---

Woman Lake chain property owners have been seeking public records from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) concerning the Girl Lake dam modification and rock arch rapids project.

The original Data Practices request was submitted June 29, 2026. It seeks the underlying public records surrounding the project, including permits, engineering and design documents, hydraulic information, construction and inspection records, surveys, communications, historical lake-level information, and records concerning changes made during construction. As additional information about the project became available, the request was clarified to specifically include records concerning a construction-stage redesign, hydraulic review, communications regarding water-level concerns, and the completed structure.

Rather than receiving the requested records, property owners have spent much of the summer exchanging correspondence with the DNR over the scope and wording of the request. The DNR ultimately advised that processing the request would take a minimum of six months and that it would not provide responsive records on a rolling basis.

That means records that may already have been located, including emails, engineering documents, surveys, calculations and project correspondence, are not being provided while the remainder of the request is processed.

On September 14, representatives of Woman Lake Action met with three senior DNR officials. During that meeting, the officials asked what single thing the DNR could do that would be most helpful. Our answer was simple: help us obtain the records from the outstanding Data Practices request.

We were told they would get on it right away.

As of today, we have still not received the records.

At this point, we are not asking the DNR to prepare a new study, create new data or agree with our position on the project. We are asking for access to existing public records so property owners, engineers, elected officials and the public can review the same information the DNR has.

The request has been pending since June. The questions surrounding the project are being debated now. Waiting six months or longer for the underlying public records makes meaningful review of those questions unnecessarily difficult.

Our request to the DNR is straightforward: provide the existing public records, particularly the priority engineering, hydraulic, construction and communication records, without waiting for the entire request to be completed.

---