Meanwhile, Westrom had spent meeting after meeting airing the complaints of deer and elk farmers over alleged losses from Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) related movement bans and objections to concurrent authority over the farms by the Board of Animal Health and the Department of Natural Resources.
Senators on a state finance committee on Tuesday, March 22, pulled from a $10 million drought relief bill funding specifically for deer farmers, likely smoothing the plan's path through the Capitol.
Sen. Torrey Westrom, R-Elbow Lake, initially proposed and another committee moved forward $500,000 specifically for deer farmers affected by extreme drought conditions last year. The provision drew opposition from Democrats who control the Minnesota House of Representatives and threatened to derail the bill in that chamber.
Westrom said he'd dropped that piece after hearing concerns about the funding. And he amended the bill to include $7 million worth of grants for specialty crop farmers and ranchers in the areas of the state hit hardest, as well as $1.5 million in loans to be administered through the Rural Finance Authority.
“In most cases, this is going to be just a fraction of the real cost but a significant help to maybe get through a couple more weeks or a couple more months of paying feed bills that are maybe behind,” Westrom said. . . .
About time.
Ferguson continues:
The changes approved Tuesday help to more closely align it with one passed through the House earlier this month. Democratic leaders in that chamber added another $13 million to replace trees and seedlings that dried out amid the drought and to set up local water infrastructure.
Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen on Tuesday said he appreciated lawmakers' quick action in getting a bill through the Capitol. He said it could take four to six weeks after it becomes law to start accepting applications.
“The sooner we can do that, I really feel strongly that we can help farmers pay a bill or two," he said.
The bill moves next to a Senate floor vote and, if approved there, lawmakers from both chambers could convene to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Gov. Tim Walz has said he supports the aid bill.
Photo: Drought conditions in Minnesota. Via Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
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A hotel proprietor in Rapid City who promised to no longer allow Native Americans to rent rooms or use the hotel's restaurant is facing a backlash.
In the now-deleted social media posts, Grand Gateway Hotel owner Connie Uhre offered a special rate to "Rancher and Travelers" but vowed to ban Native Americans on her property following a shooting at her hotel.
Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender on Monday, March 21, shared screen-grabs Uhre's posts.
"In addition to blaming the mayor, police chief, sheriff, candidate for sheriff and the court system, a local hotel bans all Native Americans for a shooting a few days ago on hotel property," wrote Allender, a former police chief. "Neither the shooting or Grand Gateway's response to it reflect our community values." . . .
In addition to apparently trying to ban Native Americans from her hotel, Uhre also alleged without proof that a grant from a Chicago-based nonprofit to combat racial disparities in the criminal justice system had perpetuated violence in the city.
"Rapid City has gone to Hell since the City has been accepting all the Free Money with strings attached," Uhre wrote about the MacArthur Foundation.
The foundation forged a partnership with Pennington County — not Rapid City — to provide $3.5 million to address overcrowding, recidivism, and disproportionate arrests of Indigenous residents in the western South Dakota county. . .
The Bluestem Prairie blog is reporting this afternoon that State Representative Tina Mulally is among a group of people and organizations sponsoring Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack at an event in Rapid City next week. . .
Interestingly, In addition to State Rep. Mulally, former State Rep. Chip Campbell and the Custer County Sheriff sponsoring the controversial speaker, the flyer claims event sponsorship of the event by Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City and Outback Steakhouse.
. . .In his response to Mayor Allender last July, Grand Gateway owner Nick Uhre suggested the MacArthur money is somehow a leftist plot to kill us all with “critical race theory”:
Is Critical Race Theory now in use in our local Criminal Justice System? Is it because of the policies dictated by grants received by the County from the private non-profit MacArthur Foundation?
…MacArthur is clearly a leftist agenda-driven organization. Is their vision of “Justice Reform” what the citizens of Rapid City want? Is it beneficial to the well-being of our community? MacArthur is not accountable to the voters, yet they are driving policy decisions in our county criminal justice system. How will MacArthur leverage their Safety and Justice Challenge Network in the future? Since the advent of MacArthur’s influence on local law enforcement, we’ve seen a huge rise in vagrancy, property crime rates have skyrocketed, violent crime and murders like the brutal killing of Reta McGovern in her own home are far more common.
Criminals are emboldened to offend because they are more aware of the arrest restrictions and racial quotas imposed on law enforcement than the average citizens who become their victims [Nick Uhre, “Racial Quotas in Law Enforcement Are Emboldening Offenders,” Rapid City Journal, 2021.07.28].
Uhre is also chairman of Concerned Businesses of Rapid City, Inc., a non-profit he organized on February 1, 2021, with Outback Steakhouse proprietor Jasmine Stangle and hail repairman Duane Langenfeld. Perhaps the other concerned businesses that are part of this non-profit should express concern to their chairman and his family that openly declaring a ban on Indians isn’t good for anyone’s business in Rapid City… except the civil rights lawyers who may rain fire on the Grand Gateway and Cheers shortly.
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Another fine article from South Dakota News Watch. We've attended field trips on the upper Minnesota River organized by CURE and are happy to learn of concern here in South Dakota for these humble but helpful river dwellers.
Nestled in the silt, sand or fine gravel of South Dakota’s rivers and streams live some of the state’s least appreciated yet most ecologically important creatures — freshwater mussels.
Their names spark the imagination: Fatmucket, White Heelsplitter, Higgins Eye, Round Pigtoe, Giant Floater, Plain Pocketbook, Fawnsfoot.
Usually hidden beneath the water’s surface, mussels do the quiet work of filtering water in South Dakota’s rivers and streams, helping other aquatic species such as fish thrive. They are a natural food source for otters, ducks, herons and fish.
Many species of these critical members of freshwater ecosystems may be vanishing within South Dakota. Recent surveys of the state’s 14 major river basins — comprising the first comprehensive assessment of living mussel species and their population sizes in South Dakota rivers and streams — found only 17 of the 36 species once known to live in state waters, a 53% decline.
The decline of freshwater mussel populations in waterways in South Dakota and across North America is a major concern on several environmental levels.
Freshwater mussels are powerful filter feeders, consuming phytoplankton, algae and even bacteria from rivers and streams while also filtering out particles at rates measured in gallons per day. At least one mussel species can clear lake water of significant amounts of E. coli, a bacteria that can cause serious illness in humans. Research continues into their promising abilities to ‘treat’ manmade contaminants.
Mussels have not been studied as intensively as other animal groups and much remains to be known about them. “Despite uncertainty about the precise value of freshwater mussels, it is clear that they have substantial value to humans, possible many millions of dollars in individual ecosystems, which should be taken into account in environmental decision making,” wrote David L. Strayer, a freshwater ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in his article, “What are freshwater mussels worth?”
Experts say the reduction in mussel populations in South Dakota waterways is further evidence of largely poor water quality in a state where 78% of South Dakota stream-miles and 85% of lake acres are considered “impaired” in some way.
Harm to mussels done by humans
Freshwater mussels have been on the decline for two centuries — all for reasons related to the actions of man.
In the late 1800s and for several decades, mussels were harvested for their pearls and shells from South Dakota waters, including the James and Big Sioux rivers. Tuscan, located four miles southwest of Menno, was a center of mussel harvesting, according to a 2009 article in South Dakota Magazine.
Mussels were boiled to open their shells and remove the meat. While some people ate the mussel meat, often it was fed to pigs, or used as catfish bait if rotten. Boxcars filled with tons of shells were shipped by rail to Iowa factories to be made into iridescent buttons. Plastic replaced shell for buttons in the 1950s.
South Dakota’s mussel populations have yet to recover from that decimation.
After over-harvesting came land-use changes that altered water quality and stream bed stability, further harming mussel populations.
Accelerating land-use changes — often tied to expansion of agriculture — lead to soil runoff, sedimentation and non-point pollution from manure, fertilizer and pesticides. Water clouded with clay, silt and other particles, including algae, can affect the fish hosts mussels rely on to reproduce. Increased sediment smothers mussels. Pesticides can poison them. Fertilizer runoff causes excessive algae growth that depletes oxygen.
Thirty-six percent of tested water in South Dakota rivers and streams has excessive amounts of total suspended solids, according to the 2020 South Dakota Integrated Report for Surface Water Quality Assessment prepared by the state. Suspended solids, which can include soil particles, can increase turbidity and water temperatures, decrease oxygen levels and generally degrade conditions for fish and other aquatic life.
“Similar to previous reporting periods, nonsupport for fishery/aquatic life uses was caused primarily by total suspended solids from agricultural non-point sources and natural origin,” the report states. “Non-point source pollution is the most serious and pervasive threat to the water quality of South Dakota’s waters.”
The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Department of Game, Fish and Parks have worked for decades with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, farmers, ranchers and other organizations to improve water quality in South Dakota’s rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs.
Farming and ranching organizations say that their members are good stewards of the land on behalf of future generations, and that those who work the land are the “original environmentalists.” Many South Dakota landowners participate in conservation efforts, such as the reduction of sediment flowing from the Bad River basin into the Missouri River. But state data tell a story of high levels of agricultural pollution of surface waters.
“While substantial progress has been made toward reducing pollution from point sources such as wastewater and industrial plants after the passage and implementation of the [1972] Clean Water Act, non-point source pollution remains an entrenched problem. NPS pollution is unregulated as agricultural activities are exempt from most of the provisions of the Clean Water Act,” the state report says. As of 2019, 78% of assessed stream-miles were impaired. E. coli, a bacteria living in livestock and wildlife feces, and total suspended solids, which often include materials from soil erosion, were the contaminants in first and second places.
The DANR did not respond when asked in an email if the agency has specific numeric goals for reducing the percentage of impaired waters in South Dakota or reducing the percentage of total suspended solids within specific timeframes.
“The technical and financial assistance currently available is not sufficient to solve all NPS pollution issues in the state. Landowners need to understand the non-point source issues and how their activities contribute to NPS pollution. Educating the public about NPS pollution issues may prompt landowners to voluntarily implement activities that control NPS pollution. The continuation of existing activities coupled with the addition of innovative new programs may reduce non-point source pollution in South Dakota,” the state report says.
After poor water quality come physical barriers. Thousands of impoundments on tributaries restrict the natural volume and velocity of water that mussels need to reproduce. “Even dams as low as 1 meter in height have been found to inhibit the distribution of mussels as they can create unnatural sedimentation and flow regimes as well as cause barriers to fish host locality and movement, thus inhibiting the ability for successful mussel recruitment,” Faltys writes.
Perched culverts and other blockages to mussel larvae movement need to be adjusted so that mussel larvae and host fish can move beyond short stream segments. “It’s important to maintain that connectivity,” says Rich Biske, resilient waters director for the Nature Conservancy in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.
The increasing spread of invasive zebra mussels add to the threats to native mussels as the invaders move up South Dakota’s navigable waterways and into lakes. These non-native, proliferating mussels prefer attaching to live mussels over empty shells or stones. Many zebra mussels can team up to keep a single native mussel from opening up to feed or reproduce. In great numbers, they deplete the phytoplankton native mussels need for food.
Studies find evidence of clear declines
Measuring and cataloging the mussel population in South Dakota waterways was an arduous and time-consuming but critically important process that is necessary to understand where mussels exist and why they are dying off.
During 2014 and 2015, Kaylee Faltys and her research team waded in streams, feeling the muck for mussels with their bare hands at 202 sites within the 14 major river basins across the state. Faltys earned her master’s degree in biology at South Dakota State University by leading the first statewide assessment of mussel species and their populations.
Researchers did not wear gloves as they felt stream bottoms with their hands, reaching as deep as four inches into silt. “Snapping turtles definitely were a concern. At one of the sites we even had carp jumping out of the water at us,” Faltys said.
Besides, gloves would get in the way. “Once you feel a mussel, you know it’s a mussel. Whereas if you have gloves on, it could just be a rock.”
The more exciting scientific work started when they pulled mussels out of the water.
“When we did find mussels … we were pretty thrilled when we found them,” Faltys said, noting that mussels were found at only 44 of the 202 sites searched.
The work involved identifying the species, measuring the mussel’s dimensions, photographing it and returning the animal to its original location, right-side up. “We made sure not to put them upside-down or they’d suffocate,” she says. “We would actually go put them back in the sediment.”
When a mussel species was abundant in an area, an individual mussel could be selected for on-campus research. This mussel would be separated from its shell and preserved in ethanol.
