Minnesota River Interview - Charles Smith

"The tiling, the farming system actually killed the water system here, because we drained away all the water. All the springs quit running."

Video Text: "The drainage that’s coming in, and the water is affecting the creek here. [These days] we farm closer, everything is plowed up now. It wasn’t years ago.  There is no pasture. In the past, most of [the watershed] was pastureland up there and now a lot of it is farmed. It probably shouldn’t have been.  Now they are building houses up there. Way upstream there are a whole bunch of houses on it.  That doesn’t improve your water, that’s for sure.

The tiling, the farming system actually killed the water system here, because we drained away all the water. All the springs quit running.  So that’s what is going on. The pool here had a huge spring here underneath years ago, even when the falls quit running, the creek here kept running, not quite that much, but just with the spring underneath it.  We lowered our water table by draining everything off.  As a kid playing in here, we had a deep pond. We have family photos.

We are getting more water faster, and it washes in, well runs from side to side, and it washes in, it hit a gravel deposit someplace in there.  It’s carrying it down.  You can see, if you look over here, how high the banks are and up there, and how far it’s cut through solid rock on the way down."

 

This page was last updated 8/08