At the My Minnesota blog, John Harrington summarizes the situation with investigating the MPCA's behavior toward the EPA's misgivings about PolyMet in Now, we get to the truth!:
Yesterday,[in Which do you trust more, politicians or bureaucrat] we expressed concerns about the probable objectivity of any legislative hearing regarding the MPCA and EPA roles in crafting a wastewater discharge permit for the PolyMet NorthMet project. Today, we learned (see press release below and this link) that:
Rep. Hansen, chair of the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division, does not plan on calling any hearings in his committee on this issue.
Rep. Hansen is also Chair of the Legislative Audit Commission.
Rep. Hansen has called on the Office of the Legislative Auditor to review concerns surrounding MPCA's decision-making on the PolyMet permit.
The Legislative auditor will proceed with a thorough review immediately.
We cannot begin to express sufficient gratitude to Representative Hansen and the Office of the Legislative Auditor for their efforts on this matter. While we're at it, we also want to thank:
for their continuing efforts to protect Minnesota's environment and present Minnesotans with the truth about those who endeavor to do otherwise.
A press release from Hansen's office follows. Read it here.
Harrington's site is worth a read with each post closed with a poem. Readers would do well to follow My Minnesota via @JohnHthePoet on twitter and sign up for Hansen's legislative update.
Inspired by Harrington, we're closing with a poem by Karl Shapiro that's been called to our mind by recent news reports. An apology for the Google Books image--the title refrain is not highlighted in yellow in the original poem and we can't find the poem in a stand-alone version online.
Photo: The closed LTV Steel taconite plant near Hoyt Lakes, Minn that will be transformed to PolyMet.
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From our friends at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture:
The state’s new Groundwater Protection Rule (GPR) became effective today, June 24, 2019. The GPR will reduce the risk of nitrate from fertilizer impacting groundwater in areas of the state where soils are prone to leaching and where drinking water supplies are threatened. Nitrate is one of the most common contaminants in Minnesota's groundwater; elevated nitrate levels in drinking water can pose serious health concerns for humans.
“Implementation of the Groundwater Protection Rule is a major milestone in protecting the state’s groundwater and ensuring all Minnesotans have safe drinking water,” said Governor Walz. “I want to commend the Minnesota Department of Agriculture for their commitment to making Minnesota a leader in addressing nitrate contamination and for their collaborative approach with farmers in doing so. The MDA went above and beyond in their duty to gather public comments and respond to feedback as they developed these important regulations.”
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) will oversee implementation of the rule. Beginning in 2020, use of nitrogen fertilizer in the fall and on frozen soils will be restricted in areas of the state with vulnerable groundwater, such as areas with coarse textured soil, shallow bedrock, or karst geology, and in public wellhead areas – known as Drinking Water Supply Management Areas (DWSMAs) – with elevated nitrate levels.
The GPR outlines a multi-level approach involving local farmers and agronomists working to mitigate nitrate losses in DWSMAs with high nitrate in groundwater. Farmers in a DWSMA would be subject to four levels of mitigation which move from voluntary to regulatory. A local advisory team, consisting primarily of producers and agriculture professionals, will advise the MDA regarding appropriate response activities for the area and support implementation of these activities.
The Groundwater Protection Rule is part of the state’s overall Nitrogen Fertilizer Management Plan (NFMP) which was developed with broad stakeholder input over a five year period and implemented in 2015. More information on the rule and the NFMP is available at www.mda.state.mn.us/nfr.
Image: Minnesota's Canada geese may still be blamed for groundwater pollution, but the rule regulates nitrogen fertilizer, which has been an issue for water quality.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
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Another document related to this project has been posted by Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Division Chair Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St. Paul: The U of M CWD Presentation to the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).
