Work Is Under Way To Beef Up Parts of the Lakewalk in Duluth

Even though a lot of the damaged portions of the Lakewalk in Duluth are buried under inches of snow and ice the city has already been able to make some changes to fortify this treasured path along Lake Superior. According to WDIO a small section of the Lakewalk between Fitgers and the Portland Malt Shoppe have already been fortified. City engineers have place bigger rocks by the lake and have constructed a concrete wall that will rise around 18 inches above the sidewalk.

Construction Project Supervisor Mike LeBeau said "With the big stones outside of it, which break up the wave energy, and then the wall is there to stop more of it. And anything that splashes over can go down through drains that are being installed now too.  You don't build things today along a shoreline like this the way you did in the 1980s, so no engineer would sign off on a project to put it back just the way it was."

This popular pathway was pummeled by three separate storms, one in October 2017, another in April 2018 and the last in October 2018. City engineers have been scrambling to stay ahead of mother nature and the toll it has taken on the Lakewalk. The city is also going to take this opportunity to widen the lakewalk which will allow for emergency and maintenance vehicles to get through as well.

LeBeau feels confident that the section of the Lakewalk from Endion Station to Leif Erikson Park will be open sometime this summer, but because many of the Canal Park repairs are dependent on federal money, timing of the reconstruction there is uncertain. Either way the Lakewalk is now being constructed to withstand storms for years to come.