an Alum treatment that could target the phosphorus lingering in the lake.
"It sinks down to the bottom of the lake and it basically adheres to phosphorus along the way and then just traps it,” Hong said.
Despite the treatment and de-listing, swimming at the lake will remain closed. The swim beach closed permanently in 2012, following a separate issue with freshwater amoeba that resulted in the deaths of two young swimmers in just two years.
"It's kind of tricky because it's not like we can test and say, ah, the amoeba is there this year, or no it's not there this year,” Hong said. "It’s actually a naturally occurring amoeba that could, theoretically, be found in any lake. We know that it becomes very active when the water temperature is very warm, so we could only imagine that by having more treatment for stormwater that it can't be anything but beneficial."
It’s also giving hope to similar efforts that have been happening in communities across Minnesota.
"I feel like we're in this place where we might have finally turned a corner, in terms of starting to clean up our lakes and rivers,” Hong said. "Just this past year, in Washington County, we were able to take seven lakes off of the impaired waters list, so I feel like we're at this place where we've been doing a lot of work, it's taken a couple of decades but finally we're beginning to see the results."
Results worth celebrating with the community.
"It's many people doing little things that make the big difference,” Peterson said.
The Lily Lake Clean Water Celebration will take place from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday. In addition to music and s'mores, organizers will share their vision for eventually bringing recreational activity back to the lake in the years to come.
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