The LCCMR is made up of 17 members: 5 Senators, 5 Representatives, 5 citizens appointed by the governor, 1 citizen appointed by the Senate, and 1 citizen appointed by the House. The function of the LCCMR is to make funding recommendations to the legislature for special environment and natural resource projects, primarily from the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF). These projects help maintain and enhance Minnesota's environment and natural resources. The LCCMR developed from a program initiated in 1963. Since 1963, approximately $999 million has been appropriated to more than 2,200 projects recommended to the legislature by the Commission to protect and enhance Minnesota's environment and natural resources.
In labs across the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, scientists are months away from making that a reality.
After lawmakers and the governor approved $1.8 million to fund the creation of a test to detect chronic wasting disease within hours, rather than days, a team of veterinary experts, microbiologists, genomics professors and engineers started a two-year timeline to create a breakthrough tool to test for the disease.
“This is a clear threat to deer heritage. I hate the fact that deer are being labeled as zombies,” University of Minnesota Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Professor Peter Larsen told members of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources on Monday, June 17. Some have described the malformed prion protein disease as a "zombie-like" condition. “We need new tools to fight that disease." . .
Photo: A big whitetail buck.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
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After months of stonewalling, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has released staff comments that the agency had prepared for the state-issued water quality permit for PolyMet Mining. The release came on the same day that the agency was required to respond to a lawsuit over access to the comments, filed by Water Legacy and other environmental organizations.
The comments are potentially devastating to efforts by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to defend the water quality permit they issued to PolyMet late last year. That permit has been the subject of ongoing litigation by tribal governments and environmental groups.
They also raise serious questions about statements made by the MPCA in its own legal responses to the case and about allegations from a retired EPA lawyer, Jeffry Fowley, who filed a declaration with the court last week alleging that top officials with the MPCA had urged the Trump-appointed director of the EPA’s Great Lakes regional office to suppress comments generated by the agency’s own staff. Rather than submit the written comments, EPA officials, in April 2018, read some of their concerns over the phone to MPCA staff, but the MPCA never responded to those comments, as is required, prior to issuing the permit. Nor does it appear that the agency made changes in the permit to address concerns raised by the EPA.
The Timberjay has previously reported on some of Fowley’s allegations, which he submitted earlier this year to the EPA’s Office of Inspector General. Fowley, who spent more than 35 years with the EPA overseeing national water discharge and hazardous waste permitting before retiring in 2017, put his concerns in a sworn declaration to the court as part of Water Legacy’s latest filing.
Apparent push to suppress MPCA officials, based on previous communication with the EPA, were almost certainly aware that the federal agency staff harbored serious reservations about the PolyMet water discharge permit, including a belief that it failed to comply with federal law and was likely unenforceable. And MPCA officials were apparently hoping that suppressing those concerns would help the state agency defend the permit against a likely legal challenge.
The detailed EPA comments, encompassed in a seven-page, single-spaced letter, which the EPA released late on Wednesday, June 12, are technical in nature, but the meaning is clear— and they will almost certainly pose a major legal and political complication for the MPCA. . . .
The news--and subsequent developments--rocketed across the country. On Wednesday, the Timberjay posted an EDITORIAL: Investigate the MPCA:
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has tough questions to answer as more information is being revealed about apparent efforts by the state environmental agency to keep critical comments regarding PolyMet Mining’s water discharge permits from the public and the courts.
Let’s make no bones about it— this appears to be a significant state agency scandal suggesting intentional malfeasance by top officials in the MPCA. Failure to investigate how this happened would seriously undermine the public’s confidence in state environmental regulators.
As we reported last week, the Environmental Protection Agency, under legal challenge from Minnesota tribes and environmental groups, finally released comments prepared by professional staff in the Great Lakes regional office that expressed serious concerns about a water discharge permit for PolyMet. Those comments included concerns that the permit appeared to violate the federal Clean Water Act as well as water quality standards for the state of Minnesota in multiple ways.
For groups fighting the permit in court, it was a game-changing document. It is no longer just environmentalists and tribal officials alleging that the permit that the MPCA issued late last year is flawed. Their arguments are now backed up by professional staff at the EPA. It’s no wonder that top officials at MPCA may have attempted to keep those views under wraps.