Although they did not go to river or stream segments too deep to wade, the shallower waters where they looked were tributaries to those deep waters and reasonable places to search. Searching in deeper waters wouldn’t have provided additional species and would have required scuba diving equipment and multiple licenses, she says.
After visiting the 202 sites, Faltys produced a grim tally: only 15 species of 36 anticipated species were found, 11 as live specimens and four in the form of recently used whole or half-shells. Of the 202 survey sites, only 91 total sites had live or empty-shell evidence of mussels. No evidence of mussels was found at 111 of the sites, more than half.
A silver lining appeared later in 2016, when Faltys and her colleagues separately assessed population sizes at the 44 locations with living mussels. A live Spike mussel and a half-shell of the Ellipse mussel were discovered, the first time each species has been found in South Dakota. Two additional known native species also were found in 2016: a Plain Pocketbook and a Fawnsfoot, bringing the study total to 17 out of 36.
Faltys made a point in 2016 of surveying seven locations previously surveyed by other researchers between 1975 and 2005. She found a decline in the number of the mussel species at five sites. The number of species increased at the sixth site and stayed the same at the seventh.
Faltys also found a decline of overall species richness or diversity. About 63% of the mussels found in the statewide survey were Giant Floaters and 10% were White Heelsplitters. Both species have glochidia, or baby mussels, that can survive in impounded waters and attach to any fish. This indicated that other species with more specific habitat requirements and fish hosts may be severely reduced in numbers or have vanished from South Dakota.
“This stark decline in species richness may suggest that habitat conditions in South Dakotan streams and rivers are degrading, possibly due to a variety of factors such as land-use changes, impoundments, habitat destruction and host fish availability,” she said.
A 2019 study by Katherine Wollman, an SDSU master’s student in wildlife and fisheries science, checked freshwater mussel populations in 116 East River lakes and reservoirs, finding just seven native species and two invasive ones, the zebra mussel and Asian clam.
Like Faltys’ study of rivers and streams, the predominant species at 76% of specimens found,was the widely adaptable Giant Floater.
“They’re hardy,” Faltys says of Giant Floaters. “They’re the most generalist species you’ll find. We’d find those in some of the nastiest streams. You would never imagine mussels would be in there. They just live anywhere, thankfully.”
Faltys’ and Wollman’s studies were funded by the Game, Fish and Parks Department and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also helped fund Faltys’ study.
Freshwater mussels species vulnerable to decline
Freshwater mussels (Latin name Bivalvia: Unionidae) are ancient creatures, believed to have originated in East and Southeast Asia during the Jurassic period and to have expanded into North America in the Cretaceous, when dinosaurs still roamed the continent.
While saltwater mussels are considered a seafood delicacy, freshwater mussels are not so tasty. One critic has compared their flavor to dirt.
Scientists think the ancestors of today’s mussels moved into freshwater rivers and streams created as the last glacier scoured eastern South Dakota 10,000 years ago, dragging mussels from warmer waters upstream. Glaciation gave us the diagonal form of today’s Missouri River, the James River basin, and our small lakes in the far northeastern part of the state. West River was not similarly glaciated, and freshwater mussel species are fewer.
The U.S. and Canada have the most diverse populations of freshwater mussel species in the world, with 301 total species, according to NatureServe Explorer, an online biodiversity database. But a January 2021 NatureServe analysis shows 63% of freshwater mussel species are vulnerable, imperiled or critically imperiled, second only to freshwater snails. In comparison, 40% of amphibian, 34% of freshwater and anadromous fish, 17% of mammal and 13% of bird species are at similar risk. As of January 2022, NatureServe listed 25 North American freshwater mussels as extinct, with eight declared gone from the earth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last October.
Freshwater mussels reproduce in complex ways, which in turn complicates their conservation. Because they anchor themselves in the substrate, they require a moving host and usually flowing water to genetically diversify and carry larvae away to new locations.
This is generally accomplished by a male mussel releasing sperm into moving water; these are taken up by a nearby female through an intake siphon. The female broods fertilized eggs in her gills until they mature to microscopic glochidia. Glochidia are released from her gills and must attach to the fins or gills of fish.
Some mussel species will settle for any fish, while others only reproduce with the help of a specific species. If glochidia attach to the wrong fish, that fish’s immune system kills the baby mussel. After glochidia hitch a ride on an appropriate fish, they stay attached for a few weeks to several months, then drop off. They must alight on suitable substrate to burrow and begin growing in their new homes. In the right location and conditions, some species of freshwater mussels can live for more than 100 years.
Conditions in North America hundreds of years ago were ideal for the creation of large and concentrated assemblages of mussels: adequate food, only natural sedimentation and relatively stable stream beds. Miles-long assemblages of multiple species of mussels were created, paving river bottoms like cobblestones. Their combined consumption of phytoplankton, algae, bacteria, fine and dissolved organic materials and compounds kept freshwater streams clear and contributed to a natural balance that benefitted fish and other aquatic species.
In South Dakota, the most diverse and abundant assemblages were and continue to be east of the Missouri River. Those conditions changed with the arrival of European settlers and the use of most of South Dakota’s land to cultivate row crops and raise livestock.
Extinction a real potential outcome
The Higgins Eye, Winged Mapleleaf and Scaleshell are native mussels listed as federally endangered, meaning they are endangered throughout the nation. None of these was found in Faltys’ surveys of South Dakota waterways. The Winged Mapleleaf and Mapleleaf are two distinct species.
The latest state GFP Wildlife Action Plan lists the Higgins Eye and Scaleshell as in need of conservation but not as threatened or endangered within state borders. The Creek Heelsplitter, Elktoe, Hickorynut, Mapleleaf, Pimpleback, Rock Pocketbook and Yellow Sandshell mussels also are listed by the state as in need of conservation.
The state list’s omission is puzzling. A study by Anthony Ricciardi and Joseph B. Rasmussen, published more than 20 years ago in Conservation Biology, stated that no other group of North American land, marine or freshwater animals is going extinct as fast as mussels.
“This [overall decline in freshwater fauna] is compelling evidence that North American freshwater biodiversity is diminishing as rapidly as that of some of the most stressed terrestrial ecosystems [tropical rainforests]. Although larger absolute numbers of species are at risk in the tropics, the elimination of even a few species in temperate habitats can promote further extinctions and disrupt ecosystem functioning,” the authors wrote.
The state Wildlife Action Plan does categorize eight of the nine mussels in need of conservation as “critically imperiled” and “especially vulnerable to extinction.” The ninth, Mapleleaf, is “imperiled because of rarity” and “very vulnerable to extinction.” Those categorizations mean South Dakota’s “conservation goal is to improve the species’ abundance and distribution,” the plan says.
Of these nine mussels, Faltys found only the Mapleleaf.
In contrast, the state lists five fish as endangered and four more as threatened. The endangered fish are the banded killfish, blacknose shiner, finescale dace, pallid sturgeon and sicklefin chub. The state-listed threatened fish are the longnose sucker, northern pearl dace, northern redbelly dace and sturgeon chub. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the pallid sturgeon and Topeka shiner as endangered, and the shovelnose sturgeon as threatened.
Of the state-listed endangered or threatened fish species, at least five inhabit clear streams that also are mussels’ natural habitat: the blacknose shiner, finescale dace, longnose sucker, northern pearl dace, and northern redbelly dace. Nine additional fish are listed as being between extremely rare or vulnerable to extinction and very rare, found abundantly in only some locations or vulnerable to extinction.
In the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission’s 2020 biennial review of the threatened and endangered species list, mussels are mentioned only once, under State Wildlife Grant Accomplishments, in a 2008 study that sampled Minnesota River tributaries in South Dakota for their compositions of fish, mussel and other aquatic invertebrate species, with an emphasis on identifying rare species.
Experts: more action needed to protect mussels
Since Faltys’ study was published, the state’s only specific action to protect freshwater mussels has been a 2020 state administrative rule that bans commercial and noncommercial harvesting of freshwater mussels. State regulations allow people to pick up empty mussel shells, but not those of endangered or threatened species.
Chelsey Pasbrig, a GFP aquatic biologist, said in an email that her agency is concerned about the decline of freshwater mussel populations in South Dakota, and it is aware they are among the most endangered animals in North America.
“GFP has begun collaborations with other states to explore the option for augmenting populations with propagated individuals; however, this is in its infancy” she wrote. “Kaylee Faltys’ study provided us a snapshot of the status of freshwater mussels in South Dakota; however, future research and monitoring is likely needed.”
Pasbrig added that no current mussel monitoring efforts are underway in South Dakota.
“Unfortunately, the professor at SDSU who could assist with this expertise is since retired, therefore future monitoring and research efforts have not continued at this time. There are endless questions that exist regarding the status of freshwater mussels in S.D. and across the country; however, limited resources both financially and staffing exist,” she wrote.
Since at least 1985, the GFP also has sponsored mussel research by a retired University of Sioux Falls faculty member and a retired departmental wildlife biologist, among others.
Pasbrig says the department currently addresses water quality issues that may be contributing to decreased mussel abundance and diversity through the Conservation Reserve Program, the James River and Big Sioux River Conservation Reserve Enhancement programs, the EPA 319 non-point source watershed projects and riparian buffer programs. The state agency also recently expanded its private lands habitat program and aquatic habitat program, which partner with landowners and other conservation entities to improve habitat, Pasbrig says.
GFP did not respond to follow-up questions asking for figures on the net numbers of additional landowners and acres in the expanded private lands habitat and aquatic habitat programs. A request for the number of stream miles of riparian buffers created in the last several years also was not answered, but previous reporting by News Watch has showed that state efforts to encourage implementation of agricultural buffer strips has been extremely slow to catch on.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on its role in monitoring and protecting freshwater mussels in South Dakota at this time.
Faltys and others have called for further research and monitoring of freshwater mussel populations in South Dakota.
“Our research … suggests that the statewide unionid structure is changing quickly, thus adequate conservation strategies are needed for the future survival of this group,” Faltys said.
Biske, of the Nature Conservancy, agrees that “more can be done” in South Dakota to monitor and conserve existing freshwater mussel populations
But under the two major federal acts pertaining to water, the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, individual and groups of South Dakotans do not have the right to take legal action against ag-related nonpoint source polluters, says David Ganje an Aberdeen native who practices natural resource and commercial law in South Dakota.
However, when endangered species are involved, government entities have the right to intervene to protect the endangered species, although this is rarely done, he said.
Individual states do have the power to regulate non-point source pollution and protect wildlife, should their policymakers choose to do so. South Dakota law states that both South Dakota’s waters and wildlife are the property of all South Dakota residents.
Ganje points to Wisconsin as a state that manages non-point source pollution well, with a published 5-year, 110-page plan. Wisconsin’s approach results in better surface water quality, despite intensive farming and industrial activity. Its most recent report states that 83% of its waters are healthy, 13% are impaired and 4% are being restored. South Dakota’s corresponding numbers are almost reversed:78% of stream-miles are impaired in some way, while only 22% are healthy. Lake acres are 85% impaired and only 9% healthy.
Wisconsin also has a strategy to reduce phosphorus and nitrogen pollution from fertilizer applications.
“If over time those parties in society [agricultural, manufacturing, construction industries] are put in the limelight, invited to meetings, having the DENR/DANR sit down with them and say ‘What can we do as a group? What should we do? These numbers are getting worse and worse and worse.’ You know, there might even be some press that shows up to some of those meetings. That’s how you change this stuff,” Ganje said.
The Nature Conservancy, which works to conserve 900,000 acres in South Dakota and the two neighboring states, is looking at how it can help streams in good condition stay that way by promoting soil-healthy agricultural practices such as no-till, reduced till, cover crops, buffer strips and adding rotations of small grains and hay to fields usually planted with corn or soybeans.
Faltys says options for conservation could include propagating young mussels of existing species and releasing them into streams with small populations, reintroducing species that once lived in certain streams, restoring mussel populations to historic levels and creating easements that would increase buffer zones to reduce sedimentation.
She identified the Big Sioux, James and Minnesota river basins as areas of high mussel diversity that would be optimal sites for mussel conservation. She recommends focusing on the Whetstone River in Roberts and Grant counties, Bios de Sioux River in Roberts County, Medary and Six Mile creeks in Brookings County, Split Rock Creek in Minnehaha County, Shue Creek in Beadle County, Lone Branch Creek in Hutchinson County, Cottonwood Creek in Jackson County and the James River in Hanson County.
