Despite a scenic, natural setting, Golden Lake hasn’t always been golden. The popular North Metro lake has been on Minnesota’s impaired list for decades.
“The culprit, or the issue here was algae blooms,” said Matt Kocian form the Rice Creek Watershed District. “That’s fueled by too many nutrients, primarily phosphorus.”
“It’s got too much phosphorus,” said Circle Pines Mayor Dave Bartholomay. “Too many things going on and it’s not operating as it should be, as it would be if it was a nice clean, clear lake.”
The phosphorus overdose was caused by farming and homeowners, and it put this Circle Pines lake on Minnesota’s impaired list – along with thousands of others across the state. But now – after a team effort from politicians, the Anoka Conservation District and the Rice Creek Watershed District – Golden Lake is making a monumental comeback.
Said Bartholomay: “This has been hard work.”
The process took decades, dating back to 1976. To put that in perspective, that’s the same year the US celebrated a Bicentennial birthday and the Minnesota Vikings won their last NFC championship to qualify for the Super Bowl.
“These major breakthroughs make it seem like everything is happening right away,” Bartholomay said. “This has been a long, long-term effort…We’ve been working on this for 20, 30, 40 years and it’s on the cusp of being what’s called delisted. That means coming off of that list of impaired lakes.”
“We’ve made a lot of great improvements here on Golden Lake,” Kocian said. “Really excited about it.”
Circle Pines celebration
Golden Lake’s revival is cause for celebration in Circle Pines.
“Hopefully sometime this summer it becomes official,” Bartholomay said. “We’ll have some sort of a big party or something.”
Getting a lake removed from the delisted category does not happen often.
“Hard work over a long time with an eye on the prize can get you there,” Bartholomay said. “Can get a lake delisted. There’s no quick fix. Can’t write a check to make it work. It’s efforts by farmers, and cities and watershed districts all coming together over multiple years, staying the course.”
“It’s a lot cleaner than it was,” Kocian said. “We’ve done a lot of great projects over the past few years to get those phosphorus levels down. With it the algae levels come down and clearer water, which is a great thing. It’s very cool and it’s rare to have lakes come off the impaired waters list.”
There are plenty who will benefit from Golden Lake’s clear water.
“The winners are everyone who uses that lake,” Bartholomay said.
“There’s a positive impact here for recreation,” Kocian said. “There’s a beach over here on the lake. Having less algae means clearer water. People are going to want to recreate more on the lake. But it’s a positive thing for the overall ecosystem as well.”
Lake success story
There is a lot of credit to dole out for this lake success story. Bartholmay gives props to a couple of his peers.
“I’m going to be selfish and say the real winner is the city of Circle Pines and its administration,” Bartholomay said. “We have had two city administrators, Jim Keinath and Patrick Antonen, that have been bulldogs on trying to make sure they get this lake cleaned up and it’s not easy and they’re taking pressure from city council members and mayors saying, ‘get it done, get it done, get it done.’ ”
Another reason why this turnaround happened is because of iron enhanced sand filters that are upstream from Golden Lake.
“The purpose of those filters was to intercept dirty storm water coming in,” Kocian said. “Remove that phosphorus out of the storm water before it makes its way down into Golden Lake.”
These are definitely joyous times in Circle Pines. But everyone involved in this project knows they can’t rest on their accomplishments.
“Now we’ve got to sustain this,” Bartholomay said.
Keeping Golden Lake clear is a long-range commitment.
“The lake is going to be moving from the restoration phase into the protection phase now,” Kocian said. “Just because we made some improvements here doesn’t mean we walk away from the lake forever. It means that we continue to monitor it. We continue to look for ways to protect the lake from other threats. If it starts to slip back towards that algae state again we can do more work to address that.”
“It isn’t like well we’re done let’s move onto something else,” Bartholomay said. “This will continue to be an effort.”
Kocian believes Golden Lake could be used as a model for other impaired lakes trying to make a comeback.
