Welcome to the Lake Hallett Association
St. Peter, MN
Winter 2011 through Fall 2011 Season.
Updated
3:30
PM 9/17/2011.
Welcome
to
the
Lake
Hallett
Association
home
page.
Coming soon MN Dot Adopt A Highway Fall Clean Up
Adopt A Highway Hwy 22 S. St. Peter, MN Fall road crew are
marking their calendar for first frost. Contact the association
if you would like to donate to the clean up event.
Just completed Rock Bend Folk Festival Sept 10 & 11
2011
The Lake Hallett Association thanks everybody who stopped by and
supported our booth at Rock Bend Folk Festival Sept. 10 & 11,
2011.
If you didn’t get a chance to stop by the booth and complete our new
educational programming survey, you can download it here, fill it out,
and e-mail or mail it to us. We want to know if you would attend
future educational programs and if so, what kinds of programs you're
interested in!
Madyson B. of Kasota, won our free Fishing Limit Guessing Game at Rock
Bend Sept 10, when she guessed there were 750 goldfish crackers in the
fish bowl! There were 751! Right on, Madyson! She's
pictured here holding her prize, a handcrafted birdhouse. Thanks
to everybody who played the game!
A steady stream of fishers lined up for chances to pull small prizes
from our 25 cents-a-pull old-fashioned “fish pond” at Rock Bend,
too. Don’s Appliance provided the refrigerator box and friends of
Lake Hallett Emily K. (St. Peter) and Nancy S. (Minneapolis) stocked
the pond and helped kids “fish”.
RBFF 2011 Lake Hallett Association volunteers
Summer fun on Lake Hallett in July
Just completed June 25th 2011
Minnaqua Kids Fishing Clinic
Hosted by
The Lake Hallett Association
MinnAqua is a statewide
education program run by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
designed to teach angling recreation and stewardship as well as the
ecology and conservation of aquatic habitats.
We will learn about fishing safety, tying and baiting hooks, casting
and how to make your own inexpensive fishing rig.
Free!
1919 root beer!
prizes!
June
25th 1pm -4pm on Lake Hallett
Held at the public access located at the Saint Peter Waste Water
Treatment plant parking lot off of Saint Julien Street
Space is limited. Please
call
931-6679 to reserve space for your family.
Children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Sponsored by: Hobber’s HWY 99 Bar & Grill Walt’s Hook, Line & Sinker Culligan Water Dillon
True
With assistance from the City of Saint Peter
Other Lake Hallett
Association
Activities 2011
Adopt A Highway Hwy 22 S. St.
Peter, MN Spring Road Crew
Lake Hallett offically remains
designated (Unnamed) Lake ID #
52-0001 (Lake Hallett) after county board grants city naming rights.
No government or individual can "take possession of"
or control
the water basin (Lake Hallett) itself since it is a designated
public water.
Leo Getsfried DNR Hydrologist
[See Minnesota Statutes, Section 103G.005, subd. 18.]
Read the petition documents
and the LHA response.
Past Community Highlights
Nik Myhra-Edward's senior paper
"Lake Hallett should be preserved:
Cleaning Lake Hallett"
receives Senior Achievement Paper award. Read his research paper.
Gustavus students survey about Lake Hallett. A group
of
Gustavus students did a survey on Saint Peter resident's perceptions of
Lake Hallett. Interesting points we noted are that 13 percent had never
heard of the lake, only 27 percent knew there was a public access and
an overwhelming 87 percent would support the City purchasing the
private property where community events such as the Polar Plunge and
the Fireman's Ice fishing contest are held to assure public access in
the future. Look at the survey and see the results.
Lake Hallett Adopt's A Highway. September 29, 2008
the
Lake Hallett Association became proud members of the Minnesota's DOT
Adopt A Highway program with a 2-mile stretch on Highway 22 between St.
Peter and Mankato. We wish to thank the students and staff of Minnesota New
Charter School, Henderson MN for lending a hand during our 1st
clean up effort.