Areas Faltys listed as high priorities overlap with South Dakota GFP Aquatic Conservation Opportunity Areas. These areas are diverse aquatic habitats, low in human-caused stressors and have some public ownership.
Standardized surveys of South Dakota freshwater mussel populations should be done, and the public needs to be educated about freshwater mussel conservation, Wollman said. “Expressing why we do not want invasive species, like zebra mussels, is important, but there is currently minimal effort expended to provide information regarding species we are trying to protect.”
One ray of hope for additional funding to protect wildlife in need of conservation is the bipartisan Recovering America’s Wildlife Act of 2021. Pasbrig calls it “a potential game changer for state and tribal wildlife agencies” that would help the agency implement portions of its Wildlife Action Plan for the state’s 104 species of greatest conservation need, including the nine freshwater mussel species.
But U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, expressed hesitation in 2018 about an earlier version of the law, saying he favors additional funding for wildlife preservation but wants to know more about where the money is coming from and where it will go. All three members of the state’s congressional delegation were called in January 2022 and asked for their positions on the recovering wildlife act. Staff members in the office of U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds and Rep. Dusty Johnson responded but did not provide official stances on the act.
“If conservation efforts keep going, I have hope,” Faltys says of mussels’ chances of avoiding extinction in South Dakota. “I think that South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, they do have an awareness of this, and they do want to conserve the species there.”
What the Nature Conservancy advocates in South Dakota is to “ensure we don’t lose those populations that we have,” Biske said. “We can’t afford to lose any more.”
Photo: The Giant Floater is the most common freshwater mussel found in South Dakota waterways, but mussel species overall are on a decline. Photo: Julie Bolding.
Julie Bolding is a freelance writer for South Dakota News Watch. Bolding works as a registered nurse in Sioux Falls and previously worked at the South Dakota Department of Transportation, State Archives and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
Article used with the permission of South Dakota News Watch.
If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, 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.
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Not welcomed--but another scene in Minnesota's ongoing Chronic Wasting Disease tragedy--in a news release from the Minnesota DNR. Via email (the statement is now online):
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is updating its chronic wasting disease response plan after the discovery of a wild white-tailed deer infected with CWD within the city of Grand Rapids. The response plan update will better reflect a statewide approach to disease surveillance, management, control and education.
This is the first time CWD has been detected in wild deer in this deer permit area, so the DNR is also taking immediate steps to understand the prevalence of the disease in wild deer in the Grand Rapids area. The agency will work with local road authorities to collect samples from road-killed deer and is exploring opportunities for targeted culling where it can be performed safely.
“We’ve always looked at CWD as a disease that could impact the entire state, yet implemented disease management actions as needed in each area where CWD was found,” said Kelly Straka, the DNR’s wildlife section manager. “This new discovery doesn’t make CWD a statewide problem, but it does mean we need to take more of a statewide approach.”
While the surveillance outlined in the DNR’s current response plan made this detection possible, the finding of CWD in Grand Rapids highlights the need for an enhanced statewide sampling approach.
The enhanced statewide surveillance will include:
Updating the DNR’s CWD response plan this spring
Investigating options for hunters to use a self-mailing kit for free testing statewide
Expanding the taxidermist network (Partner Sampling Program) statewide
Upgrading and improving current design for self-service stations
The DNR will seek public input as it explores and implements the ideas above and other options for enhanced statewide surveillance.
“The DNR has taken an aggressive approach to managing CWD in Minnesota,” said DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen. “We will continue this strong approach as we address this latest finding and as we update our statewide CWD response plan. The health of Minnesota’s wild deer herd remains a top priority for the DNR.”
There now are eight areas spread across Minnesota, from north to south, where CWD has been found in wild or farmed deer. Despite these detections, the disease remains rare in Minnesota. Fewer than 1% of deer have tested positive for CWD in areas where the disease has consistently been detected during the past five years.
Since 2002, DNR has tested 106,000 deer statewide and 153 have tested positive. Most of those cases occurred in southeastern Minnesota.
The DNR received confirmation of the Grand Rapids CWD infection on March 15. A Grand Rapids resident reported to the DNR in mid-February that an adult doe had died in his backyard. DNR staff collected the carcass and submitted a lymph node sample for CWD testing.
Results of a full necropsy showed the deer died from a collision with a vehicle, not CWD. The deer showed no clinical signs of the disease but final test results confirmed the infection.
Active surveillance for CWD has not occurred in the location where the infected deer was found (deer permit area 179) since 2004. The DNR conducted CWD surveillance to the west and north of Grand Rapids in fall 2021 in DPAs 197, 169, 184 and 110 in response to captive deer infected with CWD on a Beltrami County farm. More than 1,800 samples were tested and CWD was not detected. To the west and south of Grand Rapids, a CWD management zone exists in DPA 604. Surveillance has been ongoing in this area since 2017. Two wild deer detections have been found in the 6,300 deer tested since surveillance began.
More information about CWD and what the DNR is doing to limit disease spread and protect the health of Minnesota’s white-tailed deer is available on the DNR website (mndnr.gov/CWD).
UPDATE On Twitter, University of Minnesota prion researcher Peter Larsen shared an offer of help:
The @UMN_MNPRO team is ready to assist the DNR / state anyway that we can, on both research and outreach fronts. #CWD in urban settings is another layer of concern/ complexity with this disease. https://t.co/uKoLpzJ1N5
Enhanced statewide surveillance will include: * Updating the DNR’s #CWD response plan * Investigating options for hunters to use self-mailing kit for free testing statewide * Expanding the taxidermist sampling network * Upgrading and improving design for self-service stations
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We listened to the Minnesota House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee's hearing of HF4120.
The talk of fresh local food in school lunches brought back unsavory memories of meals that met all of the negative pop images of the food we were served.
It's good to see a program that helps growers and kids.
Seeing a large demand for Farm to School grants, which schools use to purchase food from local farmers, lawmakers could expand the program.
Sponsored by Rep. Todd Lippert (DFL-Northfield), HF4120 would double funding for the grants awarded by the Department of Agriculture and allow child care providers access to them.
The bill was approved 13-0 Monday by the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee and referred to the House Early Childhood Finance and Policy Committee. There is no Senate companion.
The Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Growth, Research and Innovation program would be approved for up to $1.6 million in grants in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. The program currently funds up to $800,000 in annual grants to schools.
Child care providers would also be included in the grant program to purchase fruits, vegetables, meat, grain and dairy from local farmers.
Emily Mehr, senior program administrator with the Agriculture Department, said $741,619 was awarded to 46 schools and districts in fiscal year 2022. The department received 68 applications that totaled just under $1.3 million.
“I think we heard there’s strong demand for this program, for Farm to School grants and that this program is good for local farmers, local economy and for helping get nutritious food for our students,” Lippert said.
John Peterson, owner of Ferndale Market in Cannon Falls, said his farm supplies approximately 75,000 pounds of turkey to Minnesota schools from the grants, which he said equates to about 500,000 meals.
“I think some folks probably suspect that Farm to School is largely a feel-good type project, but trust me when I say there’s real economic development happening here,” Peterson said. “Every single one of those pounds passes not just through our farm, but through one of our processing partners in Marshall, Cannon Falls, Ellendale or St. Paul. Every turkey that we grow ate a pound of feed grown by area farmers and milled in our customer net of Minnesota feed mills. Each step of our farming, processing and distribution reinvests in our local economy. The dollars stay here rather than flowing to an out of state corporate office.”
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On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee heard several bills related to Minnesota's captive cervidae industry--and comments about the effort to control the Chronic Wasting Disease in both captive and wild herds.
At one point, in the discussion of HF3903, sponsored by Rep. John Burkel, R-Badger, Representative Dale Lueck made a startling claim:
. . . I want to remind the committee, particularly those who have spent some time on the agriculture side and the history of the Board of Animal Health: we had a huge buy out program in Northwest Minnesota for livestock producers that were caught up in the tuberculosis situation when the state lost their TB-free status and we had extreme restrictions on where cattle could move, that type of thing. So please disregard the comment that one of my fellow committee members made about this--there's no precedence for this--yes there is a precedence--and this was--frankly had nothing to do with the tuberculosis in the cattle. We knew how to find it. This was to protect the wil[d?], the whitetail deer.
As you remember, we had for a short time, tuberculosis endemic to the whitetail deer up in the Skime and the four corners area. So we actually bought out livestock producers, asked them to stop, sell their herds, get rid of the homeworks, refrain from that profession, in the interest of protecting the whitetail herd. . .
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube (the video will scroll to Lueck's remarks, begin, then stop. The YouTube of the meeting can be viewed here.
Chronic wasting disease has forced the Department of Natural Resources to impose movement bans on farmed white-tailed deer in Minnesota.
But the bans have impacted possible farm revenue.
HF3903, sponsored by Rep. John Burkel (R-Badger), would appropriate $1 million to the Department of Agriculture to reimburse farmers for expenses and lost revenue due to the temporary movement bans.
Payments of up to $10,000 would be on a first-come, first-served basis. . . .
“Whatever our personal views on deer farms are at the moment, and the oversight and regulation of these farms and what are the best possible solutions to invest in the future of deer farming in Minnesota going forward, I think it’s incumbent upon us to alleviate some of this financial pressure that the state of Minnesota, and particularly the Department of Natural Resources, have forced these small farms to endure,” Burkel said.
The DNR created a temporary movement ban in Douglas County in December 2019 after discovery of chronic wasting disease at a white-tailed deer farm.
Another instance of the fatal, neurological illness was found at a white-tailed deer farm in Beltrami County in May 2021 and led to another ban. This instance received particular attention when it was alleged there was disposal of farmed, disease-contaminated deer carcasses on public lands. This ban included an exception for movement necessary for slaughter.
A discovery of the disease at a white-tailed deer farm in Wisconsin in October 2021, led to another DNR ban on movement except if necessary for slaughter or to transport deer through the state to an area outside of Minnesota. Set to expire on April 11, 2023, the ban was rescinded in December 2021.
“All three times the DNR enacted movement bans was in reaction and response to CWD-positive deer in deer farms within the state or out of the state,” said Robert Gorecki, a regional enforcement manager with the DNR. “I just want to remind the committee that that is the reason why we’re doing that. It isn’t through no fault of anybody, not trying to point anything out to any particular person, but it is in response to the deer farm and the deer farm industry and the movement of potentially CWD-positive deer.”
“Although the testimony is compelling, it would also set a dramatic precedence for compensation for various actions needed to respond to either a pandemic or a disease outbreak,” said Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul). “I don’t think we want to go there.”
That's what Hansen was responding to. We do not know why Lueck was mudding the water. But a look at the state's response to Bovine TB beginning in 2015 shows a much different agenda that what Lueck suggests.
Was Minnesota's Bovine TB eradication effort conduct to protect white-tailed deer?
Did the state of Minnesota only target beef producers after the state's Bovine TB outbreak began in 2005? Doesn't look like it.
The efforts of the swift action by the Board of Animal Health and the Department of Natural Resources weren't to "protect the whitetail herd" or discriminate against cattle producers.
Rather, it was swift and decisive action to eliminate the disease itself.
The cattle herds were bought out by the Board of Animal Health--after the Minnesota legislature passed a law funding the buyout--while the Department of Natural Resources conducted "aggressive disease management actions designed to eliminate as many deer as possible from a 164-square-mile disease management zone."
We have to wonder whether the spread of CWD in Minnesota would have been deterred had the state acted with as much alacrity--rather than embracing the "poor deer farmers" narrative.
Minnesota's disease management work set an international example on how to successfully respond to, manage and control a disease outbreak that significantly impacted wildlife and domestic cattle.
In a phone interview, Minnesota State Veterinarian Beth Thompson agreed that the swift action to reduce both cattle and wild deer populations at the time were efficacious in stamping out Bovine TB. She cited the current situation of Bovine TB in the State of Michigan as a counter example.
We took a look at that--and it doesn't seem good for cattle farmers or deer, wild or captive. In February, Michigan Live reported in Bovine TB testing of wild deer wraps up after disease found at Michigan cervid farms. Michigan has a long-running bovine TB zone in the northeast Lower Peninsula, where infected wild deer are common. The challenge for regulators and farmers has been to keep the sickened free-ranging deer from infecting livestock animals, whether cattle or deer, and vice versa. Read the latest report here.
Eight years of monitoring and aggressive management of wild deer allowed DNR's wildlife health program to accomplish what many believed was not possible: effectively eliminate bovine tuberculosis in wild deer by reducing the disease's incidence to an undetectable level.
