By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Join the Cannon River Watershed Joint Powers Organization today, as they host the third session of the virtual learning series: Land to Lake Lectures. In this lecture, Anna Holman of Clean River Partners will explain how converting these dams to fish passage dams can restore ecological connectivity, improve water quality, and enhance public safety. The session will be broadcast in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Extension on Zoom.
The free webinar will be held on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, at 12:00 pm over the lunch hour. Register for the webinar at https://z.umn.edu/OpeningtheRiver. For those who cannot attend live, the webinar will be video recorded, and a link to watch it on demand will be sent to them
Listen to the News:
Several dams on the Cannon Rivers are being reviewed for issues: The Lower Sakatah Lake, Gorman Lake, and Faribault Woolen Mill dams require repair and block native fish from reaching their historic spawning grounds. These aging structures also pose safety risks due to hazardous hydraulic undertows. Heron Mahr of Clean River Partners recently spoke about the project related to those dams which had received grant funding from the DNR:
“We’re working with the Minnesota DNR and Bolton and Menk on this project to modify the Lower Cicada Lake Dam and the Gorman Lake Dam to Rock Arch Rapids and to replace the Dodd Road culvert And the kind of the goal of all of this is to facilitate a smoother fish passage through our waterways here in the Cannon River watershed.” – Heron Mahr of Clean River Partners on Sustaining the Sustainability Office by Carleton College
Furthermore, they noted that there were significant ecological benefits, as well as the need to address aging infrastructure:
“So fish, when they’re not able to reach their historic spawning grounds, this decreases biodiversity, it limits fish reproduction, and it also means that native mussel species that use those fish as hosts to travel upstream aren’t able to be transported above the dam.” – Heron Mahr of Clean River Partners on Sustaining the Sustainability Office by Carleton College
While separate from Clean River’s projects further up the Cannon River, the City of Northfield is also actively pursuing the removal of the Ames MIll Dam here in town. Here’s City Administrator Ben Martig:
“There really isn’t a whole lot of flood mitigation that relates from the dam benefit. It has more to do with the ecology of the River, the fact that the dam has no functional use right now. And so it will allow for fish to be able to navigate through that area. So it’s going to be a healthier river, a cleaner river.” – Ben Martig, Northfield City Administrator on KYMN In The Morning
The virtual learning sessions, “Land to Lake Lectures,” will continue throughout the fall and into the spring, with a different topic each month during the lunch hour. Learn more about the various topics for each session at https://www.cannonriverwatershedmn.gov/events-1.
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