Parks & Recreation

Amity Creek, the largest and most rural of these watersheds, is impaired for Turbidity – the water can get too muddy at times, usually during rainfall – and fish and bugs suffer because of the poor water quality. With its clay banks, flashiness and steepness in the lower watershed, the major contributor to the turbidity problem in Amity Creek is eroding banks. Erosion occurs because the stream’s channel is incised and can not access its floodplain. Because water can not spread out on the floodplain during high flows, high flows carve the banks away, causing dirt to slough off the bank and into the stream. This watershed was recently selected to be the recipient of 16 years of funding through the Clean  Water Act Section 319 Small Watersheds Focus program. Only 35 watersheds were selected statewide for this funding. The South St. Louis Soil and Water Conservation District will be leading this effort. Amity Creek has also been the focus of restoration efforts under the Weber Stream Restoration Initiative.

Tischer Creek is the next watershed west of Amity Creek. The upper part of this watershed runs through the City of Rice Lake, which has been a valuable partner in a recent small watershed planning effort championed by the MNDNR called the Tischer Creek Roadmap to Resilience plan. The plan is now complete, and information about the framework, potential projects to protect and restore parts of the creek, and other information can be viewed at the Roadmap to Resilience project page: nrmp-implementation-projects-duluthmn.hub.arcgis.com

Tischer Creek runs through the Ridgeview Golf Course, Forest Hill Cemetery, Hartley Park, Congdon Park, and Glensheen. This Creek is impaired for e. coli, an impairment relating to the “swimmable” status of the creek. Currently, e. coli bacteria levels have been measured as too high to be safe for humans, should anyone ingest the water while swimming in the creek. In 2023, the MNDNR and the City of Duluth started conducting a feasibility study on Hartley Pond. Water warms up while being held back in ponds, negatively impacting the trout population downstream of the impoundment. The Feasibility Study will provide information about how to mitigate the thermal impacts from the pond on the downstream reaches of Tischer.

Keene Creek is the westernmost watershed and begins in Hermantown where Trout Unlimited has restored hundreds of feet of stream in order to improve trout habitat. Keene Creek runs through the Oneota Cemetery, Irving Park and empties into Lake Superior at Grassy Point. The St. Louis River One Watershed, One Plan, coordinated by the MN Board of Water and soil Resources, identifies this watershed as the only priority watershed in the City. Funding and attention will be prioritized in Keene Creek as part of the One Watershed, One Plan implementation process. In 2024, the City of Duluth Engineering Dept will be constructing about an acre of green infrastructure in Irving Park to help capture stormwater and provide infiltration before being discharged into the creek. This will allow for stormwater runoff to be treated and cooled before entering the creek, which will benefit the trout population and help address this creek’s e. coli impairment.