From our Minneapolis beat reporter and incurable runner, Steve Brandt:

We’re glad to report that the bad news isn’t even worse when it comes to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s attempts at laying sod alongside those newly paved W. River Parkway paths we like to run on north of Plymouth Avenue.

The bad news is that there’s lots of dead grass. The good news is that it’s being replaced, and not on the public dime.

Let’s go back to late last fall. As the weather dialed down below freezing, awful late for much growth, runners noticed sod being unrolled along the paths. We made a mental note to check on its survival when the winter passed.

Sure enough. As the sun warmed and dandelions sprouted, substantial portions of the sod remained a dull dun. Even worse, substantial segments of the sod lining the paths had been torn loose over the winter by plows clearing the paths. This stretched intermittently from Plymouth Avenue north to the new trails’ terminus just short of the Burlington Northern bridge, including dead and missing sections in front of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s headquarters.

This week, crews started replacing the casualties. But according to Park Board project manager Nick Eoloff, the cost is on the contractor, rather than the public.

“You never know what the weather’s going to be like,” he said, noting that the contractor’s work dragged in at times last summer, and the Park Board would have preferred to have the project sodded in September. Sod that was laid earlier survived better. “We wanted it down. We wanted it buttoned up.”

Sodding last fall along the paths did provide the advantage of keeping soil from areas that were seeded rather than sodded from washing onto the paths during this spring’s rains. Some of the seeded areas are faring better than some sodded areas.

Eoloff is hoping for good germination later in the spring for prairie grasses that were seeded, especially south of Broadway between the river and walking path, to stabilize the shoreline. Those need warmer temperatures to germinate and their success will depend on the next few weeks of weather.

Meanwhile, we’re enjoying the paths.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under Government spends your money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.