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River Falls resident urges board not to remove Junction Falls Dam, faults urbanization as main threat
Summary
Resident Patricia LaRue told the Utility Advisory Board on Feb. 17 that removing Junction Falls Dam would not address the principal threats to the Kinnickinnic River and urged the city to focus on urbanization and non-point pollution sources instead of dam removal.
Patricia LaRue of 49 Marcela Court addressed the board during public comment on Feb. 17, urging the city not to remove Junction Falls Dam and warning against attributing poor river conditions to the dam rather than to growth and stormwater impacts.
LaRue said the River Falls utility’s FERC relicensing submission (a multi-hundred-page filing) cited a Kinnickinnic watershed appraisal that identified rapid urbanization as the most significant threat to the watershed. She also cited Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources classifications in the utility’s filings: portions of McKinney (the branch of the Kinnickinnic referenced in her remarks) are designated outstanding resource waters and exceptional resource waters, designations she said undercut arguments that the dam itself is the river’s primary problem.
LaRue asked the board and council “who’s right?” and urged officials to focus on non-point pollution sources such as road salts, bridge runoff and litter associated with increased tourism and development. She said the city is marketing a “20-foot waterfall” behind the dam and reported that the city was proposing to spend $20,000,000 to remove the dam — a figure she recited during her remarks. She concluded: “Junction Falls Dam is not the threat. Don't think that removing the dam and draining Lake George is the answer to keeping a healthy Kinney River, especially not at $20,000,000.”
Her comments were entered as part of the public-comment portion of the meeting; they were not acted upon in that session.
Why this matters
The fate of Junction Falls Dam and Lake George is a focal point for local residents and environmental groups. LaRue’s remarks point to a broader policy question about whether habitat and water-quality concerns are primarily driven by aging infrastructure, the dam itself, or by watershed-scale land-use changes such as urbanization and roadway runoff.
What’s next
The remarks were recorded in the meeting’s public-comment record. Any formal action regarding the dam or related removal/rehabilitation proposals would require a future agenda item, staff analysis and (where required) environmental and regulatory review.
