Fighting for Their Communities
by Tuma, Minnesota Environmental PartnershipJohn Tuma’s Capitol Update – Summer Edition, August 26, 2010
“May her memory save us from all pettiness, all unworthy ambition, all narrowness of vision, all mean and sordid aims… so may there be none in us, as she fought ever, without malice and without hatred, so may we fight.”
- The plaque in the Capitol Rotunda memorializing Mrs. Andreas Ueland, 1860-1927
This quaint and almost hidden plaque honoring Clara Ueland is affixed to the northwest corner of the Rotunda amongst the many memorials to the Civil War. It is one of only two memorials recognizing a woman within the State Capitol. Mrs. Ueland is one of the persistent heroes of the Minnesota Women’s Suffrage Movement in the early 1900s.
Clara Hampson arrived in Minnesota in 1867 with her widowed mother and older brother from Ohio in search of a new future on the Western frontier. Despite her poverty Clara was a very determined and successful student. Like many learned women of her time, she became a teacher. She raised eight children in a devoted marriage to a Norwegian immigrant, Andreas Ueland, who through hard work and dedication became a probate judge in Minneapolis.
Clara joined the long struggle for women’s suffrage in Minnesota in the early 1900s and was quickly recognized as a leader within that movement. She demonstrated great poise and grace as the movement persisted through several failures at the State Legislature. She became a self taught lobbyist who learned how to work in the rough-and-tumble world inside the Capitol Rotunda where she is now recognized by the plaque. The Women’s Suffrage Movement was finally victorious in our state when Minnesota ratified the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution on September 8, 1919.
At the time of this great victory, Clara Ueland was the president of the Minnesota Women’s Suffrage Association. She recognized that the battle was not complete and led the effort to transform her association into a new organization to encourage women to engage in their newly won civic responsibilities. That organization was named the Minnesota League of Women Voters and Clara Ueland was elected its first president. She continued to work tirelessly for women’s issues until her tragic death when she was accidentally hit by a truck crossing the street on her way home from a full day of lobbying at the State Capitol in 1927. In the spirit set by Clara Ueland, the present day “League” has been an active and valuable member of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership working on issues of environmental health and protection of our valuable outdoor resources for future generations.
In part thanks to the vision cast by Clara Ueland, Minnesota has been blessed with some hardworking and persistent women politicians who have been and continue to be champions of preserving our Great Outdoors for future generations. Two of those individuals deserving recognition as conservation champions for their work today at the Capitol are Rep. Julie Bunn and Sen. Kathy Saltzman. Both women represent districts that cover a substantial portion of Washington County. One of Minnesota’s original counties, Washington County is the home of some of the most beautiful bluff country in America along the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. Their tireless work to protect this historically beautiful area and to safeguard the health and clean water of their constituents should be appreciated by Minnesotans.
The battle to protect their communities began a few years back when the organization Friends of Washington County discovered that Xcel Energy’s power plant on the shores of the St. Croix River needed to landfill their coal ash after passage of Minnesota’s nation leading mercury reduction legislation. Prior to this legislation requiring toxic materials to be removed from the smokestacks, the resulting ash from burning coal was not toxic and could be used in concrete and other industrial purposes. With the requirement to pull these toxins out of the exhaust, the new coal ash became a toxic material needing to be landfilled. Unfortunately, the landfill site that Xcel chose was on the bluffs of the St. Croix River in an area unstable for groundwater protection known as Karst terrain.
The characteristics of Karst terrains are typically limestone bluff country where the water inflows from the surface soil can quickly infiltrate underground aquifers. Therefore, placing a toxic waste dump on top of this formation is only leaving a ticking time bomb for future generations to deal with once the landfill system deteriorates. Xcel Energy would argue that they were forced to landfill this toxic material because of our environmental regulations. Of course this somewhat begs the question, would you rather have them spewing toxic chemicals across our landscape or putting it into a landfill for future generations to deal with as a groundwater problem? How about putting a landfill in a place where the soil types are far safer for long-term storage of toxic materials. That is exactly what Rep. Bunn and Sen. Saltzman wisely recognized and began their work not only to protect their community, but to create legislation to improve our landfills on a statewide basis.
After the Xcel Energy landfill situation came to light, Friends of Washington County and several local municipalities dependent on healthy groundwater went to Rep. Bunn and Sen. Saltzman for help. It would have been easy for these politicians to dodge the political bullet and not take on the powerful corporate interest; but these two dedicated women were not about to let the health of their community be put at risk. In 2008 they required the Pollution Control Agency (PCA) to develop new groundwater protection rules relating to landfills statewide. They placed a moratorium on the construction of new landfills until those rules were completed. When the PCA dragged their feet and developed draft rules in a way that the Friends of the Washington County felt would not protect groundwater resources from contamination from aging landfills, Bunn and Saltzman did not relent. They returned to the Legislature to pass legislation requiring the PCA to develop rules by a specific deadline and requiring that Karst terrain areas be permanently exempt from landfill siting.
The civic engagement put forth by Bunn and Saltzman in their persistent and dedicated fight for the health of their community exemplifies what Clara Ueland envisioned when helping establish the “League” nearly 90 years ago by encouraging women to engage in their newly won civic responsibilities. Those of us in the conservation community are indebted to these two conservation champions for their tireless work to protect our natural resources for our children and our grandchildren. They are without a doubt present-day conservation champions; Clara Ueland would have been proud.
