The Brown’s Creek Water Management Organization was established in the early 1980’s
under the State of Minnesota statutes as a joint powers agency. In 1990 it prepared and
had approved the First Generation Watershed Management Plan for the Brown’s Creek
Watershed Management Organization. Member organizations were: City of Stillwater,
City of Oak Park Heights, City of Lake Elmo, Township and City of Grant, City of Hugo,
Townships of May and Stillwater. This organization met monthly and remained a
functional entity until the flooding events of 1995-1996. Failure to implement a
comprehensive solution to the local flooding of the Kismet Basin in Grant and the School
Section/Goggins Lake area in May Township and the City of Hugo led to the State of
Minnesota declaring the BCWMO to be non-functional and ordering Washington County
to assume the responsibilities in January of 1997. The County in turn assigned the
operation of the watershed district to the Washington Soil and Water Conservation
District and petitioned the State of Minnesota to form a Brown’s Creek Watershed
District, which was then established in October of 1997.
After applications were received and evaluated for board membership, the Board of
Water & Soil Resources, the State of Minnesota, and the Washington County
Commissioners appointed Karen Kilberg (Hugo/May Township), Ned Gordon (Stillwater
City), Jon Michels (Stillwater City), Dan Potter (Grant) and Craig Leiser (Grant) to their
initial terms as the first Board of Managers. Craig Leiser was elected as President of the
Board of Managers, Karen Kilberg as Vice-President, Ned Gordon as Treasurer, Jon
Michels as Secretary, and Dan Potter as CAC Liaison.
The new Board of Managers began their activities by adopting the Management Plan of
the BCWMO as the de facto authorization to act, advertising for and selecting both legal
counsel and engineering service providers and notifying the State of Minnesota and the
Department of Natural Resources that it intended to fulfill it’s shared agreement to
perform a Hydraulic and Hydrological assessment of the new watershed. The Board also
began the process of developing the required 2nd Generation Watershed Plan, developing
By-Laws, Rules, and Procedures of operation and the technical assessment of the two
most significant flooding situations, Kismet Basin and School Section/Goggins Lake.
The first challenge to face the board was that there were no funds for implementing any
of these activities. As a result, an immediate operating loan was negotiated with
Washington County to perform basic services and pay for immediate support as needed.
This was necessitated due to the cyclic nature of the tax levy whereby the first dedicated
funds would not be received from the initial levies until 1999. This necessitated a
continued borrowing from Washington County until the end of 1999 to fund regular
operations as well as substantial capital improvements in the two flooded areas.
The first significant capital project was to initiate the corrective action to reduce and
control water elevations in Goggins, Plaisted and North and South School Section Lakes
in Hugo and May Township. This process was a dramatic effort to correct a wide spread flooding condition. Ultimately, the BCWD received funds from the State of Minnesota
LCMR, DNR and BWSR under three different criteria, assessed the entire watershed tax
base to repay the loans from the County and entered into both purchase and eminent
domain proceedings to acquire the land necessary to construct the elements of the
solution. This was a “baptism by fire” for the new Board of Managers. Virtually every
tool, resource, funding source and statutory power available to Watershed Districts was
ultimately employed.
From that initial project the Watershed District has continued to support fundamental
water resource protection and research, capital projects, Rules and permitting program,
and Watershed Plan development and management as expected under state statutes 103B
and 103D.
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