Finally, this evening, a brief digest of environment and natural resource news in Minnesota. We'll have more focused stories on other topics in this area in the coming week.
Minnesota Grasslands
As this blog's name name implies, we love the prairie's native grass. Not everyone does. Jennifer Bjorhus reports for the Star Tribune in Conversion of Minnesota grasslands to crops threatens wildlife, water, climate:
. . . Minnesota's grasslands continue to disappear to the plow, despite ongoing rescue efforts on multiple fronts. For every conservation win like Stoffel's, more grassland is plowed into corn, soybeans and other crops to meet relentless global demand for food and animal feed, and for ethanol and other biofuels. Farm support programs such as crop insurance can encourage expansion.
Minnesota lost nearly 2 million acres of grassland to crops from 2012 to 2019, according to the World Wildlife Fund's Northern Great Plains program. That's more than the state of Delaware. More is lost each year, though the rate has slowed in the past decade, said lead scientist Patrick Lendrum.
"This is an alarming trend of continued conversion of the least protected and most at-risk biome on the planet," said Lendrum. "This is happening in our backyard."
The clearing of grasslands is a key reason behind startling declines in pollinators and certain types of birds such as meadowlarks. It has also weakened the land's ability to filter and store water, threatening water and soil quality, and it feeds into climate change because grasslands can store substantial amounts of carbon.
Imperiled grasslands don't get as much as attention as tropical forests, said University of Wisconsin researcher Tyler Lark. But the destruction of the Great Plains across North America is on par with clearing the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, according to Lark and the World Wildlife Fund.
"I think land-use change is one of the largest environmental challenges — maybe No. 2 right behind climate change," Lark said.
Spreading agriculture
Lendrum's research is based on satellite imagery and other data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), focusing on all intact grasslands that haven't been recently farmed, such as pasture or wetlands, that are then plowed. While that may include some untouched native prairie, there's very little of that left in Minnesota.
One of the hot spots in the state is the northwest. Marshall and Polk counties, for example, each saw more than 120,000 acres of grassland tilled for crops from 2012 through 2019, according to Lendrum. That's about 10% of each county's land.
The development of short-season seed varieties has enabled farmers to grow row crops where they couldn't before, pushing such agriculture farther north.
Though it is not the case everywhere, most of the newly plowed grass in the northwest is land taken out of the Conservation Reserve Program when the 10- to 15-year contracts expire.
Mark Haugen, for example, said he took about 1,600 acres of grassland out of conservation in 2019 to expand the family farm in Roseau County, near the border with Canada. He doesn't see a problem.
"There's no shortage of habitat in our county," said Haugen. . . .
Read the article at the Star Tribune, then learn more at the World Wildlife Fund's Northern Great Plains webpage.
Flying carp diem
At WCCO, staff reports in DNR Gearing Up To Remove Invasive Carp From Mississippi River:
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is gearing up to remove more invasive carp from the Mississippi River.
Starting Monday, the agency will work to herd the fish into a small section of the river and then remove them. The effort should not impact the main channel of the river, wildlife officials say.
The DNR asks anyone who spots invasive carp to report it immediately. Residents are asked to take a photo of the fish and call the DNR at 651-587-2781 or email invasivecarp.dnr@state.mn.us.
See a flying silver carp, turn it in. Minnesota Wildlife agrees:
The DNR asks anyone who spots invasive carp to report it immediately. Residents are asked to take a photo of the fish and call the DNR at 651-587-2781 or email invasivecarp.dnr@state.mn.us. https://t.co/5E6zYPla0s
— Minnesota Wildlife (@MinnWildlife) October 24, 2021
Save Moose Mountain
At the Star Tribune, Brooks Johnson reports in Bigger is better, Lutsen Mountains says; not everyone agrees:
Minnesota's largest ski resort wants to attract more families with more runs, more amenities and more lifts — an expansion that Lutsen Mountains says will lift Cook County and the North Shore along with it.
"Our success impacts school enrollments and the ability to have a local hospital — we have to stay attractive," said Jim Vick, marketing and operations manager for the mountain. "If we don't do some of those things, then we will start to look like an old, aged ski area. And fewer people will start to come."
But the proposal has provoked a backlash from some locals and others who say the family-owned ski area should do more with less and keep operations off the Superior National Forest, where the expansion has been proposed.
"I'm not interested in letting our public lands bail out not-so-good business decisions at Lutsen Mountains," said Rory Scoles, co-owner of ski shop Lutsen Recreation Inc. and president of Superior Highland Backcountry, which has launched a "Save Moose Mountain" campaign. "When they say they need to expand to survive, it doesn't really match the experiences people have here."
Lutsen's plans are just partway through a yearslong permitting process with the U.S. Forest Service, which will determine the full scope of the expansion. If the proposal is approved, it could be decades before the entire vision is fulfilled and the size of the resort — and the number of visitors it can comfortably handle — doubles. And that's only if more sorely needed housing is built for workers. . . .
Backcountry loss
The Star Tribune reviewed the nearly 500 comments submitted to the Forest Service through Friday, which offer a window on community sentiment surrounding one of the area's largest employers and its far-reaching impacts on Cook County and the North Shore.
Though the agency is looking for feedback specifically on its environmental review, many longtime Lutsen skiers, area residents and local property owners have written in with general support for the project's economic impact — or opposition to the expansion's environmental costs.
The comment period for the draft environmental impact statement, which was set to end Monday, has been extended to Dec. 9.
Once the comment period closes, the Forest Service will compile a final environmental impact statement, select a project option — no expansion, Lutsen's proposal or Forest Service-modified plans — and either grant or deny the special use permit the company needs.
Many ski areas in Western states operate in part or entirely on public land through special use permits, but project opponents say Minnesota's rare terrain should be protected.
"This is a very limited resource, there's nothing like Moose Mountain anywhere in Minnesota or in the Midwest," said Scoles with the Superior Highland Backcountry advocacy group, which completed its own study on growing backcountry as opposed to lift-served skiing at Lutsen. . . .
Read the article at the Strib.
Stay dry and warm. We'll catch up on more environmental and natural research stories in the coming week.
Photo: One of the fragments of native prairie in Minnesota, McLeod County's Schaefer Prairie Reserve, managed by the Nature Conservancy. Photo via Minnesota Seasons.
Photo: The Mortensen cabin on Poplar Lake. We were able to find a photo of the lake home through looking into county property records, county documents and a realtor site. We're not interested in doxing the Mortensens, so we're not linking to the sources.
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