Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 9, Number 2 • March-April 2001
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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by Craig Minowa, EAGLE Coordinator
A recent environmental networking conference in Duluth brought together 40 area environmental organizations for a day of workshops, information tables, and networking. The conference, organized by the Environmental Association for Great Lakes Education, was also well attended by the general public, bringing in attendees from all around the western Great Lakes Basin. A common sentiment shared by a majority of organizations in attendance was that with the current political situation, environmental groups need to learn to work together now more than ever before.
The Minnesota House and Senate committees are seriously considering changes in the state’s feedlot regulation program. The EPA has disclosed that they are not satisfied with current state programs. If the bills pass, there will be tighter regulations on a number of industry procedures, including air emission plans, rainfall measurement, and ownership transfer. Area environmentalists praise the bills’ potential to reduce negative effects of feedlots on Minnesota’s waterways.
In addition, the MN Department of Agriculture is successfully pushing its new bill to enact a phosphorus ban in lawn fertilizer application for the seven county Twin Cities metro area. The bill would only allow fertilizer applications that contain less than 3 percent phosphorous, and it has already passed both the Agriculture and Environmental Committees. The current 15 metro cities that already have phosphorus bans would be exempt from the ordinance language. Although there was an attempt to make the bill a statewide ordinance, it was withdrawn early on.
Last year’s new law providing for the permitted removal of logs resting on the bottom of three lakes has raised the concern of some lake owner associations. Under the new law, the DNR would permit the activity and monitor the program to protect the shoreline, fish habitat areas, and other environmental concerns. The three leases permitted by the DNR on Plantagenet Lake in Hubbard County, Gull Lake in Cass County, and Hill Lake in Aitkin County are effective June 15, 2001 and would run for three years. Most of the concern centers around the impact on mercury movement, water chemistry, and public access activity.
This year, S. F. 1270, authored by Senator Kinkel, has passed two committees and calls for a repeal of the entire DNR sunken log recovery program and proposes a pilot lake study to assess the environmental impact of log removal, including mercury movement. The DNR is supporting the repeal of the law; last year they were neutral. Rep. Howes continues to work to save the program, sighting economic development potential and no evidence of environmental impact on silt and mercury movement by the removal of sunken logs.
Last year, MLA attended the hearings on the bill, but did not testify about it. For the economic reasons sighted by Howes and after not hearing any concern from the DNR about environmental impacts, MLA supported the legislation. Following passage of the legislation, MLA encouraged the DNR to hold late summer public hearings in Brainerd to receive input from citizens and information from the contractors about how the process would be accomplished before the DNR permits were issued. The hearings were held, but the permits were granted prior to the hearings. This year, MLA is working with authors Howes and Kinkel in an attempt to reach a compromise position.
The City of Duluth continues to push for a new golf course and hotel in an Old Growth and diverse wetland area of Spirit Mountain despite polls showing strong citizen disapproval of the project. The project will impact Steward Creek, one of the area’s last thriving trout streams, which flows into the St. Louis River, Lake Superior’s largest tributary.
Three new resolutions that would stop this development were recently presented to the City Council, but Mayor Gary Doty has vowed to veto anything that would stand in the way of this project.
Recently, the biologist who did the original plant survey of the property stepped forward and admitted that the survey was anything but thorough, and that he feels there is an 80% chance that there are endangered or threatened species in the proposed location that would force the development to be halted. Local environmental groups are hoping to do a second and thorough plant survey of the area in July while the land is still public.