In 2005, bovine TB was first discovered in area cattle operations and wild deer near Skime in northwestern Minnesota. The discovery led to aggressive disease management actions designed to eliminate as many deer as possible from a 164-square-mile disease management zone. Reducing the area's deer population as close to zero as possible was necessary to control disease transmission to other deer and area livestock.
DNR halted sampling of hunter-harvested deer for the disease after the 2012 season, which marked the third consecutive year that no deer tested positive for bovine TB. Conservative deer hunting regulations were implemented in following years to rebuild the area's deer population.
Minnesota's disease management work set an international example on how to successfully respond to, manage and control a disease outbreak that significantly impacted wildlife and domestic cattle.
Bovine TB is a progressive, chronic bacterial disease that affects primarily cattle, but also deer. The disease compromises the immune system and can lead to death from related causes.
If left unchecked, the disease likely would have spread and established itself within the deer population. The result would have been a permanent risk of continuous deer-to-deer or deer-to-livestock transmission of the bovine TB in an ever-enlarging area.
Were beef producers affected? For sure, the Board of Animal Health only offered contracts to beef producers, while the DNR reduced the wild deer herd inside the zone.
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health says 6,800 cattle will be slaughtered or removed from a region in the northwestern part of the state that has been infected with bovine tuberculosis.
The agency says it received 45 buyout contracts from cattle producers who will get $500 per animal to slaughter their herd, plus $75 annually for each animal until the area regains its TB-free status.
The cattle must be slaughtered or removed from the area by the end of January. Those that are removed must meet specific testing requirements.
Assistant Agriculture Commissioner Joe Martin says the buyout is a "significant step" toward eradicating bovine TB from the area. . . .
How can deer farmers recover losses?
Moreover, the overall claim that deer farmers currently have no means of being renumerated from the consequences of fighting CWD seems incorrect.
In fact, a federal program exists--and has been used in the state of Minnesota; moreover, this tool appears to pay deer farmers who enroll the USDA’s livestock indemnification program are compensated by the value of each infected animal, rather than a flat $500 payment beef producers.
American taxpayers gave a total of more than $510,000 to deer farmers in Minnesota and Wisconsin to wipe out captive herds infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD) in 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to records released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The expense increased each year, growing to $270,956 last year. The Star Tribune obtained the payment data under the Freedom of Information Act, but the USDA declined to detail the cases or identify who received the money.
According to the data, Minnesota deer farmers received $93,616 in 2017, $20,195 in 2018 and $128,926 last year — the largest sum for either state in the three-year period. Deer farms in Wisconsin collected a total of $270,115 under the federal indemnity program for captive deer and elk over the same three years, records show. (There were no buyouts in Wisconsin in 2017.)
Former deer farmer Bruce Hoseck of Winona, Minn., declined to say how much money he received from the USDA in exchange for depopulating his herd in 2018. CWD was discovered inside his enclosure during mandated testing of a deceased 3-year-old buck in November 2017. In December of that year, a second deer carcass at the farm tested positive for the disease.
Hoseck said he joined the USDA’s livestock indemnification program in 2018 at the urging of state officials and because he was nearing retirement. By accepting money from the agency, he agreed to have his small herd of white-tailed deer killed and tested for CWD. All seven deer remaining in Hoseck’s herd tested positive for the disease and the state Department of Natural Resources blamed Hoseck’s farm for spreading CWD to wild deer outside his fence.
Hoseck said he was impressed with the USDA’s valuation process — assigning buyout values for each individual deer. Antler size and pedigree were two notable factors in the appraisals, he said.
“I was satisfied with what they offered,” Hoseck said. “There were no negotiations.”
John Zanmiller, a lobbyist and spokesman for Whitetail Blufflands Association, a deer hunting group in southeastern Minnesota, said the USDA herd buyout program for infected deer farms is “like a dose of nasty medicine.”
For management of CWD, he said, it’s critical to kill captive deer herds infected with the disease. But some hunters wonder why the expense falls to taxpayers, Zanmiller said.
“Where’s the deer farmer’s contribution?” Zanmiller asked. “The buyouts promote the idea of private wealth at public expense.” ...
It's noteworthy that the captive deer are appraised using a much different system than the Board of Animal Health used for purchasing herds back in the Bovine TB clean up.
We were sent a copy of the buyout contract by the Board of Animal Health:
Representative Lueck mentions the flat fee later in the hearing.
A blast from the past about deer farms
Perhaps one of the most ironic items in the hearing is Heintzeman going on and on about Democrats harboring ill will toward deer farmers--with Tim Miller riding his conspiracy notion that there are those among Minnesotans who want to ban all livestock farming. Back in October 2021, we looked at that malarky in State rep Tim Miller: MN state public officials beholden to radical anti-livestock enviro groups. We discovered that Hansen, for example, works with southeastern Minnesota Amish livestock producers to sell their meats. Clearly a threatto agricutlure.
All Republicanshave ever heard from DFLers is regulation, regulation, regulation, which sounds like a rote campaign slogan. We're not so sure a lack of regulations dealing with the farming industry is so noble, given the government funding available to farmers.
But Heintzeman's notion of buying out deer farms isn't new--as much as he accuses DFLers of being solely obsessed with single-minded about heavy-handed regulations.
In 2018, Hansen and Roseville DFLer Jamie Becker Finn did introduce HF4447--never got a hearing--which included voluntary deer farm buyout language:
Sec. 6. VOLUNTARY HERD BUYOUT; APPROPRIATION. $....... in fiscal year 2019 is appropriated from the general fund to the Board of Animal Health to offer a herd buyout payment to the owner of each herd of deer registered under Minnesota Statutes, section 35.155. The board must pay no more than $....... per animal, with each animal disposed of as determined by the board. By October 1, 2018, an owner must accept or decline the buyout offered by the board under this section. A participating owner must sign a contract with the board certifying that the owner will not have or allow any wild or farmed Cervidae to be located on the premises for at least ..... months and must record a corresponding deed restriction with the county recorder or registrar of titles. A participating owner who violates the buyout contract must repay all money received under this section and is subject to appropriate penalties under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 35. For purposes of this section, "deer" means white-tailed, red, fallow, mule, Sitka, and any other species of deer farmed in Minnesota.
$....... in fiscal year 2023 is appropriated from the general fund to the commissioner of agriculture to offer a buyout payment to the owners of farmed white-tailed deer registered under Minnesota Statutes, section 35.155. The commissioner must establish buyout payment amounts and criteria, with each animal disposed of as determined by the Board of Animal Health. Owners have until October 1, 2022, to accept the buyout offered by the commissioner under this section. A participating owner who subsequently possesses farmed white-tailed deer or otherwise violates the buyout contract must repay all money received under this section and is subject to appropriate penalties under Minnesota Statutes, chapter 35. This is a onetime appropriation.
The differences might seem different-- but they are significant. The Hansen bill keeps the buy-out under the oversight of the BAH, while Heintzeman drags the Minnesota Department of Agricuulture into the mix. While leaving the payment system more flexible, Heintzeman's language is also restricted to just one species, the white-tailed deer.
We do wonder, however, why Heintzeman spent time on anti-DFL partisan screeds, rather than mentioning Hansen's earlier legislation. However, since the bill was never heard in any committee, perhaps he missed it. In 2018, the conservationist, farmer and hunter released this Statement: Rep. Rick Hansen Unveils Plan for Voluntary, White-Tail Deer Farm Buyout:
“Chronic Wasting Disease has been a slow moving, persistent problem in Minnesota and elsewhere around our country. However, its accelerating presence in the captive and wild whitetail herd is a threat to our environment and economy. It is increasingly clear that we need to take every step we can to prevent the spread of this horrible disease. With the unknowns of this disease, preventing expansion of infected deer throughout is not only prudent, but necessary. By offering deer farmers, a voluntary option, a fair price for deer, we can reduce risk and benefit our state. Minnesotans expect us to take every action we can to stop Chronic Wasting Disease and this is one step in delivering that for them.”
About those deer farmers
To listen to the emotional testimony of the deer farmers on the Burkel bill, you'd think the industry is in full compliance with all the rules they're supposed to follow. Those who wonder if there's another side to that story might review the 2018 Office of the Legislative Auditor's report Board of Animal Health’s Oversight of Deer and Elk Farms.
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While we sneezed under the influence of a spring allergy, Keloland took a look at public comments to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission about Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline. SCS would capture CO2 at cooperating ethanol plants, compress it and transport it through a system of pipelines to North Dakota.
So far, it’s been mostly negative comments on one of the proposed carbon dioxide pipelines that have been shared with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission.
S.D. PUC has received at least 30 public comments on the Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed CO2 pipeline that would travel through South Dakota from Iowa and other states to a C02 burial site in North Dakota.
About 469 miles of the pipeline would travel through South Dakota. It would also travel through parts of Minnesota, and most of Iowa. SCS would capture CO2 at cooperating ethanol plants, compress it and transport it through a pipeline.
The comments on the proposed project are posted on the PUC website.
Comments outline various concerns such as the safety of the material being transported as well as the possibility that a large corporation could take advantage of landowners. Some of those who commented were also concerned that SCS would use eminent domain to take the needed land for the route if a landowner did not sign an easement. . . .
Read the article at Keloland.
UPDATE: March 20
Chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, tweeted a response to this post Saturday evening, a study that points out
Biofuels are included in many proposed strategies to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and limit the magnitude of global warming. The US Renewable Fuel Standard is the world’s largest existing biofuel program, yet despite its prominence, there has been limited empirical assessment of the program’s environmental outcomes. Even without considering likely international land use effects, we find that the production of corn-based ethanol in the United States has failed to meet the policy’s own greenhouse gas emissions targets and negatively affected water quality, the area of land used for conservation, and other ecosystem processes. Our findings suggest that profound advances in technology and policy are still needed to achieve the intended environmental benefits of biofuel production and use.
Read the report at the full report at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, which describes itself in its "About Section":
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), is an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences. The journal is global in scope and submission is open to all researchers worldwide.
I don’t recall Lee Schoenbeck complaining much about pipelines using eminent domain to run Canadian tar sands oil through farmers’ fields. But boy, aim a carbon dioxide pipeline through land belonging to some Catholic sisters, and Lake Kampeska’s best Senator is ready to raise holy heck . . .
Move your pipeline, Summit Carbon Solutions, or you “won’t like the legislation [you’ll] see next year.” Wow—I love it when Lee talks dirty.
Screengrab: The proposed Summit CO2 pipeline, which could capture CO2 from ethanol plants, such Granite Falls Energy LLC in Granite Falls, Minnesota, which would help reduce the ethanol plants' overall carbon footprint. West Central Tribune, via Summit CO2 project.
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We've been thrilled watching flocks of thousands of snow geese flying high over Summit, as smaller flocks of Canada geese return to the Coteau. It certainly was a tonic from watching Minnesota House hearings of bills intended to address the consequences of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
A press release we received from the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department Friday afternoon, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) Detected in South Dakota:
PIERRE, S.D. – The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been detected in both domestic poultry flocks and wild birds in South Dakota.
Avian flu, commonly referred to as bird flu, occurs in all bird populations, especially waterfowl, shorebirds, and domestic fowl.
“The current strain appeared in both Canada geese and snow geese and other waterfowl in January in the eastern U.S and Canada,” said South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) senior waterfowl biologist, Rocco Murano. “Detections have now been found throughout the Atlantic, Central and Mississippi flyways.”
Avian flu is very similar to the seasonal flu that occurs within human populations Murano explained.
“This particular strain appears to be more severe in that it impacts wild birds, and more transmissible among these wild bird populations. With the spring migration, large numbers of birds are mixing together and moving across the landscape. The good news is that like the human flu, as the weather gets warmer, the virus is less present,” Murano said.
South Dakota has seen avian bird flu in 2008 and 2015, but wild bird mortality did not occur in those outbreaks. Although this strain seems to be more present in wild birds, mortality rates should be low and not have any population affects.
Avian flu is rarely transmitted from birds to humans, but precautions should be taken around dead or obviously sick birds.
“At this point, we are asking folks to report sick or dead birds, especially waterfowl,” Murano said.
GFP is asking citizens to report sick or unknown cause of death waterfowl, raptors, water birds or avian scavengers. Look for symptoms of unusual behavior, loss of coordination, or the inability to fly or walk properly. We recommend you avoid handling these sick or dead birds and report them to GFP at WildInfo@state.sd.us or your local conservation officer.
