Story Map offers residents chance to weigh in on dam/river

By KENT THOMPSON
Humboldt County Conservation has a fun and interactive way to begin a community dialogue about ways to reinvigorate Humboldt County’s water resources and ideas for creating a vision for the future.
It’s a StoryMap web page at www.cutt.ly/reasoner
The Conservation Board is exploring ways to improve the Reasoner Dam and the West Fork of the Des Moines River. To do that, an important first step is to collect all necessary information about the dam and its uses, and existing conditions regarding the dam and river watershed area.
Humboldt County Conservation, in conjunction with Santec Professional Landscape Architect and Senior Environmental Scientist Mimi Wagner, have developed an interactive StoryMap about the dam and its impoundment. The StoryMap will be used over the next three months to collect stories, ideas and concerns related to the river. There will be several opportunities for members of the public to share their thoughts and ideas, upload historical and current photos about the dam and the river, or just share a story about their thoughts or memories about what the river has been, is currently, and can become.
Humboldt County Conservation Director Todd Lee explained that the Humboldt County Conservation Board with the blessing of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors and Humboldt City Council, has began the process of collecting information and assessing needs and wants for the area.
The Conservation Board has been consulting with Wagner for the past year. She, along with LT Leon Associates Inc. engineers, have collected historical data, conducted interviews with stakeholders and developed a method to get information out to citizens and to also receive their input.
“The dam has a great historical, economic and recreational significance to the community. Humboldt has had a dam since the mid-1860s, with the first milldams being gristmills to grind grain or sawmills to saw wood. It was a business enterprise for the settlers who founded the towns and was part of community development. Today, the dams aren’t needed for those same purposes. We also think about dams differently now, compared to the pioneer settlement period. Today, we think about operations, functionality and resources available to support the dams. The context has completely changed,” she said.
Because dams are constructed infrastructure, they require maintenance and they do wear out over time.
“Because people have such strong ties to the dam and the water resources above and below it, any discussions of changes or improvements must involve the public. We need to do more listening to understand what is important to people,” the river consultant said.
Wagner said the nice thing about a StoryMap is that it works like a web page and allows users to browse through and read the story of project and pin a location that is of interest to them and provide a comment.
People can view several different types of map galleries of the project, from basic topographical maps, to aerial imagery, historical maps, terrain maps and many other views and vistas.
For instance, participants can see Scott Island or Lake Nokomis from different digital venues. There is a place for users to type in a specific location or address.

Important places wanted
Users can set a specific pin marker on the map, much like they would for a destination setting on Google Maps. They will be asked the question “Why is this place important to you?”
It is hoped that users will relay memories, such as “that’s where I caught my first fish, had a fun time swimming, learned to water ski, enjoyed a family picnic on the shore, or maybe more specific memories of the importance of the dam and river to the community at large.
“We will keep the Important Places map up for about three weeks and then produce a map showing all the places that were pinned and reasons stated,” Wagner said. “That will give us a good understanding of the important places and why from the community at large.”
Wagner said as more information is added, the StoryMap will change and will be different the next time the viewer goes to their browser and calls up the site, which is available at www.cutt.ly/reasoner, they will see updated information.
People will be able to leave their name and email address to be contacted electronically when the map is updated. They can also email the project if they have a question.
“The StoryMap will serve as the hub for communication about the project,” Wagner said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic going on for nearly a year, Lee said interaction with the community had to change and caused some delay in moving forward with the project.
“Upon thinking about it, this may be a better way (of soliciting thoughts) about the dam and river. Sometimes people are intimidated about speaking their mind in a large meeting setting. People can do this on their own time and explore more about the river and its resources and see and read about information relating to the dam as a hazard and flooding in the community,” Lee said.
Wagner works for Stantec Inc., an international professional services company. “We didn’t choose COVID, we didn’t choose to move completely to virtual platforms, but we’ve found with other projects that the experience is actually richer, because people can go into the story map 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can do it from wherever they are using the internet,” Wagner commented. Participants are not bound or limited by a specific public meeting time at a specific location.
While planning on changes or improvements is picking back up again, it doesn’t mean nothing has been going on with the dam and river. LT Leon Associates, Inc. completed a topographic survey last summer and are finalizing flood model calculations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency rewrote the city’s 1978 floodplain map more than two years ago. The map is currently in the appeals stage and is scheduled to come out in 2022.

Consensus sought
“One of the downfalls of previous efforts to make improvements to the dam area has been a lack of an ability to create a consensus opinion and a lack of a unified true direction.
“I’m hopeful that trying a different approach may get us that more unified community opinion,” Lee said.
“If this project is going to succeed, it’s going to have to be everyone working together,” Lee said.
That being said, Wagner said it is a foregone conclusion with community-wide projects that not everyone will agree with a change and a determined course of action, but information gathered from the StoryMap project will give city and county leaders information to make informed decisions.
“I’m hopeful that by utilizing this StoryMap process that we can accommodate as many opinions and ideas as we reasonably can,” Lee said.
“I think both the Humboldt County Conservation Board and Humboldt County Board of Supervisors realize that the Reasoner Dam is nearing the end of its life expectancy and they are looking at options out there to take something that is quickly becoming an eyesore and turning it into an asset for the community,” Lee said.
Before there can be any physical change to the dam and/or the river, people need to know what the outcomes and objectives will be.
For instance, if an agreed to objective is improved fishing above the dam, an environmental engineer can look at options to achieve that objective and any possible repercussions.
Wagner said what makes this discussion and project different than previous discussions with the Army Corps of Engineers, a river resource company from Colorado, and other groups, is that this project will look at tying enhancing the dam with any other related benefits that emerge as important.
“We will be asking the public are there issues with streams upstream from the dam site? Are there issues downstream? What is the bigger issue for the city and county? Are there dots to connect this project with a larger overall vision?” Wagner wanted to know.
Lee said the fact of recent improvements to Sheldon Park, and the fact of a recreational trail running through the area and concrete plans to expand and extend trail access, makes the Lake Nokomis area and the area above and below the Reasoner Dam a natural recreational hub for the region.
“I think it could be a real draw, not just for this region, but for the area surrounding it as well, including positive impacts for the business community,” the conservation director said.
There is evidence that some aspects of ecotourism in Iowa have been less impacted by the pandemic than some other forms of tourism.
Lee points out that younger citizens put a high value on recreational opportunities and quality of life when considering a place to live and raise their families.
While the StoryMap is the first step in gathering public input, it shapes up to be an important one.
According to Wagner, “the goal is to identify the main themes that have a strong grounding in the community.
“By listening, allowing people to provide relevant information and photographs and asking questions, the dam owners can make informed decisions about options to consider for the future,” Wagner said.

What’s next
A virtual public meeting is being planned in early March at which time discussion about information gleaned from the StudyMap and other data collected will be discussed.
After the virtual public meeting, there will be an online survey that people can respond to and rank their desired outcomes and goals.
In future stages, engineers will analyze two or three alternatives and develop estimated project costs for each. The county can then best match the priorities of the public along with the cost and the possible grant funding each alternative would qualify for.
People with questions about the StoryMap project or the dam in general may direct them to Todd Lee and project staff via email at: humboldt.dam.questions@gmail.com