Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary
Overview
- Just east of downtown
- After a century of industrial use, the land lay vacant and blighted until a coalition of East Side and Lowertown residents, with the help of the City, launched an effort to purchase the land and transform it into the 27-acre Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary
- Bluff restoration work at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary and Indian Mounds Regional Park began in April, 2004
- Today, project partners are restoring the land's ecology and working with Dakota people to interpret Carver's Cave/Wakan Tipi, a sacred area in a corner of the Sanctuary
- Stormwater that previously flowed into the Mississippi River via storm sewers, is now recaptured by native plants and is stored in three separate clear water ponds and adjacent wetlands
- Mulch, incorporated into existing sterile soil, promotes the growth of new plantings
- Limestone rock slabs previously used in railroad operations form a waterfall, stone bridge, stairway, and ponds
- Site remediation and stabilization work is ongoing
- Restoration priorities in 2005 focussed on combatting invasive species, slope stabilization, erosion control, and planting 7.5 acres of native trees
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