But thanks to your help, we had a minor victory late last week!  A bill was heard to weaken township and community rights by limiting local citizen input in large scale developments in their community.  We were on alert. You contacted your legislators, community leaders testified, and legislators came to their senses.  The bill was set aside.

But urgent action is still needed!  There are over fifty bills that are on our watch list and some are moving quickly.  The policies that have been introduced do not support Minnesotans’ desire to protect our lakes, rivers and streams, our drinking water, our air quality and our Great Outdoors heritage.

Instead of maintaining the laws that protect our water and our health, the legislature wants to weaken or roll back these protections! Our elected leaders must not move our state backwards on policies that protect our water, invest in clean energy and protect our health.

Act now: Your input matters to your elected officials.

MPCA files report on permitting efficiency

House File 1, passed in 2011, required MPCA to set a goal of issuing permits within 150 days. MPCA received over 2500 permit applications in the nine-month period between March 4, 2011 (when House File 1 took effect) and December 31. In that time, the agency processed 99% of priority permits within 150 days. These priority permits required construction or significant modification of the facility in question – the types of action that can create jobs. The facilities receiving these 1,632 permits will help grow Minnesota’s economy without delay by MPCA.

Among all permit applications, including the more routine renewals, the agency took longer than 150 days with only 10% of permit applications. For most permits that took longer, there was a good reason: the agency was waiting for info from permittees, there was a significant public engagement process, federal or state policies changed, or the government was shut down. Read the permitting efficiency report here.

Anderson’s credible work at the PUC supported jobs here in Minnesota. The University of Massachusetts’ Political Economy Research Institute found that $1 million invested in solar energy creates 14 jobs, while that same investment in fossil fuels creates only five jobs. Clean energy investments today mean solid jobs, and saving money and energy for our children and grandchildren.

Our elected leaders need to move beyond partisan politics and realize that Minnesota voters’ clear support of clean, renewable energy is not extreme – it’s mainstream.

Minnesota Point is one of Duluth’s more unusual natural areas. It’s a seven-mile-long natural sand bar that crosses the mouth of the St. Louis River and forms the harbor of Duluth and Superior. At the end of the Point is about two miles of undeveloped dunes, beaches and a dramatic tall pine forest.

In 2011, much to the surprise of the dog walkers and bike riders who frequent the end of the Point, signs went up in the pine forest marking off the boundaries and rules of the Minnesota Point Pine Forest Scientific and Natural Area (SNA). It was especially surprising to read the rules that said, among other things, dog walking and bike riding were no longer allowed.

SNA designation is one of the highest levels of protection the State of Minnesota can apply to land. It’s plants first, people second.

So what about those dog walkers? Was this a replay of the creation of the BWCA? Was Big Government coming in and taking away traditional uses of this fabulous natural area, all in the name of the public good?

Within a few weeks of the signs going up, someone took matters into their own hand. On the sign that listed all the prohibited activities, someone had taken a jackknife and carefully scratched out both “dog walking” and “picnicking.” That’s a little like plugging your ears and singing “La la la la la, I can’t HEAR you” when your parents told you to clean your room. Making the text illegible doesn’t change the rule; public process does.

As it turns out, the administrators of the SNA program within the Minnesota DNR are not dog haters. They fully intend that on-leash dog walking will be allowed, and they even admit that the rule was a mistake. They will go through a public process to change the general SNA rules for this specific property. They’ve done the same thing to allow everything from berry picking to shorefishing in other SNAs. There will be a public meeting. And a comment period.

Better to attend a public hearing than to try your own jackknife line-item veto.

This post originally appeared in Hindsight: The Minnesota 2020 Blog

From Patience Caso, MEP campaign director, and Eric Bergstrom, legislative and campaign outreach

Welcome to the 2012 legislative session! You care about Minnesota’s Great Outdoors and you believe in making and safeguarding investments for future generations. Your voice is critical to protecting and defending our environmental policy foundation — your elected officials need to hear from you.

This year, we’re counting on you to join the members of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership and advocate for:

- Clean Energy & Good Jobs: Solar Works for Minnesota
Invest in clean energy to support our schools, help our local economy and create good jobs

- Safeguard Investments for Minnesota’s Future
Defend water, air, and land protections and the Clean Water, Land and Legacy funding

Act now to let Governor Dayton and your state legislators know that these investments are vital to Minnesota’s future. Not sure who your legislators are? That’s OK! When you fill out this form on Protect.MN, MEP’s campaign website, your message will automatically go to the right legislator.

Your input can make a difference! Deadline to take action is Feb. 7.

The spectators look confused. School spirit is suddenly stunningly low.

The cheerleaders plead all together, “What’s that spell?!”

Mumble-mumble-grumble, the spectators reply.

And yet TMDLs are the critical key that is unlocking the restoration of hundreds of Minnesota’s streams and lakes. Here on the North Shore, our polluted rivers are on their way to getting cleaned up, thanks to TMDLs.

