DNR and partners restore imperiled trout stream through Enger Park Golf Course in Duluth
Native brook trout will soon benefit from improved habitat as the Buckingham Creek stream restoration project nears completion. Buckingham Creek has the coldest water of Duluth’s 16 trout streams and runs through the city of Duluth’s Enger Park Golf Course. When the city needed to make some improvements to the golf course’s irrigation system, it proposed a partnership with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and other resource management agencies to restore the trout stream at the same time.
Partners, including the city of Duluth, South St. Louis Soil & Water Conservation District, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota DNR worked collaboratively to restore more than 3,000 feet of stream channel through the city’s popular golf course, where construction in the 1980s altered the stream.
The ongoing construction project re-meanders the stream out of a ditch and redirects it around ponds that were introducing warm water to the stream. The project will replace perched culverts that are migration barriers with bridges to restore fish passage, while enhancing playability of the golf course and greatly improving the ecological function and aesthetic beauty of Buckingham Creek. Prior to the start of construction, Minnesota DNR fisheries crews relocated more than 150 trout from the construction area to an upstream cold-water refuge.
“The city wasn’t obligated to do this work, but they understood the value in it,” said Leslie George, DNR Northeast Region fisheries manager. “By working collaboratively, we have been able to apply local expertise multiple city, state and federal funding sources, and work together to improve outdoor recreation and critical natural resources in Duluth.”
Funding for the project came from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the Minnesota Legacy Amendment – Clean Water Legacy Partners Grant Program, and the city of Duluth.
A four-minute video documentary of the project is available on the DNR’s YouTube channel.