Maple Grove Creek Restoration Project Called ‘Rare Opportunity’
At some point in the not-too-distant future, a section of northwestern Maple Grove will be a fully developed neighborhood called Evanswood.
“Typically the development gets driven by infrastructure being in place, so if utilities and roads are in place, that makes it possible to do the development,” said Derek Asche, Maple Grove’s water resources engineer.
He said that while construction crews are still hard at work building Evanswood, he and his team have focused their attention to the surrounding environment.
“So this area, prior to development, contained the south fork of Rush Creek, which is a stream that’s listed as impaired by the state of Minnesota,” Asche said. “It’s a degraded water body we’d call it.”
A degraded body of water close to people’s homes is less than ideal.
However, with every major project, developers are required to provide dedicated parkland. That created an opportunity for Asche to treat the south fork of Rush Creek.
“We just don’t have opportunities to do a full mile of stream in the suburban metro area. It’s just rare,” Asche said.
Asche, along with several other partners, spent the better part of three years restoring the mile-long stream that runs through this area, while also treating the surrounding ecosystem.
Pollinator habitat was part of the South Fork Rush Creek restoration project.
“The stream restoration is about 5,500 feet long,” he said. “We’ve added a number of enhancements to the stream, beginning with protecting the banks from what we would call mass wasting and erosion.”
Their work included enhancing the habitat for pollinators, containing floodwaters and allowing runoff to filter through the wetlands.
It all comes at a cost of roughly $3 million with money coming from Maple Grove, the state and the Elm Creek Watershed Management Commission.
“It is a large project, requires a lot of funding, so we are grateful for all those partners,” said Asche.
It’s a large project that future residents of Evanswood will soon be able to enjoy and appreciate.
Maple Grove officials say the project is “substantially complete,” but they also plan to do restoration work on the adjacent forest. That work includes ash tree and buckthorn removal.
Related: Grant will Help Reverse Erosion on Rush Creek
