I was planning to run today, maybe even a 10k, but smoke from Canadian wild fires has blown in and made it unhealthy to exercise. You can see and smell and feel the smoke. Bummer. Hopefully they won’t cancel tomorrow’s open swim because of it. And hopefully they won’t have reason to because the smoke will have dissipated.
So, instead of running, I’m reading this morning: old entries and summaries about water. In “Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis” (2014), I found this paragraph:
It can take a century or longer for dredged water bodies to begin functioning like a naturally occurring lakes. As part of the master planning process currently underway, Nokomis was analyzed to see if it was still stabilizing. The water quality consultant from EOR (Emmons and Olivier Resources, Inc.), has determined that Nokomis has finished its transitional period and is now functioning like a natural lake.
Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis
This idea of Nokomis making it to “natural lake” status needs to be in a poem, I think. What does it mean to function like a natural lake?
And here’s some information, from Theodore Wirth:
The area acquired consisted of about 300 acres of shallow water known as Lake Amelia, about 70 acres of mostly low swampy farmland at the northwest corner, and about 38 acres of higher dry land at its northeast corner [where the Recreation Center sits now], as well as a small strip along the south boundary. The improvement plan contemplated reducing the water area from 300 to 200 acres (the minimum depth of the lake to be not less than eight feet and the low lands to be filled to well above the lake level), and increasing the total land area from 108 to 208 acres. Estimated dredging operations amounted to between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 cubic yards.
Happy 100th Birthday Lake Nokomis
Here’s something to put beside this idea of Lake Nokomis as a dredged out marsh/shallow lake. It’s a line from a poem:
How can anyone read about the glacial
creation of lakes and not feel connected
to the Earth–capital E?
(from Exaqua/ Jan-Henry Gray)
What connection can/should/does one feel to the Earth when reading about the creation of a lake through dredging and planning and acquiring land for recreation and development? As a preliminary answer, I’ll offer, there is/can be a meaningful connection; it’s just not the same as with a “natural”/glacial lake.