The revelations should bolster the arguments of tribes and environmentalists to move the case to district court for additional fact-finding. The courts have an interest in getting to the bottom of this. If, as it appears, top state officials at the MPCA colluded with the Trump-appointed director of the EPA’s Great Lakes regional office, in an effort to suppress these critical comments, the implications are staggering. Judicial review of executive agency decisions is fundamental to our system of governance, yet it can only work if the agencies involved can be trusted to operate in good faith, by ensuring that the full and complete record of their decision-making process is made available. If critical comments from fellow agencies with considerable expertise are simply deep-sixed in order to keep the courts from getting a look at them, judicial review loses all meaning and purpose.
Finally, questions need to be answered on why it is that the MPCA issued a water discharge permit to PolyMet Mining that includes no water quality-based effluent limits. We have reported more than once on the lax nature of far too many of the water discharge permits issued to mining companies in our region.
Minnesota may have sound environmental laws, but enforcement of those laws has been a major issue for decades. If the MPCA has fallen victim to what’s known as “industry capture” then it’s time to clean house at the agency and hire people who are willing to enforce Minnesota law, not play bureaucratic games to avoid doing so.
While the apparent wrongdoing here dates back to the Dayton administration, it is up to Gov. Tim Walz to make sure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. The EPA’s Office of Inspector General has already opened a federal investigation into what happened surrounding the PolyMet water discharge permit. The governor should follow suit by referring the matter to the Office of the Legislative Auditor for a special state investigation.
What is alleged in this case is public malfeasance and such actions, if true, are grounds for dismissal. If anyone at the MPCA was, in fact, involved in this apparent subterfuge they should be out the door. This is a serious matter. If necessary, heads should roll.
The handling of the PolyMet water discharge permit is now the subject of a federal investigation. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General announced June 12 that it will conduct a full audit of allegations by EPA whistleblowers that officials with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Cathy Stepp, the Trump-appointed administrator of the EPA’s Great Lakes regional office, may have conspired to suppress concerns within the federal agency that the PolyMet permit did not comply with the Clean Water Act.
Meanwhile, calls for a state investigation have also been appearing since the EPA, under the pressure of a federal lawsuit, agreed to release the agency’s written comments last week. Those comments appeared to confirm the claims of EPA whistleblowers that the MPCA sought to keep EPA comments from appearing in the official record that was likely going to face judicial review.
For now, Gov. Mark Walz isn’t committing himself to a state investigation into the matter.
“The Governor believes that mining projects should be subject to a rigorous environmental review and permitting process before they go forward,” stated spokesperson Teddy Tschann. “ His office is currently reviewing the recently released EPA document and MPCA’s process to ensure it meets the standards he expects for sound environmental decision making and public transparency.”
A spokesman for Walz and Flanagan said that on Thursday, while she held the authority to act, nothing required her to exercise any of the actual powers of the governorship.
Bluestem regrets that Flanagan didn't take advantage of her fleeting power to order an investigation of the MPCA's past actions.
Photo: The closed LTV Steel taconite plant near Hoyt Lakes, Minn that will be transformed to PolyMet.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient
Our friends at Clean Up the River Environment (CURE), a rural environmental group based in sunny Montevideo, Minnesota, along with the Center for Rural Affairs and We Own It, continue their excellent scrutiny of rural electrical co-ops.
Rural electric cooperatives’ loyalty to coal is holding rural America back.
That’s according to a new report authored by CURE, We Own It, and the Center for Rural Affairs.
During the 1970s, the country’s electric co-ops made significant investments to build coal-burning power plants; this was done in the interest of providing low-cost electricity to their member-owners. Co-ops took on massive amounts of debt, mostly from the Federal Government. One year a loan to Basin Electric for a coal plant took up almost the entire annual budget for loans from the Rural Utility Service (RUS), a department of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In 2019, the world of energy is very different.
