Clitherall residents: Water a problem

People say they’re tired of hearing that high water is not a problem

By Bob Williams | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, September 17, 2007

After submitting numerous petitions to the county and having them rejected for numerous reasons, typically improper wording, Clitherall Lake residents are tired of hearing the high water in their area is not a problem and feel they have the solution.

The Clitherall problem is different compared to other area high water issues at the Turtle lakes, Lake Olaf, Iverson and others. Its problem centers around the maintenance of Ditch No. 16.

Not having a county road threatened by the water has moved official responsibility from the Highway Engineering department to the Ditch Inspector.

“The ditch needs to be repaired,” Clitherall Township Chairman Don Davenport said. “It would make it a lot better.”

The ditch was created in 1906 with a standard eight foot bottom, 2.2 feet deep and 12.4 feet wide at the top. It allowed water to move unrestricted. The current ditch looks nothing like the 1906 ditch. A postcard from 1911 shows a bridge and a wide channel of water where now water sits constrained waiting to move through a small culvert. Other culverts in the area are contributing to the problem.

Ditch Inspector Randy Wasvick has stated publicly Clitherall Lake has never been a problem lake. But residents who have seen their shorelines decrease rapidly in the past few years would beg to differ. In some spots along the shoreline, huge chunks of land have fallen into the lake this year when the lake set an all-time record high water level.

“We had exposed sand beaches on North Clitherall Road for many years,” Bonnie Beach Resort owner Ron Sugden said. “We’re showing some beach now, but this spring we lost six feet.”

“It’s changed over the past seven to eight years,” Davenport said. “Each year it’s getting worse.”

Other residents in the area are feeling frustrated by the problem and lack of assistance in nearing a solution.

Clitherall Township hired Anderson Surveying to establish the level of a culvert on North Clitherall Lake Road in comparison to the Ditch 16 outlet to West Battle Lake and the outlet of Clitherall Lake. This was done because the county did not establish the elevations prior to having public meetings.

“As a ditch authority, we were looking for cooperation in helping us solve the problem,” Davenport said. “But that has not been forthcoming.”

The results of the Anderson survey, along with measurements taken by Stabnow center the problem around repairing the ditch and cleaning out three culverts.

“The problem isn’t as big as other high water issues...and our solution isn’t either,” Sugden said. “The purpose of the culvert is to provide a free flow of water. The township had to step in and do the work. There’s a head of water at each culvert.”

Department of Natural Resources Area Hydrologist Terry Lejcher has noted in meetings with the township group and at public meetings something is wrong with the hydrology of the ditch. Lejcher has also noted at numerous meetings the problems of high ground water tables and area high water.

It’s future problems Clitherall Lake residents want to avoid.

“We need an orderly process to get rid of the water at a nice level anyone can enjoy,” Richard Offtedahl said. “If we don’t do anything, nothing will improve.”

An issue of the downstream impact on West Battle Lake and Mud Lake, the unnamed lake between Clitherall and Battle, has repeatedly been discussed by county officials.

“It has never been reported to the general public that on an equal basis, West Battle has twice the surface area as Clitherall,” Sugden said. “They have an outlet also. If we dropped a foot of water on them with no outlet it's only going to rise six inches.”

The Clitherall Lake Association has unanswered questions about specific areas which would benefit the project. They believe certain misconceptions and erroneous assumptions have been mentioned publicly, like the notion that West Battle Lake is higher than Clitherall, making the movement of water between the two difficult and possibly damaging to people residing on Mud lake.

“Historically, Clitherall is three feet higher in elevation compared to West Battle Lake,” Stabnow said. Citing numbers provided by the DNR, Stabnow pointed out the ordinary high on Clitherall is 1336.5 feet, while the West Battle elevation is 1333.6 feet.

“Every meeting it’s brought up to make people believe we are pushing water uphill,” Sugden said.

The battle to fix this problem is uphill on all sides. Costs from an engineering study and a redetermining of benefits have been discussed, along with control structures and extra culverts, all of which add up in a ditch system which has little funds to use.

But residents believe cleaning two blocked culverts in the area, which are on private property, and one Clitherall Township culvert, along with repairing the ditch could solve the problem.

From a cost standpoint, I don’t think we need to spend a lot of money on a study,” Sugden said. “All we need are general repairs.”

The Otter Tail County website notes three options for residents who want to address a blocked ditch:

*A landowner may clean a county ditch on his own property to the original depth with proper notification and approval of the Ditch Authority.

* A group of landowners may clean a county ditch if all parties agree to share the cost of the clean out. Proper notification and approval must be given to the Ditch Authority.

* A landowner may petition the County Ditch Authority to clean a ditch. This action would require an engineer's study, and engineer's survey, and a redetermination of benefits.

According to the Clitherall group, of all the high water issues being dealt with in the area, theirs seems to have the easiest solution: they are willing to do the work themselves.