A century-old storm sewer in St. Cloud claimed by bats, a ravine pushed to the brink by heavy rains, and the project to preserve them both.
Transcript
This is Minnesota's Legacy, a look at the organizations and the people who have benefited from Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.
Xan Holston: In St Cloud, years of heavy storm water was washing up the nocturnal residents of the Highbanks Ravine bat hibernaculum.
Emma Larson: Which is this 1900 ‘s era brick and mortar storm sewer. It has always been a storm sewer, but the bats like our storm sewers. So it is now the Bat Cave.
Xan Holston: Assistant public utilities director Emma Larson said bats have used a century-old drain to roost and hibernate for decades. In the ‘90s, researchers found rare species of bats who weren't infected by white nose syndrome living in that drain. But as rainstorms grew heavier, the aging infrastructure couldn't keep up, threatening to wash out both the ravine and the bat cave below one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.
Emma Larson: That ravine was going to fail either under a garage or the cave itself was just going to eventually give up structurally.
Xan Holston: With funding from Minnesota's Legacy Amendment, the city replaced sewer lines that drained into the ravine, easing the pressure on the hillside and helping restore the natural habitat.
Emma Larson: It enables the ravine to flourish again as a habitat which attracts everything, including the bats.
Minnesota's Legacy is produced by AMPERS with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at AMPERS dot ORG.