Coal is now increasingly expensive as well as being a leading contributor to climate change. With this rise in the cost of coal and the simultaneous drop in the price of renewables, coal is an increasingly bad choice for utilities. Today most coal plants are considered to be uneconomic assets by utilities, and co-ops are identifying coal plants as stranded assets.
Rural Electric Co-ops are caught between the push for clean energy and their stranded assets leading many co-ops to double down on their bad investments and push a pro-coal agenda that approaches a dogmatic rejection of the potential prosperity of clean energy for rural communities. As co-ops reject the new reality of more affordable electricity generation and a more distributed, safe, and modern utility system, rural America is being left behind by clean energy prosperity while also having more expensive electricity and an unstable utility structure.
We need strong, forward-looking Rural Electric Co-ops that are ready to serve our rural communities for the next 100 years. We need our co-ops to deliver on their founding promise of member control and democratizing the rural economy. Relieving the burden of electric co-op coal debt is one way to make that happen
“Rural Electrification 2.0: The Transition to a Clean Energy Economy” explores cost savings to the U.S. associated with moving away from coal-based power generation, while also exploring contracts and other factors which put electric cooperatives in significant debt. In addition, the report presents strategies for governments and cooperatives to restructure their debt and provides advice for those seeking to transition away from coal-based power generation.
“Rural communities will be better positioned to realize energy independence once current debt on existing coal plant infrastructure is eliminated,” said Erik Hatlestad, energy democracy program director at CURE. “This, in addition to investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, would help electric cooperatives plan for the future and serve their members more effectively.”
Highlighting leadership on renewable energy investment, the report recognizes electric cooperatives that have set ambitious renewable energy generation targets. For example, Central Iowa Power Cooperative announced a 100-megawatt solar project in December 2018 that would be largest in the state.
“Cooperatives commit to seven principles including democratic member control, concern for community, as well as values of equity, equality, solidarity, social responsibility, and more,” said Liz Veazey, network director at We Own It. “As we work to mitigate the impacts of climate change, adopting more renewable energy projects will provide new tax revenue and jobs for rural communities while reducing emissions.”
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.
Minnesota hunters and farmers could soon carry handheld tools to test deer for fatal brain disease in the field.
In labs across the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, scientists are months away from making that a reality.
After lawmakers and the governor approved $1.8 million to fund the creation of a test to detect chronic wasting disease within hours, rather than days, a team of veterinary experts, microbiologists, genomics professors and engineers started a two-year timeline to create a breakthrough tool to test for the disease.
“This is a clear threat to deer heritage. I hate the fact that deer are being labeled as zombies,” University of Minnesota Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Professor Peter Larsen told members of the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources on Monday, June 17. Some have described the malformed prion protein disease as a "zombie-like" condition. “We need new tools to fight that disease." . . .
Read the rest at online here. The Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund planning document from the University of Minnesota's College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary and Biomedical is worth a read for the details:
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.
With deep regret, the staff and management of the Pelican Rapids Press feel obligated to report that the local newspaper is “Anti-American.”
It's true.
The newspaper you’re holding is an un-American sheet–bent on supporting radical Islam, illegal immigration, globalism, multi-culturalism, the New World Order, ethnic diversity, affordable health care, free trade–and all that is ill with the world.
True…because Facebook said so.
Why?
The Press placed on company Facebook page a random assortment of photos picturing local Pelican Rapids High School seniors at the May 24 graduation ceremony.
In our deadline haste, we unthinkingly included a couple pictures of our Somali graduates.
Good heavens.
Shame on us.
In response to this travesty, a Facebook follower posted this comment.And, yes, I will quote it in its entirety:
“Is the PR press owned by Somalians?…The first and biggest pics are always ragheads!!…Anti-Americanism at it’s finest!”
I’ll even print the name attached to the post:Mike Morgan.
We’re not certain there is a Mike Morgan out there, and whether hereally exists.
But, since everything you read on Facebook, or in Twitters and Tweets, is true–there certainly must be a Mike Morgan in our neighborhood.
And, we might add, he is evidently a true patriot. A true believer in Freedom of Expression. He is also a very brave man–willing to voice his opinions freely, behind his computer or cell phone for all to read.
