LAKEWALK STORM DAMAGE RUNS DEEP

REPAIRS WILL MORE THAN SCRATCH THE SURFACE

By Jack Nissen

Duluth’s popular Lakewalk took severe damage during a storm in April that came on the heels of another large storm in October. At first, the price tag for repairs was estimated to be at least $600,000, but that was raised recently to $9 million. That’s what out-of-state engineering consulting firm TRC said it will take to repair and improve the city’s lakeside trail after strong wind and high waves eroded rock, shifted earth and flipped boardwalk pieces.

“We never truly know what construction will look like,” said William Roche, director of the parks department, “so conversations have to include maximizing access to the Lakewalk and minimizing intrusion along the Lakewalk. It’s a real balancing act.”

Nevertheless, said Mayor Emily Larson at an April 23 press conference, the Lakewalk is open for business and will be repaired.

“This is a part of who we are as a community,” she said. “It is a part of what people expect to experience when they come here.”

The city is reaching out for emergency funding that would help cover the cost. The variety of issues at play have delayed long-term repairs, and resulted in the closing of a business that rented bicycles along the Lakewalk.

Emergency repairs made much of the Lakewalk accessible again. But where repairs are needed most, below the waterline, work cannot begin without approval from the Minnesota DNR, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and State Historic Preservation Office.

Much of what TRC has been doing is surveying underwater, on the ground and from remote-controlled aircraft, looking at where earth and rock shifted. Areas under Fitger’s, stretches past Leif Erikson Park and most of the shoreline along Canal Park will need the most help. It’ll require heavy machinery to lift and fit quarried stone chunks as heavy as two tons to reinforce the shoreline.

The city isn’t looking to merely restore the Lakewalk, but improve upon the weaknesses exposed by the storm.

“It’s a complicated and long process before we can start building,” said Michael LeBeau, a supervisor with the Project Management Office. “Of course, we’ve done some emergency repairs like putting the boardwalk back together.”

LeBeau said it’s important to improve design weaknesses because these storms will happen again — a sentiment shared by a local scientist.

“We don’t know what normal is any longer,” said Thomas Beery, a resilience specialist with Minnesota Sea Grant. “But there are a few things we can say based on projected trends of what we can expect.”

Beery lists three projected trends:

• Minnesota weather is becoming warmer and wetter.

• Winter weather is warming, especially our overnight temperatures.

• Extreme rainfall events are increasing.

“And that third one is the big concern when we think Duluth and we think about climate adaptation,” he said. “When we’re thinking about the resiliency of the Lakewalk and the resiliency of the infrastructure in our city, Duluth needs to be keying in on how we are going to deal with extreme rainfall currently being experienced and projected to continue.” continued on page 8