Murano went on to say that snow goose hunters should not worry about the outbreak. Cooking harvested birds to 165 degrees, and making sure to dry all their gear before their next hunting outing are two important takeaways for hunters. Harvested birds must be retrieved from the fields and carcasses properly disposed.
We'll be back Saturday with a fact check about Minnesota's successful effort to eliminate Bovine TB in Northwestern Minnesota after it was discovered among cattle and wild deer in 2005.
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As a child growing up in rural Le Sueur County, I saw tundra swans pass through in spring and fall, but never saw Trumpeter Swans until I was visiting home one spring break. A small flock was resting on an ice floe in one of Lake Emily's bays. I was transfixed.
Trumpeter swans are now a relatively common site on prairie lakes.
Thus I listening with great interest to Thursday's hearing in the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resource Finance and Policy Committee of Chair Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul, HF3774, the Minnesota Swan Protection Act.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the hearing:
Taking another look at lead being used in fishing and hunting and its devastating impacts on native waterfowl, lawmakers could establish the Minnesota Swan Protection Act.
Sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul), HF3774 would create the act designed to protect native swans. The bill would prohibit the use of lead tackle in swan breeding waters, increase penalties for protection of the birds and appropriate money for a lead tackle collection program.
The bill was laid over Thursday by the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee for possible inclusion in an omnibus bill, and to allow time for Hansen to work with committee members on the bill. There is no Senate companion.
“This is an opportunity where we can problem solve together,” Hansen said. “We’ve admired the problem for many, many, many, many, many years. I’m looking at what is possible here, asking for your help to see what we can do. There’s a menu of options here. Let’s see what we can do to get something passed, so we don’t have to be reading or seeing or experiencing these continual losses from lead of these iconic species of swan.”
Two species of native swans – trumpeter and tundra – would be protected under the act. Protection would not be included for mute swans, which are not native to the state.
The bill’s protections would include that “a person who takes, harasses, destroys, buys, sells, possesses, transports, or ships a native swan in violation of the game and fish laws is guilty of a gross misdemeanor.”
The Department of Natural Resources would designate swan breeding waters and increase the restitution value for a tundra swan from $200 to $1,000 and from $1,000 to $2,500 for a trumpeter swan.
But a main focus of the bill revolves around the continued use of lead in fishing and hunting.
“Here at the Minnesota Legislature, we have been at loggerheads about the issue of lead, both in ammunition and in fishing, for a long time,” Hansen said. “We’ve heard testimony throughout this committee about no safe level of lead, but we use lead and we have used lead for a long time.”
Katie Smith, director of ecological and water resources with the DNR, said swans are listed as species of special concern in Minnesota.
Dale Gentry, a conservation manager with Audubon Minnesota, said swans frequently ingest lead fishing tackle and that one piece of lead is enough to kill a bird.
“The impact of lead on our environment and on trumpeter swans is undeniably negative and we know that restricting use of lead can have positive and measurable impacts on bird populations,” Gentry said.
Photo: Trumpeter swans near Monticello.
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When President Joe Biden mentioned the term “burn pits” while discussing health benefits for military veterans during his State of the Union address March 1, many Americans heard of the issue for the first time.
Congress is crafting legislation to assist post-9/11 combat veterans exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits that contractors used to dispose of human waste, chemicals, munitions and other hazardous materials in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For Jerry Somsen of Webster, S.D., who grew up dreaming of being a soldier, and who helped command a South Dakota Army National Guard battalion during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Biden’s words were merely a reminder that the wounds of war can linger, even when their origin is unclear.
The 54-year-old insurance executive started experiencing tremors in his hands a few years after returning from southern Iraq in 2005. The shaking soon spread to both sides of his body and down his legs. Last year, a doctor diagnosed Somsen with Parkinson’s disease, a progressive nervous system disorder, though Somsen has no family history with the disease.
Sitting at his dining room table on a recent evening with his wife Kari, a lawyer who works in Groton, Somsen’s hands shook noticeably as he recounted the neurological tests and other medical appointments that so far have not led to any disability coverage for his illness from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which only recognizes certain conditions as linked to burn pit exposure.
“I didn’t have this when I went over there, and I came out knowing something was wrong,” said Somsen, a Castlewood native and South Dakota State graduate who retired after 23 years of National Guard service in 2009. “I guess you could say we signed up for it, but we didn’t sign up to not be protected once we got back.”
Somsen is one of 16 South Dakotans on a confidential registry of veterans self-reporting symptoms of burn pit exposure, ranging in severity from nasal congestion to lung cancer. The registry is maintained by Burn Pits 360, a non-profit advocacy group that has pushed the VA to develop its own data gathering effort after Congress passed legislation in 2013.
Further action in Washington will be determined through negotiations between a Democrat-favored measure in the House of Representatives and a more modest bipartisan measure that passed unanimously in the Senate. Veterans and their families continue to seek clarity on what the government can provide in terms of treatment and financial support.
“Most veterans understand that this needs to be an evidence-based process,” said U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-South Dakota, said in an interview with News Watch.
Johnson voted against the House bill but supports the Senate effort. “They understand that it takes some time to get the science figured out, but what they don’t like is when political fights or bureaucracy slows down the delivery of the science,” he said.
Back in Webster, as Somsen and his wife look through photographs of his 14 months in Kuwait and Iraq, they lament the frustration of seeing a once-healthy husband and father in the grip of a debilitating disease, with little relief in sight.
“We trust these (veterans) with our lives and with national security,” Kari Somsen said. “But when it comes to him saying, ‘Look I have this issue and I believe it came from Iraq,’ we need to make it so we trust these people a little bit more. They’re not lying. They need help.”
Called to serve in Iraq
Jerry Somsen grew up as one of seven children on a family farm outside Castlewood, S.D., south of Watertown. He joined five of his siblings in attending SDSU, but not before becoming fascinated with the pomp and precision of military service.
“My oldest brother, Lowell, was in the National Guard as an officer,” Somsen recalled. “I went to one of his drills at the armory in Mitchell and decided that I wanted to be that guy.”
Jerry entered the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at SDSU with basic training already completed, wanting to hit the ground running. By the time he graduated in 1990 with a degree in mathematics, he headed to Field Artillery Officers Basic School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where his math background helped him excel.
By the time he earned his master’s degree at SDSU in 1994, Somsen had three children and was going through a divorce while still a member of the National Guard but pondering his path. He took a job at Dakotah Incorporated in Webster in 1997 and met Kari through church, teasing her about her lines in an Easter pageant.
They were married in 2000 and added a daughter to a family that already included three girls. But any semblance of domestic bliss was staggered when Somsen showed up to work on Sept. 11, 2001 and saw the planes hit the World Trade Center.
He was in the South Dakota Army National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 147th Field Artillery. The 1st Battalion was called to action in 2003 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom but never deployed overseas from Fort Sill. “They weren’t needed,” said Somsen. “The war got over too fast.”
The 2nd Battalion deployed later that year with the mission of capturing and destroying enemy ammunition, with Somsen serving as executive officer, second in command. “We didn’t know what our mission was until we got there,” he said. “We pulled our stuff out of snowbanks in South Dakota and had it in Iraq within 36 days.”
They started in Kuwait and then staged at Camp Cedar in southern Iraq, escorting convoys in 130-degree heat, with Wall Drug bumper stickers on their vehicles. It didn’t take long to notice the thick layers of smoke that wafted through the compound from fire pits on the perimeter.
“From the first day we got there, there was smoke everywhere,” said Somsen. “If the wind was right, you’d walk to lunch in it. We just thought they were burning the trash.”
Soldiers slept in vacated Iraqi ammunition bunkers and were exposed to smoke when rockets and landmines were destroyed through demolition. Somsen spent much of his time at command base but traveled to visit these subordinate units.
Asked if it crossed his mind that the fumes were dangerous, he said, “To this day, I wish it would have. The protection of your soldiers is foremost in your mind, so we were more focused on the enemy threat and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Looking back on it, every soldier in our battalion probably spent time in those burn pits or in some kind of smoke that wasn’t good for them.”
‘Can I live until I’m 80?’
Even before Somsen returned home from Iraq in February 2005, he felt like something was wrong. He had periods of nervousness or anxiety that didn’t exist before, though he managed to calm himself down.
The tremors in his right hand and side started after his return and worsened, making it difficult to hold the microphone when he gave a Veterans Day speech in Webster in November 2007. When he showed up at his old high school in Castlewood for a Memorial Day event six months later, he had to hide his hands behind the podium and later made the decision that his public speaking days were over.
Somsen, who was awarded the Bronze Star for his post-9/11 service, was aware of the perils of war. He knew that other veterans were more severely impacted by their time in Iraq, and that some had lost their lives. He downplayed what was happening to him, even to his family, and focused on his job in the Webster office of DakotaCare, where he has worked since 2007.
“On the way back from Iraq, I found out I was going to be battalion commander, which is what I’d been working for basically my whole life,” he said. “I still had a chance to make full colonel. If I mentioned anything (about the tremors), I was afraid that I’d be forced into a medical discharge.”
After trying to keep his command while tremors progressed to both sides of his body and down his legs, Somsen made the decision to retire in 2009 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. His next battlefield occurred back home and took the form of hospital corridors and exam rooms after applying for disability, joining a legion of fellow soldiers seeking relief from the government.
According to VA press secretary Terrence Hayes, the department is tracking claims for about 2.5 million veterans who were deployed to the Gulf War region from September 2001 to the present and were potentially exposed to various airborne hazards. Of those, about 1.6 million have filed a claim for disability compensation.
Diagnostic procedures, including a spinal tap and brain testing, led a neurologist to conclude in 2021 that Somsen had Parkinson’s disease. His assessment said the illness was “more likely than not related to his exposure during his time in Iraq, possible bringing symptoms out much earlier than would have otherwise presented. He has no other family risk factors.”
Contacted by South Dakota News Watch, Hayes said the VA’s position is that “no link has been established to date between these exposures and Parkinson’s Disease,” citing research from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
Somsen, after years of trying to hide his ailment, is now in the uncomfortable position of having to prove it exists, with Kari as his main advocate. After seeing the most recent review of his disability claim rejected, they’re considering taking their case to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals in Washington D.C.
In the meantime, Somsen shows up at work each day, stays active in the Webster community and keeps up with his daughters, the youngest of whom continued the family tradition by attending SDSU.
“It’s frustrating because I don’t know what the future holds,” he said. “Can I live until I’m 80? What if it’s not Parkinson’s and it’s something else? You realize that it could be more and more debilitating and you look around for answers, and they’re not easy to find.”
Congress explores funding options
In the summer of 2018, U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, met with representatives of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to discuss potential legislative efforts to deliver support for injuries from burn pits and other toxic exposure.
Rounds, familiar with the issue as a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, pushed for more research into health effects from burn pits and co-sponsored a successful 2021 bill that improved the level of care veterans exposed to toxic substances received during the pandemic.
The momentum continued earlier this year, when the Senate unanimously passed the Health Care for Burn Pit Veterans Act, which would expand health care eligibility for post-9/11 combat veterans from five years after their discharge to 10 years while also providing a one-year application window for those who missed the initial deadline. The bill would also mandate education and training for VA personnel on toxic exposures and expand federal research in the field.
“This legislation is a small step in the right direction to help make certain that veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances get the access to care they deserve,” Rounds said in a statement. He described the $1 billion measure as the first step in a three-part plan.
The House bill, a sweeping proposal to expand treatment and benefits to all veterans with illnesses from service-related toxic exposures and expedite the VA claims process, passed by a vote of 256-174 two days after Biden’s State of the Union remarks.
The House bill, a sweeping proposal to expand treatment and benefits to all veterans with illnesses from service-related toxic exposures and expedite the VA claims process, passed by a vote of 256-174 two days after Biden’s State of the Union remarks. Johnson joined most Republicans in voting against the bill, decrying a price tag of about $300 billion over 10 years and accusing Democrats of political posturing with a bill that can’t pass the Senate and thus won’t become law.
“Sometimes political games get in the way of quick, important bipartisan victories,” Johnson said. “We could have passed the Senate bill out of the House with 400 votes, and we’d already be in the process of delivering this relief. It’s not a silver bullet, but it would move us in the right direction and veterans would be getting the help they need.”
