How a new whitewater course could bring life back to Austin’s river
Standing on a bridge crossing the Cedar River, Nate Smit described the whitewater adventure course that's flowing through his imagination: Five rapids stretching for a quarter of a mile, drawing whitewater kayakers, paddle boarders and tubers.
“And for every one person going down the rapids, there's four people drinking a beer, reading a book, having a picnic,” he said. “So it's great for everybody.”
These yet-to-be built rapids could be reality in a few years. In the last year, Smit — who also leads Hormel’s innovation efforts — has gathered local environmentalists, tourism experts, city officials and water sports enthusiasts to explore a new solution to a growing problem: A dam that shores up the city’s popular Mill Pond is aging, and the waterway that feeds it is underused.
The effort underscores a challenge many Minnesota communities face: They have dams that once made a lot of sense — in Austin's case, to power a riverside mill — but are now obsolete and expensive to maintain.
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Local champions
Smit came up with the idea for a custom built whitewater course during a fit of pandemic boredom.
“Like so many people, I got a new hobby close to home: I started kayak fishing on the river. And then I kept running into these dams.”
They blocked Smit from getting down the river and paddling right through the middle of downtown Austin.
He started shopping his idea around to local leaders.
“I went from being a town heretic, like ‘How do you create whitewater in a flat Mower County?’ to ‘Hey, this is actually feasible.’” he said.
It’s feasible for $10 million, according to a study recently commissioned by members of the growing Austin Whitewater on the Cedar group, which is advocating for the project.
Among those working to make the whitewater park a reality is Tim Ruzek, outreach coordinator for the Cedar River Watershed District.
The Cedar River is already a state water trail, and a loyal group of river-lovers routinely show up for river clean-ups. Meanwhile, the upstream Mill Pond is regularly used by water enthusiasts.
A whitewater park would build on that interest.
“By having an amenity that people want to use, it’s going to encourage people to clean things up and find ways to improve the water quality,” Ruzeck said.
Another champion is Nancy Schnable, executive director of Discover Austin, the city’s tourism office.
At first, she had a lot of questions about the whitewater proposal.
“Like what about water quality? We have people that like to fish and they want to continue to fish, so is this still a possibility?” she said.
Now, Schnable thinks the park could bring significant additional tourism to the community. Right now, the SPAM Museum is the main attraction in town, bringing about 100,000 visitors annually.
She looks to communities in Iowa that have built similar parks. For instance, Manchester, Iowa, built its course almost a decade ago. There, businesses have relocated to the river bank to entertain people watching the kayakers. Local officials there say they see more people using the river on a single summer day than they ever did prior to building the park.
Schnabel sees a similar opportunity for Austin.
“Not only do [tourists] use the attraction, but they also go eat in the restaurants, they use the retail, maybe they’ll stay overnight and try doing the whitewater the next day,” she said.
Solution for an infrastructure headache
The project also addresses the looming concern of the waterway’s aging dam infrastructure, said Assistant City Engineer Mitch Wenum.
“They can cause drownings if people are caught in the undertow of them on the downstream side of the dam,” he said. “They block fish passage, and not just fish — mussels, other aquatic life.”
The dam infrastructure does help shore up Mill Pond, which is a valuable and loved outdoor space, said Wenum.
But the project’s current plans would maintain the pond while creating rapids and eddies for whitewater kayakers, paddle boarders and tubers to enjoy, said Wenum.
“We’re essentially going to be building out five mini dams. The first one would maintain the Mill Pond level,” he said. “It’s kind of like a stair step, like if you’re walking down the steps down the river.”
Those stairsteps would be calibrated so kayakers aren’t flushed down this quarter of a mile stretch of river too fast.
“You’re able to spend some time in each pool by utilizing eddies, which form a back current that brings your back to the feature that you’re playing in,” he said.
Now, advocates for the park are raising the funding for the project. In the meantime, the proposal needs approval from several governmental authorities that will make sure the park doesn’t create new flooding concerns for Austin, which has a history of major flooding.
Construction of the new park would be the fastest part, said Wenum. If all goes as planned, it will start in 2026.
