Colin Kohrs / Winonan

The state of the pedestrian tunnel construction has been an object of gossip around the Winona State University community for quite some time now. There are delays in construction for various reasons, and now the lake will not freeze—because of the pedestrian tunnel project.

Neal Mundahl, a biology professor at Winona State who teaches many ecology courses including one on limnology, the study of lakes, helped explain the situation causing the still-liquefied lake.

“Whenever we have a major construction project on campus, one of the things that’s necessary to do is to lower the water table so that you can actually build a foundation,” he said.

Underground construction often dips beneath the water table, the point at which the ground is saturated with water, Mundahl said. The pedestrian tunnels is one of those operations.

“So you have to dewater everything,” Mundahl said. “You have to pump a lot of water, and when you pump a lot of water you basically have to put it somewhere.”

This clean, sand-filtered groundwater goes to either the Mississippi River or Lake Winona and is typically not a problem, but at the wrong time and with the wrong quantity of water, things change.

During spring, summer and fall construction, the water simply flows into the lake without an issue. With a small enough project, it is even fine in winter. Mundahl explained during the construction of Haake Hall, a small patch of the lake around a culvert did not freeze over, but the rest was fine. The pedestrian tunnel construction however, has prevented a significantly larger portion of the lake from freezing.

“As soon as the lake started freezing over I saw that open and I figured it out right away,” Mundahl said. “I called the city sustainability director, and I said ‘is the pumping causing this?’ And he looked into it and he said ‘yes,’ and he got together with the parks guy.”

There was a brief attempt by the city to redirect the water by plugging the problem with a large balloon, but that did not work.

“It started backing up in the storm sewer elsewhere popping up in probably some of the drains and such, and so there was going to be more mess than anything else,” Mundahl said.

So while many community members in Winona may have been looking forward to winter fun on the lake – including Winona State junior Christopher Humbert, who told The Winonan back in November that he was looking forward to “ice skating” as part of a winter break photo series – disappointment is all to be had, as the balloon operation was halted, and the Lake Lodge will remain closed for the winter.

And while that may be the main problem, Mundahl explained, another problem is the consequence of open water.

“Because it’s going to be open all year, all those – friendly ducks – that live on the lake during the year, they’re going to stay there,” he said.

Mundahl is part of the group Healthy Lake Winona. In years past, this group convinced the city to shut off aerators near the fishing docks off of Huff Street, as it was leaving open water, and attracting ducks and geese and the feces that come with that.

A similar issue is present with this years’ open water.

“Concentrating that many ducks in a small area is probably not the greatest ideal thing,” Mundahl said.

And there’s no sign that things will change for the rest of the season.

“It’s not going to freeze over this winter probably because the flows are supposed to keep on going all the way through the construction phase,” Mundahl said. “And it won’t stop that flow and it won’t have a chance to freeze over until they finish their dewatering.”

So when will that dewatering, or rather the construction, be completed?

That answer has been fairly elusive.

Winona State’s website still claims the completion date to be “Nov. 2016,” and Michael Pieper – Winona State’s former assistant vice president for facilities management who “championed Winona State’s 2016 Master Facility Plans, the reorganization of Winona State’s facility department (and) two federally funded sub grade pedestrian railroad crossings,” according to a University of North Dakota newsletter – has left Winona State to take a position at University of North Dakota as assistant vice president chief facility officer.

James Kelly, director of Planning  Construction at Winona State, was not available for comment before press time.

Patrick Menton, assistant recreation director of the City of Winona Parks and Recreation Department, said in an email that “(w)e do not expect this to be an issue for the next ice season” (referring to the open water), perhaps implying the construction will be completed within the year.

So, while the end of the construction may still be a mystery, what is known is that there won’t be ice skating this year at the Lake Lodge and the ducks will keep on pooping.

By Colin Kohrs