Blue Earth River water still unhealthy from dam failure

All it takes is a bucketful of water, a clear tube and some sunlight for Eileen Campbell to conduct a water quality test.

Campbell, who works for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, is about 10 miles south of the Rapidan Dam, where a partial failure last summer churned up more than a century’s worth of sediment and pollutants that had been cemented in the river bottom and sent it downstream.

She stands on the Country Road 33 bridge, tosses a bucket into the Blue Earth River below, scoops up the cloudy water, pours it into the Secchi tube — which tests for water quality — and holds it up against the sunlight.

It shows exactly what Campbell thought it would.

“We’re still seeing the effects of the partial breach of the Rapidan Dam on our water quality in the Blue Earth river today,” C