Bassett Creek finally will get improvements

Minnehaha Creek's waters boast legendary falls and inspire poetry. Nine Mile Creek babbles and burbles its way through green suburbia.

And Bassett Creek? Bassett Creek's turbid waters slip past an abandoned mill and through a dark tunnel under downtown Minneapolis, falling unheralded into the Mississippi River near St. Anthony Falls.

The neglected stream also flows through Wirth Park and is considered an important natural asset in cities like Golden Valley, Crystal and Plymouth. For decades, people have been trying to save the creek, which in the 1920s was used as a dump.

The latest attempt comes from the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission, which is planning to spend $856,000 to stabilize the stretch of creek that runs from Golden Valley Road south to Irving Avenue N., most of it flowing through Wirth Park. Also in the plans is a $180,000 water control device that would prevent the creek from backing up into Wirth Lake, protecting the swimming and fishing lake's water quality.

Public hearings on both projects are scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Thursday during the commission's meeting at Golden Valley City Hall. The hearings will be followed by votes on the projects.

"This is pretty big," said Golden Valley Mayor Linda Loomis, who chairs the watershed commission. "We are trying to rectify some of the sins of the past. Minneapolis has made a huge effort to make the creek an amenity.... It would be nice if we could make it more usable for people."

Bassett Creek, which flows eastward from Medicine Lake, takes in street runoff along much of its course, and walkers who use trails in the park that run along the creek see the damage first-hand.

The project's goal is to stabilize creek banks and clean up the edges of the stream by removing hazardous trees, grading and protecting banks from erosion, and planting native vegetation to help protect the creek's banks and bed. In some places, walking trails would be moved to protect the stream.

Plans include adding riprap to banks and planting native plants like willows and shade-tolerant grasses and shrubs. "Rock vanes" -- carefully placed large rocks that direct water flow to protect banks from rushing water -- would be used in sections of the creek.

More than 80 trees with exposed roots or other problems would be removed, but some of those would be recycled on site. Long stumps would be stuck cut-end first into the creek bank, with the "root wad" left exposed. Wildlife, insects and plants would use that for shelter, and eventually the roots would disappear in a mass of new vegetation.

"We're hoping it will make the water downstream clearer and prevent some erosion," Loomis said. "It should make the creek a nicer place to be."

In one place, Bassett Creek flows only about 20 feet from the edge of Wirth Lake. Water in the lake is usually higher than the creek level, but during storms the creek backs up into the lake, fouling it with muddy and phosphorus-filled water. An old culvert there was never designed to keep creek water out, Loomis said.

Work would start in the winter of 2011-12 and be done by the spring of 2013.