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Despite two setbacks this week, Dr. George Germann says he will continue to press for erosion control along the Minnesota River bank at Minnecon Park.
"The bank will have to be protected," Germann said. "I'm going to keep the pressure on so we can go ahead with this."
AT TUESDAY'S New Ulm City Council meeting, Germann made a motion to have plans drawn for 10-foot steel sheet piling and rip-rap. Cost estimate was $17,650. The motion died for lack of a second.
He then moved to have plans drawn for 16-foot wood piling and lack of a second.
The council then tabled the issue for one month.
FINANCING OF the erosion protection measures will have to come 100 per cent from city funds. Other councilmen indicated they want to research the matter and think about it for a month.
The shore at the park has been built up with fill near the boat ramp. A $35,000 picnic shelter will be built atop the built-up bank.
The fill is in a loose condition and would be subject to some erosion in high flood conditions, City Engineer Arnold Putnam has said. No river bank protection was included in the original plans for the park.
SO FAR, park improvements okayed total $198,000, with the local share only $13,000,balance paid by federal, state and county funds.
Germann suggested the city could use money from the capital improvement sinking fund to finance the pilings and rip-rap. He said this fund had financed a change order for the city library.
He told fellow councilmen the erosion protection should go before the picnic shelter is built. Germann said dedication of the park will be scheduled for sometime this summer
Councilman William Gafford said there was no money in the 1978 budget for this item. Germann said he had tried to get it included in the budget but had been unable to do it.
PUTNAM HAD, on direction of the council, prepared further cost estimates for the river bank protection that were presented at Tuesday's council meeting.
He said short pilings could be combined with rip rap to achieve the necessary protection.
The U.S. Corps of Engineers has done extensive bank protection on the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers, using redstone rip rap, 12-inch minimum thickness, laid on a six-inch sand filter, he said. The filter allows drainage as the river recedes and prevents soil from eroding under the rip rap.
"This bank protection appears to be entirely adequate to withstand erosion," Putnam remarked of the U.S. Corps work.
His new estimates ranged from $13,360 to $18,200 for wood piling and rip rap. The sand filter would cost another $2,100.
Earlier estimates had gone as high as $48,700 for steel sheet piling without rip rap.
Minnecon is at the end of Fifth N. St.
New Ulm Daily Journal
Jan. 23, 1976