Last week I tried to demystifying one acronym, BUIs. This acronym is harder because even if you know what the letters stand for, it’s still incomprehensible. TMDL stands for “Total Maximum Daily Load.”

The cheerleaders shouldn’t even bother asking “What’s that spell?,”  just “What’s that?”

Total Maximum Daily Load is a measurement, typically a weight in tons or pounds or grams. It’s the amount of any given pollutant that a river or lake can handle on its own and not get any dirtier. Agencies that work to protect our waters have said, essentially, yes there will be pollution, but it won’t be all that bad. Here’s the PCA’s official definition.

But TMDL is more than a number, it’s a process. Up here on the North Shore, we just finished the TMDL process for the Knife River, which flows into Lake Superior between Duluth and Two Harbors. The Knife is too muddy, especially when the waters are high. The sediment-laden water is hard on fish and icky for swimming. Fishing and swimming are beneficial uses of the river, and the sediment has impaired those uses. In comes the Clean Water Act and the MPCA to clean it up.

Through the TMDL process (LINK: http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/water/water-types-and-programs/minnesotas-impaired-waters-and-tmdls/minnesotas-impaired-waters-and-total-maximum-daily-loads-tmdls.html), we now know how much sediment is in the river, how much should be in the river, and what we can do to reduce the amount of sediment to acceptable levels…down to the Total Maximum Daily Load.

The same process of field research, modeling and math has happened on 226 rivers and lakes across the state, for pollutants ranging from sediment to fecal coliform. Another 710 TMDL projects are underway.

I can tell you from our experience here on the North Shore, the more that common citizens on the ground get involved in the TMDL process, the better the result will be. Get involved. Then you will have something to cheer about.

photo by Sakarri on Flickr

Tomorrow, the Minnesota House Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee will hold a hearing regarding HF 1856. This bill concerns the hunting and trapping of wolves in Minnesota, an issue that the Sierra Club North Star Chapter has been closely and carefully monitoring.

Now that the species has recently been delisted, the state of Minnesota must ensure that the stability of the wolf population does not fall victim to other interests. An initiation of a hunting season immediately following the wolf’s removal from threatened status raises serious concerns. Initially, a 5 year waiting period was called for, after delisting, before a hunting season would be opened. This waiting period was eliminated by legislation passed last year.

It is thanks, in part, to Sierra Club North Star Chapter’s work to protect the wolf under the Endangered Species Act for the past three decades that the Great Lakes Wolf population, which includes Minnesota, has made steps toward recovery. This should be celebrated.

However, we believe that Minnesota’s native wildlife is a public trust and we have an obligation to conserve species for the benefit of all our citizens. Since all of our wildlife species are public resources, including the wolf, the State of Minnesota should not introduce a hunting season on the wolf without a full public notification, involvement and review process.

In addition, we wish to highlight the following specific areas of concern:

- We must enact such laws as will best preserve the wolf, a public trust, and secure its beneficial use in the future to the people of the state. We do not support an open season that overlaps with deer hunting.

- We believe there must be an adequate monitoring plan in place that includes not only “take” numbers but other impacts to wolves and wolf habitat that may cause a decline in population. At minimum, the DNR must have adequate resources to conduct sound scientific monitoring to ensure the continued viability of the wolf.

- We have long had concerns for certain types of trapping of wildlife species and urge extreme care when implementing trapping regulations for the wolf. Lethal trapping of non-targeted species and pets is, and continues to be, a problem in Minnesota.

The wolf, once imperiled, has made an amazing recovery. This marvelous creature is an icon of our state and beloved by Minnesotans. We should move into the future of wolf management through a careful and well-considered process. Such a process should include full transparency and involvement of the public. Without such a commitment, decades of work to recover the species could easily be lost.

Interested in weighing in on this or other issues affecting Minnesota’s environment during the 2012 session?  Click here to find out who your state representatives are.

Crossposted at Sierra Club North Star Chapter blog

House File 389 will make it more difficult for citizens who want their township, county or city to take action to protect the community from unanticipated, harmful development. The bill does this by weakening the power of local governments to enact interim ordinances. An interim ordinance allows local governments to quickly put a temporary freeze on major development.

This power is essential when the community is caught off-guard by unanticipated proposals, especially those from outside corporate interests and outside investors, such as big box stores like Wal-Mart, a large-scale factory farm or a garbage burner. An interim ordinance maintains the status quo and gives the community time to review or create the appropriate zoning ordinances.

Interim ordinances are a part of strong local democracy and corporate interests—with the help of their allies in Saint Paul—have attacked this power repeatedly. This year is no different, and the speed with which anti-local control forces are introducing this bill indicates how desperate they’ve become. The fact is rural citizens have made it clear time and time again that they value local control, so perhaps corporate interests hope they can strike early before anyone notices.

But people are going to notice because the power to enact an interim ordinance matters. For example, communities in southeast Minnesota have been bombarded by outside corporate interests wanting to mine for sand to be used in frac mining. These mining proposals are much different in scale and scope from the aggregate mining that takes place there now. In response to citizen concerns, Wabasha, Goodhue and Winona counties enacted interim ordinances that put a moratorium on frac sand mining while they study the issue to see if their current ordinances are sufficient to deal with this new type of excavation.