We cordially invite Mr. Mike Morgan to craft those views into a few vaguely coherent paragraphs, and submit to the Pelican Rapids Press as a Letter to the Editor.
In your letter, Mr. Mike Morgan, please highlight your views of Americanism, patriotism, liberty and justice for all.I’m sure you know all about that stuff.Further, I’m certain that you can articulate those views with verve and vigor.
We’re a little old fashioned here at the Pelican Press.Unlike Facebook, we like to confirm an individual with a verifiable name to attach to those who share their opinions in our pages. We also support the open exchange of viewpoints, but we prefer that the purveyor of opinions stand behind those words by signing the letter. . . .
Read the rest at the Pelican Rapids Press. If you can spare the change, subscribe to the lively, independent small town newspaper. Like its Facebook page.
And there's this invitation to an event at the close of the piece:
A sidenote on Un-Americanism
Another reminder for Mr. Mike Morgan:If you really wish to experience a horrendous display of “Anti-Americanism,” please join us for the June 22 “Friendship Festival” in Pelican Rapids.
We anticipate a full range of subversive activity–including Somali dancers, Native American drummers, Mexican performers and even (God forbid) a Scandinavian music group–who are also descendents of a bunch of rag-tag immigrants.
Multicultural radicals…each and every one of them.
Please join us.At Pelican’s Sherin Park, from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., June 22.
It promises to be ashameless show of unpatriotic pageantry–a visual spectacle sure to reinforce what it means to be American.
Photo: One of the "anti-American" photos. Via Pelican Rapids Press.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.
Get ready to toast bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. National Pollinator Week is June 17-23 and it's a perfect time to celebrate the birds, bugs and lizards that are so essential to the crops we grow, the flowers we smell, and the plants that produce the air we breathe.
The Pollinator Partnership created Pollinator Week and the U.S. Senate designated National Pollinator Week in 2007. The intention was to draw attention to the protecting pollinator habitats, since they are in steep decline due to human activity, according to Transmission & Distribution world.
The organization's Million Pollinator Garden Challenge has registered more than one million new pollinator gardens since 2016, according to Village Soup in Knox, Maine. This year's challenge asks participants to plant three pollinator-friendly plants that bloom at various times during the growing season, that is, one during the spring, one in summer, and the last in fall. That way, pollinators will have food through most of the year.
The Pollinator Partnership offers many resources and a guide to local events for anyone who wants to get involved in National Pollinator Week.
Bees, beetles, bats, butterflies, hummingbirds, flies and other pollinators help pollinate more than 75 percent of our flowering plants, and nearly 75 percent of our crops, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. While these animals often go unnoticed as they carry pollen from one plant to another, there work is essential to many of the foods we eat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service points out that blueberries, almonds, squash, chocolate, and coffee all depend on pollinators. . . .
Village Soup in Knox, Maine suggests that if you want to start a pollinator garden, keep these guidelines in mind:
Use flowering plants, which provide nectar and pollen.
Provide water
Grow flowers in sunny areas with wind breaks
Focus on growing native, non-invasive species
Shoot for a continuous bloom throughout the growing season
Try to avoid using pesticides.
You can register your garden with the Pollinator Partnership to make your participation in National Pollinator Week known.
Bumble Bee Watch is a collaborative effort to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. This citizen science project allows for individuals to:
Upload photos of bumble bees to start a virtual bumble bee collection;
Identify the bumble bees in your photos and have your identifications verified by experts;
Help researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumble bees;
Help locate rare or endangered populations of bumble bees;
Learn about bumble bees, their ecology, and ongoing conservation efforts; and
Connect with other citizen scientists.
How can you participate?
