The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) took action at its Board Meeting on July 13th, 2005 to move forward as quickly as possible with the installation of a control structure at the outlet for Rice Lake to ensure that the water levels will come back. Additionally, the RCWD will be remedying any adverse impacts to wetlands downstream of Rice Lake, although none are known at this time. This course of action was taken after consultation and with the approval of the DNR. The RCWD remains, as always, committed to the conservation of our natural resources and has a long and successful record of environmental protection. As demonstrated by the quick action of the RCWD Board last night, we fully intend to do whatever is necessary to ensure a vibrant natural world for everyone within the Rice Creek drainage.

Resolution 05-10 (PDF)

DNR and RCWD Press Release 7/14/05 (PDF)

The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) has been attempting to resolve a conflict over drainage and wetlands within the Judicial Ditch #2 (a.k.a. Hardwood Creek) watershed almost since our inception in 1972. While the history of this conflict and the many issues that were addressed are too numerous to go into in this post, a large component of the compromise struck among the various stakeholders, including DNR, was the completion of a maintenance project in March 2005 to eliminate the high points in the ditch system. We did this after extensive study from our engineering consultants and a variety of drainage experts. We also installed monitoring wells throughout the drainage system that have been in place and monitored since 2003 to ensure that any unplanned wetland impacts that resulted from this maintenance could be tracked and accounted for.

The quality of our lakes is very important, and as such, the Rice Creek Watershed District has maintained a monitoring program on many of our lakes for years. Now the data collected by the RCWD and that of the other groups involved with monitoring our lake water quality can be found on the Lakes page our website. Here in addition to water quality data, you can find general statistics on many of our lakes, and useful links from the DNR and PCA. In the near future, look for management plans and other links to appear in these pages.