Duluth seeks volunteers to document damage to streams

A group of Duluth residents is looking for volunteers to help document the city's network of flood-damaged streams.

They are recording GPS coordinates for each of the city's 44 named streams and photographing debris.

Duluth tree and trails coordinator Judy Gibbs, who is assembling all the information, says volunteers will ask the Natural Resources Conservation Service to determine whether stream repairs might qualify for federal funding.

"Some of our smaller neighborhood streams, volunteers have been just getting out with GPS cameras and doing a really good job of just walking up the stream, taking photos of the things they're finding and then getting back to us," Gibbs says.

She adds that deteriorating streams that aren't stabilized could endanger nearby houses, roads or bridges.

Gibbs is looking on the bright side.

"They're going to look at all our data and make a determination for us -- what might be able to qualify," she says. "And then the other good thing that's going to come out of this is we'll probably have a citywide stream master plan developed."

Last week, the federal government issued a disaster declaration for 13 Minnesota counties and three tribal nations after preliminary assessments showed that floods and storms last month caused more than $108 million in damage.