The proposal includes lowering this 1,300 acre, 300 foot deep water body by about 10 feet.

The developed plan is to pipe the water down to Trout Lake, a natural, 1,700 acre lake, which has an outlet to the Mississippi River headwaters. The problem is that, at some time in the past, rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax) were introduced to Canisteo Pit. The rainbow smelt is an injurious exotic species in the Mississippi River ecoregion, and the spread of this fish to other waters downstream would be very ill advised.

This project has been in the planning process for over four years and the exotic species issue as been raised several times. Unfortunately, no viable solution was found.

The Twin Cities Ecological Services Field Office began researching the life history of the rainbow smelt and found it to be a shallow dwelling species that is not usually found at depths below 50 feet and it is not known to occur at depths of over 150 feet. The office then recommended that the water intake pipe in the pit be extended down to near the bottom, at a depth of over 280 feet. Water chemistry at that depth was double checked, as were the other environmental and engineering considerations. Lowering the intake pipe was found to be an effective and affordable solution to the exotic species dilema.

The project is now proceeding into the final planning process.