Albert Lea’s $7.5 million bonding request to dredge Fountain Lake cleared the House floor early this morning and was expected to be approved in the Senate later today.

The project was part of a bill of more than $1 billion in construction projects that would be paid for with state bonds and cash. Despite the staggering size, passage came after relatively short debates thanks to deals that were carefully brokered at the highest levels.

“We’ve crossed the biggest hurdle yet, and I anticipate it’s only a matter of time before it hits the governor’s desk,” said Brett Behnke, administrator of the Shell Rock River Watershed District.

Behnke thanked District 27A Rep. Savick Savick, who he described as “tenacious” in making sure the project stayed fully funded in the House bill, and District 27 Sen. Dan Sparks for his work in the Senate.

“We couldn’t have achieved this success without the community’s support,” he said.

Lakes Foundation of Albert Lea President Laura Lunde echoed Behnke’s comments and said she thinks all of the community trips to the Capitol lifted up the project and helped it move forward.

“This is the day we’ve been preparing for in the community for the last six years,” Lunde said. “It’s a fantastic investment for the future. I’m elated, really.”

The dredging project has been gaining momentum since the Shell Rock River Watershed District in fall 2012 purchased a 2010 IMS 7012 HP 51-foot Versi hydraulic dredge for about $340,000, along with the pipes, pumping and other equipment necessary to pump the dredge material away from the lake for $435,000. District leaders have also contracted out for preliminary engineering.

Officials have stated the entire project is estimated at $15 million, with the other half of the cost coming from a local-option sales tax.

Watershed and city officials have said previously the project is necessary because the lake has become filled with sediment — as much as 5 to 8 feet in some areas. The accumulation has resulted in water quality impairment and large algae blooms.

If awarded, the bonding would go toward engineering, design, permitting and land acquisition for the sediment removal and cleanup of the lake.

Local leaders have lobbied the dredging project would increase economic development for Albert Lea and the state through increased tourism, spending and strengthening the economy of southern Minnesota.

Behnke said the watershed district will next wrap up design for the dredging project with participation from stakeholders on both a regulatory and community level.

“We did it,” he said.

Matt Benda, lawyer for the Shell Rock River Watershed District, said approval of the project in the House shows how the community pulled together bipartisanly.

“We had a lot of people from both ends of the spectrum who put work in to make this happen,” he said.

The extension of Albert Lea’s half-cent sales tax was also approved shortly after midnight in a committee hearing and is expected to go to the House and Senate floors today.

The bonding bill, as the $846 million borrowing plan was known, easily surpassed the supermajority requirement when 19 Republicans voted with all Democrats to pass it.

“Bonding bills by their nature have many good things in them and some things we find objectionable,” said Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City. With its commitment to the Capitol restoration and other core elements, he said the good “far outweighs” the bad.

House Capital Investment Committee Chairwoman Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, said the plan erases a backlog of projects that previously stalled and was crafted to maximize matching dollars.

“The bill is filled with lines that leverage other money — federal money, local money, private money,” she said of the borrowing bill. A separate $200 million cash finance plan also prevailed, sending the pair over to the Senate for final action later Friday.

From hiking trails to prison repairs to laboratories on college campuses, the plans are chock full of building projects in every corner of the state.

The largest single item is $126 million to complete the Capitol renovation. The smallest is $78,000 for work on a historic bridge in Hanover.

The most intense negotiations surrounded the $22 million devoted to the Lewis and Clark regional water pipeline project in southwestern Minnesota. With federal money bottled up, state lawmakers were delivering a menu of funding for Minnesota’s end of a project that also affects Iowa and South Dakota. It is meant to draw water to 300,000 people in the region, feeding drinking water supplies and fostering business growth.

Republican Rep. Joe Schomacker of Luverne told colleagues the pipeline is vital to his district.

“We are dry,” he said, “but we have a plan.”

A tax bill awaiting action would allow counties and cities in the region to raise local taxes toward a local share and unlock about $2.2 million more annually from the state. All told, the pipeline could take more than $60 million to put in.