Lake Hiawatha boom back for another season, new boom installed at Lake of the Isles
The trash capture boom is back for a second season and will continue to benefit Lake Hiawatha in 2024. Plus, a second boom is now installed at Lake of the Isles!
These booms have dual benefits – they capture trash from entering the lake through a storm drain outfall, and they raise awareness of how pollutants travel from city streets into our lakes and rivers.
Partners on the new Lake of the Isles project include Freshwater, City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, East Isles Neighborhood Association, River Network, and Osprey Initiative.
Project report for the 2023 season
As detailed in the final report, the 2023 Lake Hiawatha boom project was a success in all the standard metrics of litter collection and community engagement. The boom system withstood heavy rains and several large storm systems, capturing just under 140 pounds of material that would have entered the Lake Hiawatha ecosystem. Tactical cleanups collected another 127 pounds of material that was already in the lake or along the shoreline. Throughout the project, litter and recyclables were collected, sorted, weighed and categorized.
"Plastic" was the most common category found through both the device maintenance and tactical cleanups. In addition, the litter boom site saw "Cigarettes/Tobacco Products" as the dominant subcategory.
This data will be helpful in considering potential community engagement opportunities to reduce shoreline litter and to pursue upstream sources of litter entering Lake Hiawatha through the stormwater culvert.
Watch – Partners collaborate to clean up Lake Hiawatha
Background: Boom system helps keep trash out of Lake Hiawatha
Freshwater has teamed up with several partner organizations to help clean up Lake Hiawatha through installation of a floating boom system that will capture trash that enters the lake through a storm sewer outfall.
When Freshwater was approached in October 2021 by River Network, a national network of water, justice and river advocates, with the possibility of funding under a grant from the Coca Cola Foundation to install a litter capture device in the Mississippi watershed, Lake Hiawatha immediately came to mind. Learn more about River Network's community-focused approach to addressing litter in this video.
In collaboration with the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, and the Friends of Lake Hiawatha, Freshwater has partnered with Osprey Initiative to create the customized capture system. Funding for the installation event and celebration was provided by the CenterPoint Energy Foundation.
Debris collected in this series of three booms will be sorted, recorded and disposed of properly by a trained maintenance team. The collected debris data will provide critical information the City can use to better understand the extent of the pollution problem, and to enact further measures to diminish pollution further upstream.