Biden compared the situation to the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when more than 2 million veterans were potentially exposed to Agent Orange, a blend of herbicides the U.S. military sprayed over jungles to remove dense tropical foliage that provided enemy cover. The president said it took far too long to reach decisions on presumptive conditions for those affected, and is determined to now make the same mistake again.
With the president’s urging and legislative efforts under way, the expectation is that compromise between Senate and House bills is likely, providing more clarity on the disability status of post-9/11 veterans.
Somsen doesn’t expect Congress to forge the solution to his situation because of questions about his condition. He hopes further medical research can find a link between what’s happening to his body and the toxic exposures that occurred while he served his country.
At the very least, he is thankful that more attention is being paid to burn pits and soldiers who were potentially affected so they are not left to suffer in silence.
“Hopefully this will help a lot of people like me, who went over there healthy and are feeling pretty ragged right now,” he said.
Stu Whitney is an investigative reporter for South Dakota News Watch. A resident of Sioux Falls, Whitney is an award-winning reporter, editor and novelist with more than 30 years of experience in journalism.
Photo: Jerry Somsen helped command a South Dakota Army National Guard battalion in Iraq from 2003-2005 and has experienced tremors and anxiety since his return. He and other soldiers believe they were exposed to toxic smoke from burn pits that contractors used to dispose of human waste, chemicals and munitions and other hazardous materials. Photo: Courtesy of Jerry Somsen.
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But we were most struck by the article's last three paragraphs:
Rep. Steve Green (R-Fosston) unsuccessfully offered two amendments. One would have banned the use of Legacy funds to acquire land through eminent domain; the other would have required all applicants to submit cash-benefit analyses on proposed projects.
“We don’t know where this money is going,” Green said. “And I don’t think this is going through the Senate anyway.”
“The real benefits of this work are almost too vast to measure,” Ecklund said. “You can think about our pollinators, our bumblebees and monarchs that are needed to grow our food finding a place to nest and feed in our lush prairie flowers. You can think about a thriving and healthy forest providing thousands of good paying jobs and sequestering millions of tons of carbon. We can think about taking our kids fishing along the banks of a restored trout stream. Without the Legacy amendment, these treasured places and all that they give us would be lost forever.”
Bravo, Representation Ecklund.
Photo: A rusty-patched bumblebee on wild bergamot, sometimes called Oswego Tea, a prairie flower. The endangered insect is Minnesota's state bee. Photo by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
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From Pierre to Sioux Falls, state and county officials are fielding complaints about the legality of billboard advertisements targeting lawmakers and calling for the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg.
The Secretary of State's Office as well as the Minnehaha County State's Attorney this week received formal complaints alleging that Dakota Institute for Legislative Solution violated campaign finance law when it began running attack ads accusing five state lawmakers of obstructing an ongoing impeachment investigation into the attorney general, who struck and killed a man with his vehicle in 2020.
"Whether this technically complies with the laws, it certainly violates the spirit of what South Dakotans wants in their officials and election, which is transparency and to know who’s funding these candidates or these statements," said Rep. Ryan Cwach, a Yankton Democrat who's serving on the House Select Committee on Investigation, of which four members are being targeted by Dakota Institute's billboard advertisements that have been running on rotation in Sioux Falls since Saturday.
Rep. Scott Odenbach, a Spearfish Republican who's sparred with Noem on various social issues in recent months but is not on the impeachment committee, has also been added to the list of lawmakers
Dakota Institute earlier this month announced its formation as a 501c4 nonprofit that aims to advance the agenda of Gov. Kristi Noem with a $2.3 million budget. It's not registered as a political action or campaign committee because it's not influencing the outcome of elections and has no official connection to the governor or any individual candidate or public official in South Dakota, according to its executive director, Rob Burgess.
Instead, the group considers itself a grassroots advocacy organization, and Monday filed as such when it reported the advertisements cost about $24,000, noted in what's called an independent communication expenditure report.
But even that distinction might not be enough for Dakota Institute to avoid legal scrutiny. That's because Cwach and other lawmakers, including House Speaker Spencer Gosch, say the ads violate South Dakota Codified Law 12-27-16.1, which mandates certain disclaimer language be placed in advertisements being paid for by an individual or entity that isn't a campaign, ballot or political action committee. . ..
These billboards are now part of an ongoing investigation according to the Minnehaha County State’s Attorney’s office.
The five legislators targeted are Reps Spencer Gosch (R-Glenham), Jamie Smith (D-Sioux Falls), Jon Hansen (R-Dell Rapids), Steven Haugaard (R-Sioux Falls) and Scott Odenbach (R-Spearfish).
Of the five, both Haugaard and Smith are challenging Noem in the 2022 gubernatorial election, and four (Gosch, Hansen, Haugaard and Smith) are on the House Select Committee on Investigation, who are charged with deciding whether to recommend the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, who struck and killed 55-year old Joe Boever with his car in September 2020. ...
Head over to Keloland to read their reactions.
But it's not just the billboards Noem and the Republican dominated South Dakota legislature are fighting about, SDPB's Lee Strubinger reports in Legislature wants eyes on incoming federal money:
In the next few years, the state will get billions of dollars in federal infrastructure money. Lawmakers want more oversight on how that money is spent.
Governor Kristi Noem is critical of the idea, saying it could create a full-time legislature.
The Infrastructure Investment Act will send nearly $3 billion to South Dakota over the next half decade. There are also grants for electric vehicle charging stations and climate change resilience projects.
And – the state is also still receiving federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act. A lot of it.
That presents a problem for some lawmakers.
“We don’t know what they’re for," said Republican Representative Chris Karr, from Sioux Falls. “So, how do we appropriate those dollars and that authority if we don’t know what they’re for?”
Karr is chair of the House Appropriations Committee. He said the legislature does not give blanket spending authority to the executive branch. Karr said the legislature controls the purse strings.
“We don’t know when these dollars will come in. We don’t know the guidance in which they can be used," Karr said. "The way we interpret the constitution is these dollars can be appropriated for a specific purpose.” . . .
Imbibe the rest at SDPB.
And her lawsuit against the National Park Service for fireworks at Mount Rushmore isn't getting love from the courts, KEVN's Jack Siebold reports in Noem’s Mount Rushmore fireworks plan fizzles:
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is not happy that the National Park Service tossed cold water on her plans for another fireworks display at Mount Rushmore.
The Park Service sent a letter to the state Department of Tourism, outlining why the 2022 Fourth of July display was denied. Cited were:
· Environmental concerns
· Threats of wildfires
· Objections from tribes
· Interference with normal memorial services
“Mount Rushmore is the best place in America to celebrate our nation’s birthday – I just wish President Biden could see that,” said Governor Kristi Noem in a release. “Last year, the President hypocritically held a fireworks celebration in Washington, D.C., while denying us our own event. This year, it looks like they are planning to do the same.”
Noem touted her leadership in bringing the fireworks display back to Mount Rushmore in 2020. When her 2021 plan was rejected by the Park Service she filed a lawsuit.
“Many of the reasons presented for their denial have been previously addressed, indicating that these reasons are not in good faith. We will move forward with our litigation and urge the court to help us come to a speedy resolution,” Noem said.
We agree with the court, which might help the wounded-wing whining Noem win a vice president berth in 2024.
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Now a bill is working its way through the Minnesota House to divest state investments tied to Russia in response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. We once lived in a neighborhood that was home to many Ukrainian immigrants/refugees from the USSR, so it's painful to see our former neighbors' relatives suffer.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tim Walz issued an executive order banning state contracts with Russian companies.
A bipartisan proposal headed to the House Ways and Means Committee would direct the State Board of Investment to divest Minnesota’s investments from Russia and Belarus by Aug. 1, 2022. State law has similar restrictions with Iran and Sudan.
Sponsored by Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL-Mpls), HF4165, as amended, was approved 10-0 Tuesday by the House State Government Finance and Elections Committee.
“We’re joining an ever-growing list of democracies in responding to the atrocities committed by Russia’s government, not only because standing against tyranny is always the right thing to do, but because we can’t allow a single cent from our state to possibly line the pockets of oligarchs who sanction the murder of innocent civilians,” Jordan said in a March 10 statement.
Minnesota's state pension fund investments in Russia total approximately $53 million.
“It’s a relatively small gesture, but it’s significant,” said Rep. Anne Neu Brindley (R-North Branch).
Luda Anastazievsky chairs the Minnesota Ukrainian American Advocacy Committee. She moved to Minnesota in 1990 from Mariupol — a city on the receiving end of roughly 100 Russian bombings. A Minnesota school teacher for 30 years, Anastazievsky doesn’t want any of her retirement funds to go to a country whose leaders’ actions have left her with fear of the unknown.
Anastazievsky said she “can barely function” since the Russian invasion began. “I feel very anxious and worried because my family and friends in Mariupol are in a city under siege. I do not know how any of them are doing or even if they’re alive because communication has been impossible.”
Rep. Duane Quam (R-Byron) unsuccessfully tried to add an amendment that would have added China to the investment restrictions based, in part, of its government “atrocities” regarding some religions and Chinese agreements with Russia on military assistance.
Sen. Karin Housley (R-Stillwater) sponsors the companion, SF3928, which awaits action by the Senate State Government Finance and Policy and Elections Committee.
Photo: Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine on March 9. She and her baby have both died, Poynter reports in A horrific outcome to a grim photo from Ukraine (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka).
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We've been occupied with following Minnesota legislative hearings and election campaigns. Meanwhile, the comedy of manners of Republican one-party rule in South Dakota continues.
Gov. Kristi Noem denies any involvement in the latest targeting of lawmakers vetting the impeachment of Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg.
But legislators on the receiving end of the attack ads say mounting evidence suggests otherwise.
Dakota Institute for Legislative Solutions, an organization touting itself as a non-profit organized to carry forward the governor's agenda, began running billboard advertisements Saturday targeting four members of the House Select Committee on Investigation, which is conducting the vetting process.
The ads name the following committee members: Reps. Steven Haugaard, Jamie Smith, Jon Hansen and Spencer Gosch, the House speaker serving as chairman of the committee. The signs also call for the impeachment of Ravnsborg.
The legislative panel has been investigating Ravnsborg's conduct related to a 2020 crash that killed 55-year-old Joe Boever.
And Monday, a fifth lawmaker — Rep. Scott Odenbach — was added to list of legislators being specifically named in the advertisements, which suggest all five men are obstructing the impeachment process. . . .
Here's a tweet of that final billboard:
Another one up in Sioux Falls. Scott Odenbach isn’t even on the impeachment committee. pic.twitter.com/mxyCR3vukc
Drivers passing through some of Sioux Falls’ main intersections this week may have noticed some rather unique billboards, featuring the face of South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, and the names (as of Monday afternoon) of five state legislators.
Those five legislators are House Speaker Spencer Gosch (R-Glenham), Jon Hansen (R-Dell Rapids), Steven Haugaard (R-Sioux Falls), Jamie Smith (D-Sioux Falls) and Scott Odenbach (R-Spearfish). . . .
The billboards were paid for by the Dakota Institute for Legislative Solutions, a 501c (4) non-profit (according to the release on its website) with a stated goal of generating support for Governor Kristi Noem’s agenda.
As of Monday afternoon, no filings for Dakota Institute for Legislative Solutions could be found in the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Tax Exempt Organization database. A search of the South Dakota Campaign Finance Reporting system and Federal Election Commission (FEC) also turned up no results.
The release announcing the formation of the Dakota Institute for Legislative Solutions states that the organization currently has a budget of $800,000 for the calendar year, and $1.5 million planned for the next two years. It is not readily apparent where the $800,000 claimed to be in the budget has come from. . . .
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s election-year fight with fellow Republicans in the Legislature has spurred criticism she is neglecting her job to angle for the White House, but the resistance could actually be helping her national brand rather than tarnishing it.
The first-term governor in recent weeks jetted to Florida to speak at a major gathering of conservative activists, announced on Fox News the release of an autobiography and blasted President Joe Biden’s energy policy as Russia invaded Ukraine.
Back home, the politician trying to corner the label as the nation’s most conservative governor has faced considerable defiance from members of her own party. They have derailed key parts of her agenda on issues including abortion, school prayer, COVID-19 vaccine exemptions and how racism is taught in schools.
Republican pollster Brent Buchanan says that in Donald Trump’s GOP, such intraparty squabbles aren’t a liability and may even be an asset for a politician trying to curry favor with the former president and the voters who support him. . . .