Lake Hallett Monitoring Plan for Year Ended 2008. We
have
just completed our sampling season for the 2008 monitoring plan and are
in the process of collating the data. We will be publishing the plan
over the winter season. When available the plan is freely available to
the public in PDF format. The plan and related collateral is publicly
disclosed in our Membership Monitoring Plan page.
The 2008 Lake Hallett monitoirng plan was partially sponsored
through grants from Minnesota Waters
and volunteers the plan has been in effect since acceptance January
9th, 2007. The Year End Plan was updated for official publication March
21, 2008. In accordance with the monitoring plan objectives a bound
copies were delivered to a list of designated users and interested
parties.
COUNTY BOARD DECIDES CITY GOVERNMENT HAS
NAMING RIGHTS TO LAKE HALLETT
Unnamed lake 52-0001 continues to be the
official DNR name for Lake Hallett
Unnamed lake 52-0001 continues to be the official DNR name for Lake
Hallett.
The City administration will continue to insist all city staff refer to
it as "Hallett's Pond." Others will continue to call it Lake Hallett.
Todd Prafke, the city administrator, as spokesperson for the Saint
Peter City Council, could have moved to name the lake whatever he
wanted and the matter would've been settled. He chose to leave the lake
name as Unnamed 52-0001.
The status of the lake as a Public Protected Waters
Wetland under the care of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
remains the same. Within the state of Minnesota no individual or
municipality can own a public waters.
Todd Prafke (City administrator), Russ Wille (Economic
Development director) and City Council Representatives John Kvamme,
Jerry Pfieffer and Kimberly Schultz were all present. It is interesting
how much of a threat the term "Lake Hallett" is to the Saint Peter City
Administration.
The City administration was adamant that the term "lake"
not be used to refer to this body of water because it does not fit in
with their future goals for the area. We are still trying to get
information about what exactly these goals are. The Nicollet County
board unanimously agreed to vote according to the City Administration's
wishes by denying the petition.
Although, as KEYCTV reported, Commissioner James Stenson
did comment "The Nicollet County Board recommended that the St. Peter
City Council suggest a name since the city has assumed possession of
Hallett's Pond" Commissioner Stenson and others who claim the City owns
the lake are wrong. According to Minnesota State law the City of Saint
Peter did not, cannot and never will be able to take possession of any
public waters including Lake Hallett.
If anyone has any comments, suggestions, ideas on how
the Association should proceed, please share with us!
Thank You! Trudi Olmanson, Lake Hallett Association, 302
Saint Julien Street, Saint Peter, MN 56082, 507-931-6679
Nicollet County board hearing Feb 24 2009.
For decades children and adults have discovered the joys of
Lake Hallett...
fishing, swimming, boating, floating, snorkeling, SCUBA dving and
exploring this jewel in the midst of the city.
The Lake Hallett Association is working to provide this same
opportunity to future generations.
Thank you for your continued support.
Check it out!
Lake Hallett is on the NASA website. NASA site "Testing the Waters".
Commentary and pictures of Lake Hallett on the 2nd page "Plumbing the
Depths".
Mission Statement
The Lake Hallett Association is dedicated to the protection
and promotion of Lake Hallett as an environmentally-sound recreational
and aesthetic resource for the citizens of the St. Peter Area. Since
Lake Hallett is one of the cleanest lakes in southern Minnesota, we
believe it is better to enjoy this natural resource as it is now then
to degrade it by using it for storm water treatment of St.
Peter's industrial and residential runoff. It has become well
understood by water resource managers that storm water from
agricultural and urban areas has degraded many of our precious water
resources (especially in Southern Minnesota). We believe
that the citizens of St. Peter will be best served by the local
governing body by diversion of the storm water away from lake Hallett.
This would be the most cost effective way to maintain the current water
quality of Lake Hallett for generations to come. Diversion of the
treated storm water could be done relatively easily and would be much
less expensive then available lake restoration and maintenance
techniques that will be needed if the lake continues to be used for
storm water treatment.