"We don't have as much flood damage as we had in 2010, but this was a big event and we have a significant amount of damage on the refuge. Some of our higher up trails around our Bloomington Visitor Center — the Hillside Trail, as we call it — those facilities are all open, because they're out of the flood plain. Same goes for trails at our Rapids Lake Visitors Center down in Carver. I can't think of a lot of completely open areas between the two. So much of our refuge is down in the flood plain, I would say 70 percent of it is still under water, in no condition where we would invite visitors. If people want to get out on refuge trails, we ask them to check our webpage or Facebook page first for information, or they can call us."
Gerry Shimek, supervisory refuge specialist, Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. 952-854-5900, www.fws.gov/refuge/minnesota_valley