In a recent Statehouse setback for Noem, Republicans rejected her plan to keep K-12 classrooms free of “critical race theory” — an academic concept that has morphed into a political rallying cry on the right. They later passed a bill applying to universities, but not before reining in its scope.
Noem began this session by laying out an agenda that amounted to a wish list for social conservatives. But she has had to navigate a Legislature divided between conservatives pushing the state to take hard-line stands on social issues and a GOP establishment more likely to focus on bread and butter issues. Lawmakers rejected roughly half the proposals the governor highlighted in her State of the State speech at the start of the session.
Noem has long displayed a willingness to spar with the Legislature, but acrimony boiled over this winter. Republican House Speaker Spencer Gosch accused the governor of chasing headlines and TV appearances rather than doing the foundational work to build legislative support for her proposals at home.
Noem has shown a knack for the political theatrics invaluable in Trump’s Republican Party and last month won the former president’s endorsement for her reelection campaign. Her social media feeds are filled with images of her riding a motorcycle at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, on horseback carrying an American flag, showing off a flamethrower and hunting pheasants. . . .
“You have a governor who is trying to get her name out and sadly that’s what a lot of these bills are — it’s to be used for election material, not to affect any real policy change,” said Democratic state Sen. Troy Heinert. “It looks to me like we’re trying to out-crazy Texas and Florida.”
Noem has adopted some of Trump’s bombast, name-calling fellow Republicans on Twitter when they do something she doesn’t like. But it’s an approach that has backfired at times in the small government town of Pierre, where lawmakers pride themselves on decorum and often refer to one another as “friend” or “good representative” during debates.
She griped that two Republican lawmakers were acting like “wolves in sheep’s clothing” when they floated a ban on vaccine mandates last year. As talks with fellow Republicans over the state budget broke down this week, she took to YouTube to accuse them of “corruption” for holding a closed-door budget briefing with the state’s attorney general.
“I’m screwed either way, no matter what I say,” Noem said of her particularly tense relationship with Gosch, who has accused her of meddling in an impeachment investigation of the attorney general in a fatal traffic crash. “It’s probably been one of the biggest struggles I’ve had just because I know he’s looking for a reason to blame me for everything.”
“A lot of bridges have been burned,” said Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University. “There is a rump portion of the Republican Party that is just not on board with Kristi Noem.”
Even lawmakers who were once allies of the governor said they have often been left on the outside after daring to defy her.
The “breakdown is just not staying in touch with people, it’s not communicating,” said Republican Rep. Rhonda Milstead, who was appointed to the Legislature by Noem but became an outspoken critic after Noem effectively killed the trans athlete bill.
The drama at home may not matter if Noem pursues higher office. A decade ago, Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann — known more for championing far-right social issues than for lawmaking — rode her polarizing image to an early splash in the GOP race for president in 2012 before fizzling out. . . .
Governor Kristi Noem had a mix of success and rejection during South Dakota’s 2022 legislative session. But she did much better than either of the two state lawmakers looking to replace her.
The Republican governor clearly outperformed her June primary opponent, Representative Steven Haugaard of Sioux Falls. House Democrat leader Jamie Smith of Sioux Falls, who was out gathering signatures so he can take on the GOP nominee in November, did no better.
Noem, who’s already filed her candidacy petitions, spoke about 28 specific proposals in her December 2021 budget speech, followed by 10 specific proposals in her January State of the State speech. Haugaard meanwhile was prime sponsor of 13 bills, one joint resolution and a concurrent resolution. Smith was prime sponsor of three bills and one concurrent resolution.
Noem achieved nearly all of her spending proposals. However, House members refused her $10 million plan to add 175 camping sites at Custer State Park, as well as a smaller revised version at a different spot in the park. House members also turned down her request that the state Game, Fish and Parks Department receive $2.5 million of state funding for a proposed shooting range near Rapid City and repeatedly rejected a Senate bill seeking the same.
Noem fared less well on proposed laws that she specifically listed in her January speech. On abortion, lawmakers approved her ban on mail-order abortion pills but refused to introduce her Texas-style proposal to ban abortion when a heartbeat could be detected.
But senators rejected her proposal to ban divisive concepts in K-12 schools and significantly rewrote the one for higher education, so that divisive concepts can still be taught on campuses governed by the state Board of Regents and state Board of Technical Education, but faculty and staff can’t be forced to take training on them. . . .
Read how the guys are doing in the rest of Mercer's piece.
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On Monday HF2819, the bill that would increase civil penalties and establish specific civil citation authority for trespassing while operating a snowmobile or off-highway vehicle, has passed in the House
In an effort to protect landowners and preserve trails, increased trespassing penalties for snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles were passed off the House Floor Monday.
HF2819, sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul), would increase civil penalties and establish specific civil citation authority for trespassing while operating a snowmobile or off-highway vehicle. The bill would authorize conservation officers and other licensed peace officers to issue civil citations to drivers who violate certain snowmobile provisions.
The bill passed 122-10 and now goes to the Senate where it is sponsored by Sen. Carrie Ruud (R-Breezy Point).
“Snowmobile trails are voluntary,” Hansen said. “Landowners who provide access for snowmobile trails, they do that on a voluntary basis. What the challenge is, if snowmobilers go off that trail, some of the landowners may have damage. And if they have that damage, they say ‘no more snowmobile trails.’
“So, if you start removing sections of the trail that are there but for the volunteerism of the landowner working with the local snowmobile club, then you no longer have a trail and that impacts not only tourism, but the enjoyment for that local economy.”
The bill, supported by the Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota United Snowmobilers Association and the Minnesota ATV Association, seeks to deter trespassing by raising the fines.
The penalties for violating existing off-highway vehicles laws, or the proposed snowmobile and trespass provisions, would more than double.
The penalty for a first offense would rise to $250 from $100. A second offense would result in a $500 fine as opposed to $200. Subsequent penalties would incur a $1,000 fine. Previously, the subsequent penalties were $500. Fine money would be used to increase enforcement of snowmobile laws.
Hansen said the fine structure came about after a comprise by the snowmobile and ATV associations.
“Some interests wanted the penalties to be larger, some wanted to be smaller,” Hansen said.
Here's the House Information Services YouTube of the floor action:
We'll post an update when this bill passes in the senate
Screengrab: From the Minnesota United Snowmobilers Association Facebook page January 2021. The clubs that groom the trails are good citizens.
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White steam billows into the sky, a rolling cloud visible for miles from Guardian Energy's plant in southern Minnesota.
You can't see the greenhouse gases pumped out the stacks with the water vapor in the air, but they are there — more than 178,000 metric tons in 2019 alone. Eighteen of Minnesota's 19 corn ethanol plants are among the 100 facilities expelling the most greenhouse gases in the state, according to a Star Tribune analysis of data from the U.S. EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
Combined, the state's corn distilleries produced more than 1.7 million metric tons of the climate poisoning gases in 2019. That is less than 5% of the total from Minnesota's top 100 greenhouse polluters. But the manufacture of what's intended as a green alternative to gasoline produces as much pollution as driving 350,000 cars for a year or burning 900,000 tons of coal. . . .
There are conflicting views on how corn ethanol's carbon footprint stacks up against gasoline.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that corn ethanol's life-cycle greenhouse gases — including what's vented from production facilities — are now about 40% lower than gasoline. California's regulator estimates it's from 25% to 40% lower, depending on the producer. Other research says it's less.
The latest report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,concludes ethanol's life-cycle greenhouse gases are likely 24% higher than gasoline. Ethanol production and the intensive cropping system that goes with it have taken a serious toll on the environment, from eroding soil and destroying pollinator habitat to polluting drinking water wells and the Mississippi River with nitrate and phosphorous from fertilizer runoff.
"Corn ethanol is not a climate friendly or environment friendly fuel," said the paper's author, University of Wisconsin researcher Tyler Lark.
Minnesota lawmakers are again considering a new low carbon fuel standard like those in California and Oregon. It would require all fuel suppliers in the state to reduce the life-cycle greenhouse gases from transportation fuel at least 20% by 2035.
Ethanol producers would clearly benefit, but the standard is agnostic on the type of fuel, said Brendan Jordan, vice president at the Great Plains Institute, a Minneapolis think tank promoting the approach. The standard would create a powerful incentive to accelerate the decline in ethanol's carbon intensity, Jordan said.
Fuel suppliers that meet the carbon reduction targets can sell carbon credits; those that don't would have to buy them. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Todd Lippert, DFL-Northfield, and Sen. Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, frames a carbon trading program run by the state Department of Commerce. Last year a proposal for a clean fuels standard passed Minnesota's Democrat-led House, but not the Republican-led Senate.
Such fuel standards, of course, rely on measuring ethanol's life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for a carbon intensity score, which has proved challenging. One sticking point is accounting for the greenhouse gases associated with land use change — pushing food production to other land in order to grow large amounts of corn for ethanol.
Most of the science "grossly underestimates" the emissions associated with that, said Jason Hill, professor of bioproducts and biosystems engineering at the University of Minnesota.
"Everything associated with the carbon intensity of ethanol is smoke and mirrors," said Hill. "Anything that increases the amount of corn ethanol we use … will be taking us in the wrong direction. What ethanol is another market for corn."
None dare call it cornography. Read the entire article at the Star Tribune.
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The Minnesota House has passed a drought-relief package for farmers and other ag producers with five million dollars to provide grants up to 10 thousand dollars -- plus five million dollars for loans. The sponsor, Esko Democrat Mike Sundin (sun-DEEN), says his bill will provide “a much-needed lifeline to those who provide our most basic need -- food.”
However, Starbuck Republican Paul Anderson pointed out neighboring Wisconsin’s drought-relief package is 100 million dollars -- ten times more -- and the bill passed last night “just isn’t enough.”
Anderson ended up supporting the bill, but did say, “There’s a whole lot more damage out there than just $5 million’s worth. … Our neighboring state, Wisconsin, allocated $100 million of federal COVID relief to farmers, the last round in December being $50 million. My point being that we all had pandemic issues and drought issues, and Wisconsin allocated $100 million to farmers in their state.”
That's federal relief, not legislative relief. It seems curious to elide COVID and drought relief into one heap o' cash.
We grew curious about how that COVID relief came to be directed to farmers in Wisconsin. The first thing to pop up on Mr. Google was the Associated Press article published by Madison NBC affiliate WMTV, Evers directs $50 million to Wisconsin farmers, agriculture:
Gov. Tony Evers is directing $50 million in federal coronavirus relief funding to Wisconsin’s farmers and the state’s agriculture industry.
That is in addition to $50 million in federal funding that has already been distributed through the Wisconsin Farm Support Program.
“They’ve always had our back, and now, we need to have theirs. I’m glad to be providing another round of direct aid to farmers to support their recovery and strengthen one of our state’s most important industries,” Evers said.
Applications for the latest round of funding Evers announced Wednesday will open later this year following the fall harvest.
Evers, who is up for reelection next year, has sole control over how to spend the billions of dollars in federal coronavirus relief money the state received.
It seems curious for Anderson to compare federal relief administered by a governor in a nearby state with those he and his legislative colleagues. Even more questionable? Minnesota media turning Wisconsin COVID relief into a drought relief program.
Rather, we would thing that diligent reporters would ask what Minnesota farmers received in federal COVID relief through the Walz administration, for an apples-to-apples comparison. Perhaps they might ask Governor Walz or Department of Agriculture Thom Peterson at their next press conference.
Instead, we get news reports of Walz throwing the DNR under the bus at a virtual advocacy event for farmers on Wednesday. Really, Governor?
And if Anderson thinks COVID-19 relief for farmers from federal funds is a fair comparison, why not look at federal drought relief?
Here's the discussion of the Wisconsin Farm Support Program from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection:
Wisconsin Farm Support Program
Under the direction of Governor Evers, the Wisconsin Farm Support Program provided three rounds of direct aid payments to farmers to help them respond to the challenges presented by COVID-19. In total, the program has provided $100 million to Wisconsin farmers who experienced economic losses associated with the pandemic.
The first round of the Farm Support Program ran from June 15-29, 2020 and nearly 12,000 farmers received a total of $41.6 million in direct payments.
The second round of the Wisconsin Farm Support Program distributed $8.4 million and closed on August 24, 2020.
The third round of the Farm Support Program closed on November 29, 2021 and distributed $50 million to more than 20,000 farmers. You can find a map of county-by-county distribution of each round of funding here. For more information, visit DOR's Farm Support Program page.