We need your help! Because these animals are widely distributed the best way to keep track of them is with an army of volunteers across the country armed with cameras. With any luck, you might help us to find remnant populations of rare species before they go extinct. Participating in Bumble Bee Watch is simple and you can get started now by creating an account via the “sign in” tab at the top of the page. Once you have an account, go out and check your garden, in parks, or any other natural areas you frequent for bumble bees. Be sure to snap a photo (learn more about how to photograph bees here) and then sign in and submit your data via our Bumble Bee Sightings form. Have fun while learning more about bumble bees and the vital role they play in our environment!
We're pleased with the instruction on how to photograph bees in particular.
In Minnesota, pollinator friends kicked off Pollinator Week a day early at the University of Minnesota's Bee Lab. Lawns to Legumes bill author Kelly Morrison tweeted:
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.
Amid the hoopla over Minnesota's new state bee, the endangered rusty-patched bumble bee, we found a bit of bragging about defeating pollinator protection legislation, via a Minnesota Corn Growers' tweet yesterday:
Legislative Update has been keeping you in the know throughout Minnesota's legislative session. Our final report provides what corn farmers need to know from the not-yet-covered budget bills: https://t.co/RunCFudJ89
There were three policy provisions not included in the final environment and natural resources compromise agreement that the Minnesota Corn Growers Association was watching closely. Those provisions are related to reinstatement of the MPCA citizen’s board, prohibiting neonicotinoid treated seeds on all DNR wildlife management areas and designating the new state bee as endangered.
The rusty patched bumble bee has declined by 87 percent in the last 20 years. The species is likely to be present in only 0.1% of its historical range. There are many potential reasons for the rusty patched bumble bee decline including habitat loss, intensive farming, disease, pesticide use and climate change. With the odds seemingly stacked against the rusty patched bumble bee, there is a role for everyone in conserving this beneficial pollinator. Your actions will also help a host of bees, butterflies and birds that share resources with the rusty patched bumble bee.
BWSR recently received state funding to develop a new Lawns to Legumes grant program focused on planting residential lawns with native vegetation and pollinator friendly forbs and legumes to protect a diversity of pollinators.
The funding appropriation is through the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF). BWSR will be working with the ENRTF as well as other stakeholders and partners to develop program criteria this summer. Current plans are to have funding be distributed to local conservation partners later in 2019 so they can distribute funding to individual landowners, leading to the implementation of projects in the spring and summer of 2020. Funding will be targeted in priority areas for benefitting the Rusty patch bumble bee and other at-risk species. Please continue checking this webpage for additional updates about the program.
As someone whose business depends on bees, Travis Bolton couldn't be happier to see the state taking steps to help slow the decline in Minnesota's bee population.
Under a spending plan approved by the state legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz last week, $900,000 will be set aside to be used as grants to help cover the cost for homeowners interested in planting bee-friendly plants in their yard to create new or more thriving bee habitats. . . .
Ah, but because of the efforts of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association--and the agri-chemical corporations, that new state bee isn't considered endangered by the state of Minnesota. You'd think that with the Upper Midwest's ag economy in the crapper, the Minnesota Corn Growers would have had something else on their agenda, but alas! the rusty-patched bumble bee's status and prohibiting neonicotinoid treated seeds on all DNR wildlife management areas took up their time.
While the tiny footprints of the Corn Growers aren't directly mentioned, on Wednesday, Daniel Raichel posted in the Natural Resources Defense Council's Expert Blog, Minnesota’s Mixed Bag Session for Pollinators:
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
—John F. Kennedy
While this quote has little to do with how pollinators fared in this year’s Minnesota legislative session, it looked at one point like state legislators were poised to shoot the moon. Earlier in the year, there were no fewer than a dozen pro-pollinator bills or policies floating around the state capitol.
So how’d it all shake out? Aside from a very notable bright spot, legislators mainly shied away from doing even the easy and obvious things to protect pollinators, provided there was even the faintest hint that they would offend Big Chemical companies.
