Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife Service break ground on Twin Cities environmental restoration project

ST. PAUL, Minn. –The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region will celebrate the start of an environmental restoration project for the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge with a ‘virtual’ groundbreaking ceremony Friday, Nov. 6, at 10 a.m.

The ceremony will be broadcast on Facebook Live on the St. Paul District’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/usace.saintpaul. It will take place from 10-10:30 a.m. and include brief statements from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the shoveling of the dirt on site.

The project will be completed in the northern city limits of Shakopee and Savage. It will include six water-level management structures designed to restore diminished plant and bird habitat in Blue Lake, Rice Lake, Fisher Lake and Continental Grain Marsh. These structures will provide the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency who runs the refuge, the ability to raise, lower and/or maintain water levels in the lakes and marsh.

This project is funded under the authority of the Upper Mississippi River Restoration Environmental Management Program. This program is intended to ensure the coordinated development and enhancement of the Upper Mississippi River system with primary emphasis on habitat restoration projects and resource monitoring. The Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also partnered on this project with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

In the more than 30-year history of the program, more than 55 habitat projects benefiting approximately 100,000 acres on the Upper Mississippi River, from Minneapolis to St. Louis, have been completed.

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