The Wikipedia entry for the 2020–22 North American drought notes that drought conditions began to develop in certain parts of Wisconsin by August 2020, so Evers must have been consulting his Magic 8 Ball if we are to trust Anderson's frame.
If the media uses Andersons frame--as it appears to be doing, to the point of misinformation--then let's see a comparison with the use of federal coronavirus relief for farmers on the part of the Walz administration. Fair is fair.
Perhaps the more intrepid investigators might look at the South Dakota grant program using those federal coronavirus funds, where the grants to farm operation were much, much larger, the Associated Press's Stephen Groves reported in Businesses tied to Noem family got $600,000 in virus grants. $500,000 of that would be for Noem family Racota Valley Ranch Partnership. And there's this:
The Legislature approved the grant plan in October, but the family businesses benefitted from adjustments the Republican governor made. The plan initially capped grants at $100,000, but later in the month, with plentiful federal funds at their disposal, Noem’s administration adjusted the grant cap to $500,000. The governor also later opened up a second round of grant applications to businesses hurt by the pandemic from September to November.
As Minnesotans are fond of saying, it could be worse.
Photo: Starbuck Republican state representative Paul Anderson.
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It’s been 11 days since the United Nations released the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the sobering nature of the news made the front pages of newspapers and news websites around the world.
According to the report, significant changes are already afoot, and human activity is a chief cause. Rising sea levels, extreme weather events, massive wildfires, and longer and more severe droughts are but a few of the consequences currently being confronted that are expected to grow worse.
So what can one state legislature in the middle of North America do about this global problem?
To address that question, the House Climate and Energy Finance and Policy Committee invited the coordinating lead author of the IPCC report, Robert Lempert, to appear before the committee on Thursday. A principal researcher at global policy think tank RAND, Lempert emphasized adaptation and mitigation measures for the changes that he and the report’s 269 other authors concur is coming.
“Together, we read and discussed more than 34,000 scientific papers,” he said. “We received and responded to more than 62,000 review comments from scientists around the world.”
Their conclusion?
“The impacts of climate change have arrived and are widespread, pervasive, and in some cases irreversible,” he said. “Minnesota and the American Midwest are experiencing increased-intensity rainfall events, increased flooding, adverse impacts on water quality, increased soil erosion, decreased crop yields and agricultural productivity, and increased heat mortality.
“Climate change is also affecting natural systems worldwide. For example, here in North America, scientists have observed with high confidence changes in the structure of terrestrial, freshwater, and ocean ecosystems; many species shifting their ranges northwards; and many species changing the timing of their annual cycles.”
But the report dwells less on what can’t be changed than on how to be prepared and resilient, how to adjust to the impacts of climate change. Yet Lempert warned most current adaptation is not keeping pace with accelerating change.
“At some point, most systems reach what is called their limits to adaptation,” he said. “Some systems have already reached their limits. For instance, many of the world’s coral reefs are dying because the reefs can no longer adjust. Some coastal communities have been displaced by sea-level rise. … If we don’t get greenhouse gas emissions under control, the challenge becomes increasingly unmanageable. More and more systems will cross their limits to adaptation.”
The article continues below the embedded YouTube and the PDF of Lempert's presentation.
Here's the Minnesota House Information Services YouTube of the presentation:
Rep. Jamie Long (DFL-Mpls) asked why — after 35 years of the IPCC analyzing climate change — the language in its reports has such increased urgency.
“The science has gotten considerably better,” Lempert said. “It’s gone from confidence to virtual certainty as to the human footprint.”
Rep. Patty Acomb (DFL-Minnetonka) asked what adaptation options should be concentrated upon in Minnesota.
“Among the big issues you face in Minnesota is a lot more extreme precipitation events,” Lempert said. “The general pattern of climate change is that where it rains, it will rain more intensely. And where it rains less, it will rain less.
“A key thing you need to do is make sure that your building codes and your design standards and land use rules reflect future climate, as opposed to current and past climate. … In urban areas, that’s going to lead you to simple things like larger culverts under the roads, more permeable pavement. … Re-creating wetlands, forested river banks, places that, when you’re not having a storm, are pleasant for recreation.
“In agricultural areas, soil management will become more important. To pull carbon out but also to deal with erosion and water retention. … Even things like training health workers to recognize diseases they may be less familiar with as patterns of what diseases you get change.”
As is common at the committee’s meetings when the subject is climate change, Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen (R-Glencoe) brought up a book by Fred Singer focused upon disagreements within the scientific community about climate change. Lempert said he has had dinner with the author on a few occasions.
“I much prefer the model of examining the overwhelming body of evidence, rather than the consensus model,” Lempert said. “The body of scientific evidence is built upon multiple lines of evidence and works hard at comparing alternative theories about what we’re experiencing. You can pick at pieces of any body of science, but there is no viable alternative to this conclusion.”
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U.S. ethanol producers are betting heavily on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to lower their greenhouse gas emissions and secure a place for the corn-based fuel in a climate-friendly future, according to industry groups and executives.
But the plan is risky: The nascent CCS industry has been plagued by high costs and underperformance, crucial federal incentives for carbon capture are stalled in Congress, and public opposition to the pipeline infrastructure needed to transport captured gas is mounting.
“There will definitely be challenges,” said Dr. Isaac Emery, a sustainability consultant for the biofuel industry, referring to the implementation of CCS. “It’s not that it’s easy, (but) it is easier than doing it any other way.”
Oil refiners are required to blend some 15 billion gallons of ethanol into the nation’s gasoline pool each year, a policy meant to help corn farmers, reduce import dependence, and lower emissions. But the Biden administration is reviewing that policy to ensure it fits into its longer-term economic and environmental agenda.
President Joe Biden has vowed to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 2050, putting pressure on industries to clean up. For ethanol, that has meant heightened scrutiny of its emissions profile, and looming competition in the transport market from electric vehicles. . . .
The United States has 12 active CCS projects, according to the Global CCS Institute. But the technology has so far failed to meet expectations.
The Department of Energy, for example, spent more than $1 billion on nine CCS projects between 2010 and 2017, but just two are operational today, according to a December report from a government agency watchdog.
There have been several high-profile failures of CCS projects in recent years too, like the 2020 suspension of the $1 billion Petra Nova project in Texas, which missed its carbon capture goals by 17%.
Meanwhile, Midwest landowners are opposing the proposed pipelines the industry needs to transport captured carbon, fearful of damage to their land and safety risks.
Landowners faced with the prospect of a carbon capture pipeline running through their property should be asking for something more than a one-time payment and a few years of compensation for crop yield loss.
That was the opinion of one panelist in a discussion of carbon pipeline projects at the Agweek Farm Show on Tuesday, March 8, in Rochester. The Agweek Farm Show continues Wednesday, March 9, at Graham Arena at the Olmsted County Fairgrounds in Rochester.
"Maybe it's time for a different kind of negotiation," said Peg Furshong, who owns property near the path of a proposed pipeline in Renville County.
The company behind that project, Summit Carbon Solutions, is seeking voluntary easements for property access but also has cited the need for eminent domain to force landowners to comply, saying that the project provides a public service.
Furshong said a true public service would be ongoing payments from a pipeline company to support local governments, schools and hospitals.
"They can afford a different pay structure," Furshong said of Summit, which has a $4.5 billion project planned to capture carbon from 31 ethanol plants in five states and store it underground in North Dakota.
Furshong was joined on the panel by Jess Mazour of the Sierra Club in Iowa, and Dan Wahl, who farms land in northwest Iowa that Summit has targeted for its pipeline. . . .
Read the remainder of the article at AgWeek
Furshong is Operations & Program Director for CURE, a grassroots environmental group based in Montevideo. Earlier this month, we posted CO2 pipelines: who wins & who loses? commentary by CURE's executive director Duane Ninneman.
Screengrab: Map of the proposed Summit CO2 pipeline, which could capture CO2 from ethanol plants, such Granite Falls Energy LLC in Granite Falls, Minnesota, which would help reduce the ethanol plants' overall carbon footprint. West Central Tribune, via Summit CO2 project.
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Given the Republican grousing about the bills as they traveled through committees and whining in media coverage, we were surprised to see the bill pass by a large bipartisan majority:
Farmers impacted by the 2021 drought would be eligible for over $10 million in grants and loans under HF3420. It passes the #mnhouse by a 101-33 vote and now heads to the Senate. #mnleg
A press release from the Minnesota House DFL Caucus:
Today, the Minnesota House of Representatives approved a package of legislation to help livestock farmers, specialty crop producers, and communities harmed by 2021’s historic drought. Authored by Rep. Mike Sundin (DFL - Esko) and Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL - South St. Paul), the proposal provides grants, loans, and other direct relief for farmers. The funding is targeted to small operations unable to access federal crop insurance, and includes measures ensuring equity in the grant process. Additionally, the legislation helps communities recover from the drought by providing grants to local and tribal governments to replace trees and seedlings killed during the drought and to improve water management.
"On top of challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, last year's drought was devastating to Minnesota's farmers and ranchers. They play a critical role not just in our state economy, but toward ensuring we all have healthy food to put on the table," said Rep. Sundin who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. "With the growing season just around the corner, they deserve financial relief right now. We’ve been listening to farmers, and these important investments reflect what they’ve requested so they can recover from these difficulties and once again have the opportunity to thrive."
“The ongoing drought has affected forests throughout Minnesota,” said Rep. Hansen. “This bill provides for reforestation in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Protecting our public natural resources is critical in conserving water and mitigating climate change.”
Since last spring, drought conditions have harmed farming and livestock operations across Minnesota. Climate change is a major source of more frequent extreme weather swings, including persistent drought. Farmers and ranchers experienced a lack of access to forage crops and hay, while specialty crop producers, such as farmers market growers, couldn’t access traditional crop insurance and other federally backed financial assistance.
The bill appropriates $5 million to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) to provide grants up to $10,000 for drought-related expenses. Of that amount, the bill reserves $1 million for livestock producers, $1 million for specialty crop producers, $500,000 for farmers market vendors who are livestock or specialty crop growers, and $100,000 to reimburse farmers for expenses to transport hay and forage. The legislation also provides $5 million for the Rural Finance Authority’s revolving loan account for drought assistance and eases some requirements to qualify for the loans. The legislation prioritizes farms in counties classified as D4, the United States Department of Agriculture’s most severe drought category, followed by farmers in D3 and D2 counties.
To ensure small farming operations, including those run by people just starting out in agriculture, immigrants, specialty crop producers, and farmers market producers can access drought relief, the bill requires MDA to perform outreach to emerging farmers about the relief programs. To ensure equity and fairness, grant recipients will be selected randomly following a five-day hold of applications, improving prospects for farmers with limited internet access or language barriers to receive funding.
“Last summer, we experienced one of the most severe droughts in the state and it has adversely impacted communities across the state. This drought relief should’ve passed last year,” said Rep. Samantha Vang (DFL - Brooklyn Center), vice chair of the House Agriculture Committee. “Let’s show Minnesotans we can work together to support our most vulnerable farmers and communities to recover their losses and build a more resilient state against climate issues.”
“Minnesota's farmers faced a historic drought. The success of the agricultural economy is critical to the success of our entire state,” said House Speaker Melissa Hortman. “The House DFL is working to provide assistance to those who need it and to improve our state’s resiliency to be better prepared for future climate challenges.”
Minnesota’s forests and farmlands help prevent climate change by reducing carbon emissions. If we don’t replace the trees and seedlings that were impacted by the drought, one of our most effective tools in the fight against climate change will be compromised. This could make Minnesota more susceptible to climate impacts and severe weather events.
The drought impacted reforestation efforts across the state. In some sites, seedling mortality rates reached 100 percent. The drought also stressed existing trees, creating financial hardships for many communities. The costs of removing impacted trees and planting new ones are particularly daunting for communities struggling to manage emerald ash borer (EAB) infestations.
The bill allocates $13.85 million to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to help communities remove and replace impacted trees and prepare for future water challenges. It provides $5.5 million to replace seedlings on DNR-managed lands that were killed by the drought and to help private forestland owners and tribal and county governments replace seedlings on their lands. The bill also provides $4.5 million for grants to help communities remove and replace impacted shade trees and purchase tree-watering equipment. An additional $3 million is included for grants to municipal, township, and tribal governments that operate public water supplies. The funds will help increase water efficiency.
We'll update this post with news reports as they are published.
Photo: Drought conditions in Minnesota. Via Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
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All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors. While progressive in outlook, she does not caucus with any political party.
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