Mold Remediation in Rochester, MN

MINNEAPOLIS — Before the Class 2A state boys soccer semifinal game, no team had scored more than two goals all season against the undefeated St. Cloud Cathedral Crusaders — Rochester Lourdes had four by halftime.

St. Cloud Cathedral lost its first game of the year by a score of 4-3 on Thursday in the second round of the state tournament at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Never having played for a championship, 2024 is the second year in a row the Crusaders (20-1) have lost the semifinal game. They will play the third-place game at 1 p.m. on Thursday at the St. Paul Regional Athletics Center, facing the team that beat them in the 2023 state tournament: Pine Island/Zumbrota-Mazeppa (15-2-2).

The last time Cathedral was down by as many as four goals was two years ago when the Crusaders lost 6-0 to St. Paul Academy in the state quarterfinal.

"I told the guys, 'You still gotta play the game,'" Cathedral coach Alex Hess said Thursday in the postgame press conference. "I think everyone had a great time trying to battle back and claw. We're proud of the effort that we put forth tonight."

He called Lourdes "talented" and "technical" on offense.

Coming into the game, Eagles players knew exactly how to exploit Cathedral. Lourdes scored three screaming goals in the first 13 minutes, one from senior Sam Theobald and two from sophomore Blake Moynagh, who trails only Crusader junior Jacob Oliver across the state in scoring.

Cathedral senior goalkeeper Noah Henderson came out of the goal to make several saves in the open field, but in the 19th minute trying a similar move Henderson collided with a striker from Lourdes. Henderson had to leave the game in concussion protocol and Eagle senior Aidan Kane scored with a penalty kick.

"Sometimes when you get three shots in on a goalie, it's not his day, but what is Noah (Henderson) supposed to do on three crackers, absolute bangers?" Hess said. "He did what he had to do to come out and unfortunately he got too much of the Rochester player."

After the penalty, Hess made a call to bring junior defender Griffin Sturm up to the front line and employ a 3-5-2 scheme to force more offensive pressure.

Sturm netted Cathedral's first goal before halftime, and the Crusaders roared back in the second half behind goals from senior Max Primus and Oliver. Primus blasted an angry right-footed strike to the top right corner in the 55th minute and Oliver had perfect timing on a deflecting ball, bicycling home a goal in the 60th minute.

With a one-goal lead, Lourdes parked the bus.

"Going into that second half, they stopped playing offense basically," Oliver said. "The only dude up there was that No. 21 (junior Luca Duerr) on the wing and that No. 9 (Moynagh) up top. They were just kicking it to them and letting them play with it in the corner. They'd have seven dudes back there on Griff (Sturm)."

Backup goalie Gabriel Vaske also had to make some gutsy second-half saves to keep Cathedral in the game. Hess said the freshman is "very technical" and was doubtful the team would have Henderson back for the medal game.

Other players have bumps, bruises and soreness, too. Senior defender Milo Dukowitz was limping during the game and Sturm had ice bags on his lower body for the press conference. Senior striker Jack Stang is still recovering from an injury that held him out of a few games earlier this year.

"I'm just an incredibly proud coach by the way they were resilient and battled back," Hess said.

In his regards, Cathedral is the best team in Minnesota. It was seeded No. 2 in the tournament, behind St. Paul Academy and Summit School (5-3-1), which Lourdes will be facing in the Class 1A championship Friday.

Lourdes has been to four state tournaments since 2017, and despite Cathedral making the past four tournaments, the team had not played Lourdes until Wednesday. The Crusaders advanced past the Marshall School in the first round Oct. 24 by a score of 2-1 and the Eagles crushed Fridley 5-0.

In the other semifinal, SPA and PI/Z-M played scoreless through two overtimes and both teams made their first three penalty kicks. But both of their shooters missed the goal on the fourth shots and PI/Z-M's fifth shooter also missed wide right.

Lourdes beat SPA 3-1 on Sept. 14, the game before their last loss Sept. 17 against PI/Z-M. Cathedral played PI/Z-M during the regular season last year, beating the team 2-0 before falling 1-0 at The Bank.

"We're ready for tomorrow," senior Mason Layne said. "It's time to get our get-back."

Contact reporter Reid Glenn at rglenn@gannett.com.

ROCHESTER — The second phase of a 10-year push to eliminate lead water service pipes from all Rochester properties began last week with a barrage of letters to property owners.

After months of poring over records, RPU staff sent out 1,310 letters Oct. 23, 2024, to property owners who either have lead water service lines or have service lines without any record of what they’re made of.

Overall, 1,310 letters went to property owners. Out of 41,600 service customers, that’s less than 3% of service customers. So far, 225 customers — less than 0.5% — are confirmed to have lead water service lines, said Todd Osweiler, RPU's environmental and regulatory affairs coordinator.

However, even one service line of lead pipe is one too many, Osweiler said.

Lead exposure can cause brain and kidney damage and can also cause permanent neurological damage especially to young children, according to health officials.

RPU will have access to federal and state funding to help customers replace those lines at no cost to property owners.

“We’ll be working one-on-one with customers,” Osweiler said.

Minnesota is set to receive $215 million from the federal Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act made available over five years through the Environmental Protection Agency to fund replacing lead water lines. So far, Minnesota has received $167 million of the funding. Some of that is being used to determine where lead lines may lie.

The University of Minnesota has an interactive map showing municipal water service lines across the state down to individual properties whether they are made of material that doesn’t need to be replaced, are made of lead or galvanized steel that will need to be replaced or if the composition of the service lines is unknown.

In 2023, in response to the federal legislation, the Minnesota Legislature allocated $240 million in funds to pay back the loan portion of the federal funding, said Chad Kolstad, an engineer who oversees infrastructure for the Minnesota Department of Health’s Drinking Water Protection Unit.

“It makes it a very easy ask,” Kolstad said.

Lawmakers set a goal to have municipal water service lines free of lead by 2033. Despite the nearly half a billion in funding secured, there’s still a gap between that amount and the estimated cost of the entire effort.

Kolstad said an estimated 100,000 pipes will need to be replaced at an estimated cost of $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

“We’ll need more funding,” he said.

That’s just a rough estimate.

The first phase of the effort was identifying where lead service lines are. That’s ongoing especially for pipes that are underground between the curb and water main.

That’s why RPU officials dug through whatever documentation they could find before sending out letters. RPU will likely have to dig holes to determine what the unknown pipes are made of.

In Byron, where most of the houses are newer than 70 years old, it’s a safe bet the service lines to homes don’t contain lead. However, guessing isn’t good enough, said Al Roder, Byron city administrator.

Construction records for most of the properties so far show the city is lead-free.

However, records weren’t found for about 350 properties there, Roder said.

“It’s just these handful of properties where we’re unsure what may be used for that property,” he said.

The next step is finding out what those pipes are made of.

“You can’t fix it if you don’t know that it’s out there,” he said.

Once lead service lines are identified, the push to replace them will begin. Areas with schools, day cares and low income families will be given priority for reimbursement.

Some areas that are undergoing utility work, such as parts of the downtown corridor in Rochester, will be replaced anyway, Osweiler said.

In some cities, replacement projects might encompass dozens of properties in a single large-scale project that could also receive prioritization, Kolstad said.