GRANITE FALLS — The Yellow Medicine County Board approved a group of amendments to the county park ordinance at this week’s meeting, with the goal of staying in step with trends in campground operations.

County Administrator Angie Steinbach presented a set of amendments. She said the two that generated the most discussion among park board members were a new guideline for a 60-day cancellation notice to refund a campground fee and a requirement that campers who stay for a long-term reservation control the weeds around their trailers.

The 60-day requirement was proposed in order to have seamless processing with online reservation systems. A shorter cancellation involves additional steps to process refunds.

The mowing guideline should help to save time with regularly scheduled mowing by park staff, and will also eliminate the potential insurance liability that might occur from mowing close to trailers.

The updates come into play for camping at Yellow Medicine County’s two park areas. They include Oraas Park next to U.S. Highway 59 south of Clarkfield and Timm Park on the northern shore of Wood Lake. Commissioner Ron Antony said he supports the 60-day notice given the changes associated with online reservation systems.

“The 60 days seems drastic, but it’s understandable if that’s what’s needed to have an up to date reservation system,” Antony said. “I’m in favor of it if that’s what other campgrounds are doing.”

Commissioners also spoke in favor of the mowing stipulation, noting that it’s not practical to mow close to trailers or to hand cut weeds growing next to them.

The amendment requires trailer owners to trim or remove weeds when they reach a height of one foot. At that point most weeds become visually unattractive, as well as seed bearing and ready to spread out to more of the camping area.

“I’ve seen situations in the parks where they need to be cut around a trailer,” said Commissioner Gary Johnson. “They could be mowed by maintenance staff if the trailer wasn’t there. We don’t have the time and manpower to work around them.”

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners finalized plans to convey a small parcel of land adjacent to the Minnesota River to the city of Granite Falls.

The area is part of the former location of the bathhouse and swimming beach developed in the 1930s Works Progress Administration era.

The beach eroded in the late 20th century as part of long term changes in the river channel. The same process caused repeated flooding in the bathhouse building, to the point that it needed to be abandoned and later torn down.

Tuesday’s action will clear the way for the city to have a continuous stretch of land that extends from U.S. Highway 212 out to Memorial Park along Minnesota Highway 67 south of the river. The park area is undergoing improvements supported by a multi-phase grant application coordinated by the Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission.

“We’ve wanted to have the best possible land ownership, something that will help in the park development process,” Steinbach said. “The area has very good potential for a restoration. It should benefit both the county and the city of Granite Falls.”

Another type of natural resources preservation effort is taking shape at Del Clark Lake near Canby. Commissioner Glen Kack reported at Tuesday’s board meeting that a system of several sediment ponds is planned for the west side of the man-made lake area.

Kack said the ponds will be built on land owned by the LacQui Parle Yellow Bank Watershed. They should help to hold sediment that erodes toward the lakeshore, reducing the long range build-up within the lake.

By doing so, they’re likely to lessen the need for occasional lake drainage to remove sediment near the base of Del Clark Lake’s outlet dam.

The lake was built to impound water that eventually flows into Canby Creek. The creek, which has a small channel that was prone to flooding prior to lake construction in the 1970s, is a tributary of the Lac Qui Parle River. The watershed begins in the Hendricks area of Lincoln County and ends near Montevideo where the river empties into the Minnesota River’s upper basin.