For an indication of what happens when local control goes away, take a drive through rural Wisconsin, where frac sand mining is tearing up the blufflands and trucks are booming down gravel roads.

Under House File 389, merely applying for a permit exempts a proposed development from any future interim ordinance. The problems is all too often neighbors don’t get any information about a project until after the permit has been applied for. When that happens, an interim ordinance may be needed to freeze the status quo and create time to assess the situation.

The proposed legislation requires a two-thirds vote (a super majority) to enact an interim ordinance. Currently, an interim ordinance can be enacted by a simple majority — that’s how democratic rights should work. There is no reason to make adopting an interim ordinance so difficult.

In addition, HF 389 slows the process for enacting an interim ordinance by mandating public notice before an interim ordinance can be enacted. In many cases, a local unit of government — particularly a township — does not get complete information on a proposed development until shortly before approval. In those cases, there can be legitimate concerns that the local government needs to address. When that happens, an interim ordinance must be enacted quickly to be effective.

The 2012 session of the Minnesota Legislature is supposed to be about creating  jobs, not about sacrificing our communities’ ability to control their own destinies. Jumping the gun doesn’t suddenly make a bad idea a good one. In fact, it may make it more dangerous than ever.

The 2012 Legislative Session kicks off this week!

While it’s anticipated that this session will focus on bonding, the Vikings stadium, and various constitutional amendments, important environmental issues will still be part of the policy discussion.

As legislators return to the state Capitol, we urge them to remember that policies that affect our water, clean energy future, and Great Outdoors are vitally important to Minnesota voters – regardless of political party affiliation.

In fact, a 2012 poll* of Minnesota voters found that the majority of voters do not believe that we have to choose between helping the economy vs. protecting our environment. A whopping 79% of voters polled said we can have a clean environment and a strong economy at the same time without having to choose one over the other.

Join us and tell your legislators and Governor Dayton that choosing the economy over the environment is a false choice – Minnesotans want and deserve both.

Having a strong economy and a healthy environment together will make Minnesota better today and for generations to come.

LSP applauds the City of Minneapolis for the strides it’s made in incorporating urban agriculture as a legal land use in the zoning code by passing the Urban Agriculture Policy Plan in April 2011. The integration of urban agriculture in Minneapolis will create jobs, spur small business generation, and create healthier neighborhoods with more access to fresh, local foods.

This is an important first step toward making urban agriculture a key part of our community. However, in order to make urban agriculture as economically viable as possible for small businesses, some key changes are essential:

1. Allow on-site sale days at all market gardens.
   LSP supports the decision to allow market gardens 25 on-site sale days throughout the year. We also encourage the city to allow on-site sales of produce that is raised as part of a home occupation (in your own backyard). This would cut down on transportation and packaging costs for the producer, as well as make fresh produce available in more neighborhoods.
2.  Less restrictive regulations for hoop houses and season extension.
   Under current zoning rules, hoop houses that are used as a means to extend the growing season are only allowed to remain standing for 180 days and to comprise only 15 percent of the entire plot. In order to make efficient use of season extension, LSP would like to see the amount of time that hoop houses can remain standing increased to 260 days a year. They should also be allowed to take up as much as 50 percent of the plot space.
3. Allowing chickens on urban farms.
   Farmers keep poultry for a variety of reasons, including using them as integrated pest management tools and a source of soil fertility, as well as to attract visitors and potential customers. In an urban setting, poultry are critical to small-scale farms that would benefit from these diversified uses. Not only would poultry serve an ecological purpose, but their eggs could also be sold to generate additional revenue. A good Urban Agriculture Policy Plan must allow poultry production on small-scale farms in the city.

What you can do: Make a comment on the urban ag draft text amendments by Monday, Jan. 23
Please take a moment to send a comment via email to Aly Pennucci, Planner for the City of Minneapolis, about these draft changes. A sample comment can be:

“I support moving the Urban Ag Text Amendments forward. This is a great first step toward making urban farming an economically viable occupation for residents of Minneapolis. However, I support changing language to allow produce raised in a market garden being done as a home occupation to be sold on-site. Also, I would like to see hoop houses remain standing for longer, and be able to take up as much as 50 percent of lot space. And I would like to see poultry allowed on urban farms.”

Attend Land Stewardship Project’s planning meeting on Sunday, Jan. 22, to discuss strategy regarding passage of the draft
The Land Stewardship Project will be hosting a planning meeting this Sunday, beginning at 7 p.m., at our office in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood. Hear more about the text amendments, and learn about how to make comments at the public meeting on Monday.

Come to the public hearing on Monday and speak in favor of the draft and suggested changes
Attend the public hearing on Monday, Jan. 23, and be prepared to comment on the draft text amendments. We need to pack the house in order to show our support for urban farming in the City of Minneapolis. It’s in Room 317 at City Hall.

For more information, call or e-mail LSP’s Anna Cioffi at 612-722-6377.