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The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is trying to find out how the state’s waters will fare this spring. Last week, workers were dispatched to shorelines across the state for the annual task of setting water gauges.
“We can’t say for certain right now because we have no data from ice-in through ice-out,” said Sandy Fecht, of the agency’s Water Services Division.
Parts of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are either abnormally dry or seeing extreme drought, according to a federal assessment released last week. Recent rain and snow have helped shrink the drought’s footprint, but it’s been ongoing for more than a year.
Lakes in northern Minnesota are expected to be much lower than normal, but experts say droughts are natural — and temporary.
Ron Auger can tell by sight that Birch Lake, in the suburb of White Bear Lake, is low. He’s got a personal “beach” — in a spot on his lawn that would normally be filled with water.
“Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be like this,” he said. “Ordinarily this time of year, the water would be up to the grass.”
Friday morning, Fecht stood in Auger’s back yard, shouting numbers to DNR worker Ted Pedersen, who waded waist-deep into Birch Lake. Officials have monitored the water there since 1930. Auger, a lakefront owner, reads the gauge, which looks like a large ruler poking out of the water. Auger reports the figures to the DNR.
“One-point-one-oh!” Pedersen yelled — noting the first Birch Lake reading of 2007.
“That’s a good foot down from the fall,” Auger said.
Workers will repeat the practice at 1,050 lakes statewide over the next two months, pushing their way north as ice clears. Once they reach the drought-stricken north, they’re expecting to find lower and lower lake levels.
“Anecdotally, in the northern parts of the state people are saying it’s the lowest they’ve seen in three decades,” Fecht said, but cautioned that memory isn’t the same as a scientific measurement.
Still, the DNR’s Office of State Climatology expects the drought took a toll through the winter.
Assistant climatologist Greg Spoden said no one’s sure when lake levels will return to their long-term normal levels. But he’s confident they will.
“Droughts have happened before, and they’ll happen again,” he said. “In the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, some people thought Minnesota would become a desert, but the rains came in the ’40s.”
People like Auger know this, and he wasn’t particularly worried.
“I’ve been here 40 years, and I’ve seen it lower than this. It’ll be all right.”
