Summary

Status: Completed  - Trouble Shooting Intake System to be completed by 6/20/2025

About the project

For the past 40 years, Lake Susan water quality has consistently failed to meet the clean water standards set by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). As part of an ongoing effort to improve water quality in Lake Susan, the Riley Purgatory Bluff Creek Watershed District and the city of Chanhassen are teaming up to fund a water filtering and conservation project at Lake Susan Park Pond. 

This project implemented an iron-enhanced sand filter at the southern edge of Lake Susan Pond Park, in order to clean the water of additional dissolved phosphorous before it flows into Lake Susan. The filter will trap pollutants like phosphorus that wash off of nearby streets, yards, and parking lots, and filter them out of the water before it enters Lake Susan. Keeping this phosphorus out of the lake will mean fewer algae blooms, better recreation opportunities, and better habitat for aquatic animals and plants! 

A second part of this project includes the implementation of a system that captures stormwater from Lake Susan Park Pond and reuses it to water nearby fields. Since the fields are currently irrigated using groundwater—aka drinking water— this stormwater reuse system means that good clean water will not be wasted on watering grass at the park. This reused system also means a reduction in phosphorous going to Lake Susan

Project Update

This project was completed in the fall of 2020. Issues with the pump losing prime has resulted in only intermittent use of the system. A new design was engineered and retrofit in the summer of 2024. It will be put online by June 20, 2025.