Final stretch of restoration work begins in St. Louis River’s Kingsbury Bay and Grassy Point (published June 28, 2021)

West Duluth residents in the Irving and Norton Park neighborhoods will begin seeing more construction equipment moving, as the final stretch of work begins at the Kingsbury Bay restoration project. The public parking lot on Pulaski Street and a short segment of the Waabizheshikana Trail will be temporarily closed for about two weeks beginning July 6 as construction crews improve the trail accessibility, repave the surface, install plantings and reseed the disturbed area.

Because of the heavy equipment needed to perform the work, people are asked to obey the closure signs during construction and avoid any areas where heavy equipment is present. Once the trail reopens, users are asked to stay on the trail so vegetation can reestablish. The Willard Munger State Trail will not be impacted by this project but users should be aware of the additional traffic in the area.

In this final year of construction, contractors will continue dredging Kingsbury Bay with equipment stationed on barges and using the sediment to restore areas at Grassy Point where legacy milling waste was removed in 2020. Construction at both sites should be completed this fall.

Construction updates will be posted in the Kingsbury Bay/Grassy Point section of the DNR’s St. Louis River Restoration Initiative webpage at mndnr.gov/st-louis-river-restoration. People interested in receiving project and construction updates by email from DNR and MPCA can subscribe at a link found on the same webpage.

Funding for the $18 million project comes from the Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Fund, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative with oversight by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the St. Louis River/Interlake/Duluth Tar Superfund Site settlement.