First, the good news: yesterday, Governor Tim Walz signed a law that provides nearly a million dollars to the “Lawns to Legumes” program—the brainchild of perennial pollinator champion, Representative Rick Hansen. In a nutshell, the program pays homeowners up to 75% of the costs of converting their turf lawns to native pollinator-friendly habitat (and up to 90% in areas with “high potential” for rusty patched bumble bee habitat). While the details of implementation are being hashed out, the program combats one of the major threats to bees and other pollinators—habitat loss—and could serve as a national model for turning our ever-expanding urban and suburban areas into pollinator paradises. (For more on what you can do with your lawn, see here.)
Smaller wins include continued funding for a statewide survey of wild bees and the designation of the endangered rusty patched bumble bee as the official state bee—although neither provide additional and desperately needed protections for Minnesota’s bees. (For more on NRDC’s ongoing work to protect the rusty patched bumble bee, see here.)
Losses, on the other hand, were stinging. For example, one bill sought to keep highly bee-toxic neonicotinoid insecticides or “neonics” out of the state’s 1.3 million acre Wildlife Management Area system—codifying an existing state agency policy to ensure the system remains a clean and safe place for Minnesota’s pollinators. Yet, despite overwhelming bipartisan support for the measure—with the House voting for a permanent ban, and all sixty-seven senators voting for a five-year ban—the provision was stripped out of the state “omnibus” environmental bill at the eleventh hour in closed-door conference committee negotiations. While the committee gave no explanation for scrapping a policy supported by both houses, it’s a safe bet that chemical industry lobbyists made a few last-minute visits to key legislators. . . .
On the whole, given the early momentum of many meaningful pollinator protections that sputtered out before the finish line, it’s hard not to characterize the session as a disappointment for Minnesota’s bees, birds, and other pollinating wildlife. More needs to be done. Indeed, despite Minnesota’s reputation as a national leader in pollinator protection, the state recently recorded its second-highest annual loss of honey bee colonies in the last decade—a staggering 53.6%.
Now here’s where I could say that, to protect pollinators, Minnesota’s legislators must choose to do the hard things. But in reality, there are any number of easy, commonsense measures that would benefit Minnesota’s farmers, bees, and everyday citizens—although some might upset a few deep-pocketed, out-of-state chemical companies.
While Minnesota now has the only divided state legislature in the country, for the past several years, one message has been clear—Republican or Democrat, the public wants to protect pollinators. The sheer amount of pro-pollinator bills introduced this session shows that legislators have heard that message. Let’s just hope that, next session, they find the resolve to do more about it.
Now we know that our corn-growing friends were hand-in-hand with those chemical companies pollinator haters.
Oh, the Corn Growers put on a bee-washing act. Witness the group's national parent organization's new best management practices (BMPs) to protect bees and other pollinators in and around corn fields. We labeled it bee-wash after reading this passage of advice for beekeepers:
. . .Locate hives in areas with adequate, high quality forage and away from corn field margins whenever possible. Corn pollen is generally less attractive and nutritious to pollinators than, for instance, wildflowers or flowering crops such as soybean, canola, and clover.
Photo: A rusty-patched bumble bee feeding on wild bee balm.
If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the paypal subscription button.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email sally.jo.sorensen@gmail.com as recipient.
When young people disappear, their families are left with broken hearts and unanswered questions. It's even more frustrating for families who feel their missing children don't get enough attention.
JoJo Boswell is a young Native American woman who vanished in 2005. Boswell's family believes her disappearance failed to make the headlines because of her race.
An Internet search for information on Boswell produces her picture on all kinds of missing-person websites. But not a single news story can be found from July 2005 when the 19-year-old from Minneapolis disappeared.
After some digging, we found her mother, Geraldine Jackson, and sister, Dolly Boswell.
Read the rest at KSTP. The name rang a bell for us, having watched hearings for a bill sponsored by state representative Mary Kunesh-Podein, DFL-New Brighton, a Standing Rock Lakota descendant, to create a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) task force. In late January, Minnesota Public Radio's Briana Bierschbach reported in Bill would create group to track violence against Native American women:
No matter what was going on with her life, Dolly Boswell’s sister JoJo always called.
