'Battle' Over Stillwater Lift Bridge Schedule Heads to the U.S. Coast Guard

A brewing bridge dispute is about to cause another ripple in Stillwater.

The Stillwater City Council on Tuesday night unanimously agreed to send a formal proposal to the United States Coast Guard requesting a temporary change to the Lift Bridge schedule. But the proposal is drawing opposition from some marina owners.

“We can’t accept this proposal,” Randy Boler said while speaking on behalf of the Mulberry Point Yacht Harbor Board of Directors. “Other marinas in the Stillwater area agree with our position on this issue.”

The City Council’s action begins a process that could take months. Once the Coast Guard receives a formal written request for a schedule change, the Coast Guard reviews the proposal, holds public meetings and then determines whether or not to make changes.

The proposal would change the number of lifts from 21 to 16 during weekdays. There were no changes requested for weekends and holidays.

The goal of changing the schedule is to ease traffic congestion in downtown Stillwater during construction of the St. Croix River Crossing. The current Stillwater Lift Bridge schedule has been in place since 1994.

The Mulberry Point Yacht Harbor Board of Directors—representing the interests of 157 slip owners—unanimously voted on June 6 to oppose the proposal.

“We understand the complexity of the issue and that there are multiple opinions involved, but we feel that reducing the frequency of lifts, including those at the rush hours, will cause hardship on our boating community,” the Board of Directors’ letter to the City Council reads. “The schedule, as it has stood since 1994, has well served our boating community. We feel that altering the schedule will have little impact on the vehicle traffic, but a large impact on the marine traffic.”

Boler said changing the lift schedule could cause safety issues

“The St. Croix River is the only area between Minnesota and the Gulf of Mexico that has a bridge that does not open on demand,” the Board of Directors’ letter reads. “Altering this already restricted lift schedule may lead to dangerous consequences.”

Weather in Minnesota can change quickly, and in times of emergency, it may be imperative for a vessel to quickly return to safe harbor to avoid a dangerous situation.

“I can certainly understand severe weather—it is expected that you don’t want to sit and wait potentially for an hour for the bridge to lift, but right now the hospital can call ahead and say ‘we’re sending an ambulance through, keep the bridge down,’” Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki said. “Is there a way to work the emergency the other way in the event of severe weather being declared?”

Ward 2 Council Member Ted Kozlowski said he has called for a lift in bad weather, and the bridge tender will open the span up.

“If you’re out on the river, and there’s severe weather, I don’t want boaters to think they can’t call and get back to their marina,” Kozlowski said. “You can do that now. In the idea that it is a safety thing, I think we should make sure everyone knows you can call in times of bad weather to get back to your slip.”

Boaters can ask for an emergency lift, Boler said, “but also with that premise you could be getting emergency lifts all day long.”

Boller also pointed to the new “no wake zone” on the St. Croix River in the new bridge project construction area, saying it will impede the usual travel times of boaters and will “undoubtedly cause them to miss this altered time schedule, resulting in them remaining south of the bridge for up to two hours.”

Speaking as the owner and Captain of the Lady Chateau, Boler said waiting for two hours “severely impacts” his business.

“We’ve dealt with an hour and a half (in the down position from 4-5:30 p.m.) for 19 years now,” Boler said. “We’ve learned to live with it, but a two-hour wait is going to be very difficult for us … for me to be stuck north of the bridge for two hours is a big impact. Today we can go north, but with the river dropping, we won’t be able to for very long. If we go north for an hour or an hour and a half, there’s a chance we could rub bottom and get stuck.”

Speaking for the marina, “We feel it’s a slippery slope,” Boler said. “If we change one time schedule, there’s going to be more time changes and not in a positive way.”

Once it becomes a pedestrian bridge, there’s no reason not to make this really aggressive, Kozlowski said. The bridge could be up every half hour—there would be no reason to make the schedule worse.

“I can’t agree with the slippery slope idea,” he said. “It’s a temporary change to mitigate what is going to become an even worse construction situation.”

“We’re talking about all the hardships to the boating community, but there’s also hardships for the past 19 years for the people who live up on the South Hill and downtown that also has to be taken into consideration,” Ward 1 Council Member Doug Menikheim said. “Is there room for compromise? It’s been here for 19 years, and has demonstrated it has caused a problem. … It’s not just the boating community. It’s the boating community, the downtown community and the residents as well. How do we make it better for everybody?”

Kozlowski agreed, and said the idea is not to inconvenience boaters.

“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” he said. “I grew up on the river. I’m slipped next to a bunch of big boats that aren’t particularly happy with what the Council is talking about, but my feeling is everybody is going to be inconvenienced by this pretty massive project we’ve got in town. We’re all going to have to deal with it in one way or another, and this is kind of the boaters’ piece. I really wish this wasn’t the case, but I think it’s one of the few tools we have to try to mitigate some of these issues.”