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Property owners on White Iron Lake are dealing with over four feet of water above normal levels due to the June 18 rain storm and an overall wet month.
For Kerry Davis at White Iron Beach Resort, several of his cabins are surrounded by water and he’s raised his docks as far as they can go. Thursday morning a boat was tied to a picnic table that was half underwater.
Davis said he has already spent over $4,000 to have crushed rock brought in to build up a road through the resort and create walkways to cabins. Thursday two of those walkways were under water.
“We had one cancellation just yesterday for this upcoming week, but for the current week, people stayed,” said Davis.
Is Minnesota Power to blame since they manage the water flow from Birch to the White Iron chain of lakes and through the power dam to Fall Lake?
“For this event, no,” said Davis. “Because there’s no way they ever could have ever foreseen this. See, their pat answer always is at Minnesota Power is they have to stay within the parameters that the DNR and their license to operate at.
“They have to keep their pool at certain levels. And so even if they had a crystal ball and could have said, you know, we’re going to get that much rain in that shorter period of time, the ground was already just totally saturated, and they could have drawn Birch Lake down five feet. It still wouldn’t have made any difference,” said Davis.
He said the size of the watershed that feeds into the White Iron chain contributes to the problem but the bottleneck at Silver Rapids is the one area that could be fixed.
“The only thing they could ever do to solve this problem is get the Corps of Engineers to go to Silver Rapids, widen and deepen that channel. Like it should have been in the first place so it’s a free flow because you don’t see this on Garden and Farm because it free flows. Here it’s a bottleneck,” said Davis.
For White Iron property owner Tom Reis, he’d like to see better systems put in place by Minnesota Power. He agreed with Davis that the problem is the bottleneck at Silver Rapids.
“They have a sensor for opening and turning off the dam. Maybe they should have a sensor on White Iron so when it gets to be a flood stage, they can shut the water off.
“There’s nine inches of water inside my boathouse, my wife’s flower beds are flooded and my dock is under water.
“MN Power owns the dam on Birch Lake and they regulate it from Birch Lake. They don’t have any solution for White Iron Lake. The problem is, when it gets to Silver Rapids, it can’t go under the bridge as fast as it goes through here.
“For 22 years I’ve been here. But in the last five years something changed. We didn’t have these problems before with the power company. Before that, it rose, but it never got as high,” said Reis.
He said two years ago in the spring after a record snowfall the water was up two rows of blocks in his boathouse.
“That was the worst and now it’s getting really close to that right now. And it’s still going up. They need to close the dam on birch and let some of this water out of here.
“And the Corps of Engineers should dig under the bridge at Silver Rapids to let water out. They need to regulate the dam on Birch Lake. They just can’t open it on Birch Lake and leave it.”
Davis knows in time the water will recede and he will gain back the flooded area at his resort.
“We’re a long way out from being what I would consider normal. And it will be a mess all summer because that ground will never firm up and it’s just going to be a wreck.
“We’ve got the water tanks jacked up out of the water and we’re still barely operating the septic system that operates those. We’re making everything work I mean, just by the skin of our teeth.
“The biggest challenge is the docks. Because we can’t, once they’re in, we can’t move them around. And so we have to try to attack them and then they get so high out of the water, they get snaky. But, you know, if it goes down a few inches, we might get them back.
“But again, this one is what it is, because the bottom line is you wouldn’t want them to hold water down there from Birch and put that spillway in jeopardy. Because right now, if that thing broke, we’d have water all the way up to the highway.
“I’m not happy with Minnesota Power. I don’t like their answers. But for this one, it’s kind of fruitless, you know,” said Davis.
MN Power issued a joint press release with St. Louis County that said: “High water is occurring at White Iron Lake below Birch Lake Reservoir near Ely. Minnesota Power Hydro reservoirs are not designed for flood control or to store water during such heavy rain events. While Minnesota Power works proactively and within FERC guidelines to adjust reservoir outflows to reduce peak water levels and flows below the reservoirs, the excess water needs to be passed through the river systems.”
Nora Rosemore, hydro manager for MN Power, said the good news is the lake level on Birch Lake was starting to drop Thursday so the flow of water into White Iron should be decreased soon.
Rosemore agreed the problem is at the Silver Rapids bottleneck.
“At Silver Rapids you can’t let more than 2,000 cubic feet per second through and you’re trying to get a lot of water through a small restriction so it backs up a lot of water into White Iron,” she said.
“Right now we are at about almost 7,000 at Birch and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Rosemore.
To avoid a disaster like the dam in southern Minnesota north of Mankato this past week, MN Power needs to keep Birch Lake levels within check.
“Our reservoirs weren’t designed 100 years ago for flood storage. There just isn’t a lot of storage and we are not at all going to put the dam in jeopardy.
“Right now Birch Lake is three-quarter of a foot above what our license says it should be,” said Rosemore. “The dam is still okay but it’s to maintain dam integrity.”
She said gauges in the system show water levels are starting to drop. However, it will take time for the water to get through Silver Rapids and for White Iron to return to normal summer levels.
“We are seeing that inflow dropping quite quickly and as soon as we can get the Birch Lake reservoir to drop we will. As the elevation of Birch Lake comes down than we will decrease our discharge which will provide some relief which will bring down elevations on White Iron. But it will take time for the waters to recede.