In July of 2005, JoJo was arrested and booked in the Steele County Jail in Owatonna. She was released on July 11, but she never arrived at home. Dolly tried to report her missing, but she was told by law enforcement that she had to wait at least 48 hours.
After that time period passed, her sister still hadn’t called or turned up, so Boswell tried to report her missing again. There was a dispute about which law enforcement agency had jurisdiction over the case, and Boswell felt her concerns weren’t taken seriously because her sister was an adult and had criminal charges on her record.
“They basically told me: ‘I have more important things to do, I have children to find, call me when she returns home.’ My sister, regardless of what state she was in mentally or where she’s at, she would call me every day and check in every day,” she said. “She never made it home.”
Boswell and her sister are Native American — and their story is common in tribal communities across Minnesota and the nation, where women and girls go missing or are murdered at staggering rates. Despite making up less than 1 percent of the Minnesota population, homicide rates for Native American women in Minnesota were seven times higher than for white women between 1990 and 2016, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
Boswell was in St. Paul on Tuesday to tell her story to members of the House public safety committee considering a proposal to create a task force on missing and murdered indigenous women. ...
Years after JoJo's 2005 disappearance, her story was central to movement to create policy that would address the MMIW crisis.
Mysti Babineau said she was 20 and living in Isanti, Minn., when she was kidnapped and taken more than 50 miles to St. Paul.
"They held me at gunpoint. They told me they would kill me if I tried to escape, and they raped and they beat me, and they turned their back on me for like two minutes and I got away," Babineau said. "I don't know what would have happened to me had I not gotten away."
Babineau, a citizen of Red Lake Nation, knows she could have been yet another statistic. Indigenous women are the victims of violence, homicide and sexual assault at much higher rates than other groups. The National Crime Information Center reported more than 5,700 missing or murdered American Indian or Alaskan Native women in 2016.
Advocates at the state Legislature pushed for Minnesota to take action. The Legislature approved a new task force to look into the issue of what leads to such high levels of missing and murdered indigenous women and what can be done. . . .
Babineau is one of the women who told stories of violence they've experienced to the state Legislature this year.
"I'm privileged enough to use my pain hopefully to help others," she said. "I could be there that day. That was important to me that somebody was."
Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, DFL-New Brighton, sponsored legislation in the House to create the task force on missing and murdered indigenous women. Kunesh-Podein, who is of Standing Rock Lakota descent, was surprised that the proposal, which costs $150,000 over two years, attracted so much bipartisan support.
"The very first time we had a hearing in the House, there was hardly a dry eye in the hearing room," Kunesh-Podein said. "There were people in the audience that came to me weeks later and were like, 'Wow, I am still processing what I just heard. We had no idea.' They immediately pledged to do whatever they could to ensure that this actually happened."
There could be as many as 27 members on the task force, Kunesh-Podein said. That's partly because it includes everyone from policymakers to law enforcement to the tribes themselves. All are participating voluntarily.
"We're here for you now and we're going to do what we can to make this better so that nobody else has a mother, an aunt, or a grandma, daughter or sister walk out the door and never know if they are going to see them again," Kunesh-Podein said.
Kunesh-Podein said she hopes the task force will finally bring attention to this underserved community.
"If it was a white woman, if it was another group of people, then, yes, it would definitely have been focused on long ago and measures put in place," Kunesh-Podein said. "But they've just kind of been the silent, invisible population in our state, and we just have to build that strong awareness and understanding." . . .
Babineau said the task force is just a first step in addressing violence against indigenous women. She said people who were drawn to the movement and slogans need to stay engaged on the issue.
"I really ask that people who marched with us or called their representatives to really pay attention to this and read that report and show up when it's presented to the Legislature," Babineau said. "There is an opportunity here for accountability, for healing and justice."
Meanwhile, let's all hope the Boswell family finally gets some answers.
Photo:Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein gives the thumbs-up to supporters and advocates in the House Gallery after HF70 is passed on the House Floor May 9. It would establish a Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Photo by Andrew VonBank, via Session Daily.
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