Owamniyomni Native Landscape & River Restoration (St. Anthony Falls)

The site has been used to support US Army Corps operations at the Upper Lock since 1963, and features a parking lot, two buildings, a curb-and-gutter road, and a gravel slope. The scope will include demolition of buildings and hardscapes, environmental hazard removal (if any), grading and earthwork, utility relocation, restoration of indigenous landscape, and the reintroduction of active, flowing, water (Owamniyomni means "turbulent water").

Restoration emerged as the priority through engagement. Early on, stakeholders from over two dozen local organizations embraced transformative change at the Falls. Participants acknowledged that Owamniyomni is sacred to the Dakota, and in 2020, with guidance from NACDI, a Native Partnership Council (NPC) formed to steer the process from an Indigenous perspective, and we engaged the general public through a series of Community Conversations. All of these efforts led to a consensus priority to "restore a story disrupted" on this site, both environmentally and culturally.

We will restore the the 3 tracts on our parcel map (totaling 5 acres) at the Upper Lock at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. LSOHC funds will be used only for site grading, oak savanna, and habitat restoration, including aquatic habitat.

Timing is important. We anticipate completing design and engineering in 2025, and undertaking the restoration work in 2026-27, with construction timing coordinated with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board's implementation of the abutting park property, Water Works Phase 2.

The project will restore an industrialized section of the Minneapolis Central Riverfront. The original habitat of the site was oak savanna mixed with prairie. Based on the information we have, the habitat abutted the river all the way to the shore and the site did not host river floodplain. Savanna (or oak barrens) was a transitional habitat between hardwood forests and prairie. The prairie habitat in MN is less than 1% remaining, but the oak savanna is less than 1/10 of a % remaining. Both habitats are lacking. This would provide an island of native biodiversity in the metro/urban setting.

From an Indigenous perspective, letting the earth go back to its natural form is what will preserve all of us. Even when natural systems have been gone for a long time, as they have been on this site, they will come back. We will support and sustain the restoration of this place to fulfill its role as a good relative to migratory song and water birds, fish and other aquatic species, pollinators, and native mussels.

Having this habitat as a refuge for migrating wildlife provides needed connectivity in addition to expanding the quality of habitat along the corridor of the river, with particular value to native grassland birds, and as a migratory corridor benefiting those species that need that open habitat to refuel and rest.

Stewardship of the site transforms its future, which, without intervention, has a high potential to become degraded over time from lack of proper management. Already, the Corps has ceased to maintain the site at the level they did while operating.