The Birch Pond Watershed is located in a wooded area of the Bryn Mawr neighborhood in Minneapolis, south of Chestnut Avenue, between Upton and Xerxes Aves. South. It is an offshoot, or subwatershed, of nearby Bassett Creek. Historically, the Birch Pond Watershed contained a large number of other ponds in addition to Birch Pond itself. These ponds disappeared, changed size, and resurfaced in different places over the years, as they were filled in by various artificial means. This fluctuation can be traced in aerial photographs, the earliest available of which dates from 1939.

By then, the use of extensive fill material can already be seen in the larger watershed area: around the edges of ponds in the woods, next to nearby existing homes, and on major sections of adjoining streets where homes would soon be built. There is evidence not only of standard fill being used, but also of debris being dumped into the watershed in many sections of northwest Bryn Mawr,

probably before any houses were built. Many neighbors report that when digging in their yards, even just a shovelful, they find debris such as old car parts, burned cinders and entire cinder barrels, chunks of concrete and asphalt, and even old plates and cups (reportedly from old St. Olaf Church, after it burned down. In fact, up until the late 1970's, the woods themselves had long been used as a convenient place to get rid of large amounts of construction debris, old tires, etc. One homeowner on Vincent Avenue North was told recently by a retired developer, "We dumped old Washington Avenue at the end of your block." Other neighbors who moved next to the woods in the 1950's have always called the woods "the dump." When they arrived, most of the material was coming from downtown construction projects, such as the First National Bank Building. They never saw any City trucks, but only private ones, including many from Park Construction Company. Their street was a dirt road

at the time, and it was very messy with all the trucks going back and forth. Another neighbor on Upton Avenue South got so tired of the dumping that she and her husband stood in front of a few of the trucks and stopped them. After many complaints to the City, they finally were able to have a barrier put up at the end of Vincent Ave. South.

The street was raised to a higher elevation in 1973, possibly to match the level of the accumulated debris in the woods, and/or in preparation for new construction. One original homeowner on the street was given money by the City to raise his house to the higher elevation, but he never did so, and storm water now concentrates heavily around his property. Before the larger ponds in the wooded area were filled in, they were used by neighborhood children as swimming holes and skating rinks, and one pond featured a tire swing over the water. The watershed is spring fed, and according to a long-time resident, the ponds had water so clear one could see twenty feet down. The sister of a Vincent Avenue South boy reports that her brother drowned in the 1930's, after falling through the ice of one of the ponds. Decades later, another neighbor

asked one of the truck drivers why they were dumping in the woods. He pointed to a house and replied, "Because he (the grandfather of the boy who drowned) told us to." Apparently, the grandfather wanted all the ponds filled in because of the drowning. To these neighbors, however, it didn't appear to be a matter of filling up the ponds, as much as finding a hidden place to unload unwanted debris. By the late '70's, the dumping had ended, and there were no more large, clear ponds left in the woods.

Eventually, along Upton Avenue on the land just south of the woods, several large school buildings were built. Before that construction, however, the site was a wet meadow with tall grasses. There were fall asters and many other wildflowers as well. One lifelong Bryn Mawr resident, an ornithologist and botanist, walked there often as a child, and sometimes found pheasant and wood duck nests with many eggs in them. She also sighted black crowned night herons, great blue herons, common and black terns,and many types of frogs there, all of which hunted insects over the marshy fields.