Loon Commons: Dedicated to Protecting and Restoring Minnesota’s Environment

An Important Class of Food Critics

Brian — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:58:34 +0000

The movie Food, Inc. has been getting a lot of reviews since it was released a few weeks ago. Many critics like what the movie has to say about the state of our food system; others aren’t as enamored. But perhaps the most important review I’ve read so far was penned by my 10-year-old neighbor, Will. After all, if true change in our food and farming system is to come about, it’s Will’s generation that needs to get the message. Here’s his take on the film:

“The other day I saw the movie Food, Inc. It made me really think about what people eat these days. Huge Industrial farms don’t want people to know the disgusting truth about what they’re eating.

“Here are some of the things Industrial farms are doing that they don’t want people to know about and some of the ways they keep them secret. Images on packages from Industrial farms show farmers milking cows and farmers tending their garden when the real picture is thousands of cows clustered together standing knee-deep in their own poop.

“Fruits and vegetables are out-of season when picked and ripened when soaked in chemicals. Poop from Industrial farm cattle and hogs get washed away into the river.

“The FDA and EPA are also run by former leaders of huge Industrial farms. The Industrial farms could send huge chunks of E-coli infested beef to every fast food restaurant in America that would be eaten by millions of people and the government wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

“The Industrial farms bring workers up from Mexico that are in desperate need of a job, then the Mexicans get arrested for being accused of undocumented working when it’s the company that brought them here. Unfortunately, the government does not have enough resources to sue the companies.

“Unfortunately, some people have died from E-coli like in the movie this person’s son died from eating infested hamburgers the day after vacation. She said this: ‘If we would have known what was in store for us, we would have never gone home. … All I wanted them to say was I’m sorry about your son. We’ll make sure it never happens again. And they didn’t give it to us.’

“Here are some of the ways you can drag power away from these companies:

Buy organic

Have your school buy organic school lunches

Buy milk not treated with antibiotics/ growth hormones

Buy burgers from 100% grass-fed cows

Go vegetarian

Join a CSA”

There’s nothing like a young, fresh pair of eyes and ears to distill a complicated issue down to its most basic elements. This weekend, consider bypassing the blockbuster Disney fare at the cineplex and take your kids to see Food, Inc. But if you do, here’s a friendly warning: those young eyes and ears will make it quite difficult to get away with paying only lip service to supporting a sustainable, family farm based food system.

Clarifying the Great Lakes Compact

Dave — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:49:48 +0000

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak has introduced a resolution to clarify the Congressional view of the Great Lakes Compact which the eight states including Minnesota passed, and Congress approved last fall. H. Res. 551, he says, is designed to quell concerns that two provisions in the Compact could be exploited by private interests to sell off large amounts of Great Lakes water without oversight by the states.

From Stupak’s release: “I continue to have concerns that the Great Lakes Compact is not strong enough to protect the Great Lakes against diversions through privatization, commercialization and exportation,” Stupak said. “There is no question that Congress intended for the compact to protect Great Lakes water but the wording of the compact leaves some question. That is why I have introduced this resolution to put Congress on record in opposition to the exploitation of Great Lakes waters.”

Building Sensible Communities: 2009 summary

Fresh Energy — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:44:25 +0000

By Ethan Fawley, transportation connections coordinator, Fresh Energy

On June 11, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership hosted the first forum for the 2010 gubernatorial race, and transportation and land use were key issues in the discussion. Two gubernatorial candidates explicitly mentioned (and others echoed the sentiments) the need to finalize the Building Sensible Communities bill as an important part of simultaneously addressing global warming pollution and other quality of life issues such as air pollution, congestion, personal transportation costs, and dwindling open space.

Of course to finish what was started, we need to understand what happened this session and what work is still left. The vast majority of the bill passed 10 committees before it was broken into parts–three of which passed and were signed by Governor Pawlenty. There were many positive discussions and while much work remains, the steps forward offer a good groundwork for future work. For the ease of understanding this multi-faceted bill, I have broken it into six parts for this summary: 1) Metro area planning, 2) school siting, 3) Mn/DOT planning, 4) Greater Minnesota planning, 5) environmental review and global warming, and 6) wetlands and carbon sequestration.

1. Metro Area Planning
A key part of the Building Sensible Communities was to begin to reevaluate how we do land-use planning based on the increasing understanding that how our cities are built has a big impact on how we get around and our quality of life. For the last 60 years, our city planning largely centered on maximizing automobile access, which has lead to many places where there are very limited transportation alternatives to the car. In fact, city zoning codes often prohibit the kinds of development that support walking, biking, and transit. The result is that school, shopping, work, and recreational trips are typically far away from home and far away from each other–meaning that we are forced to spend ever more time in traffic. This means more pollution, less time with family, higher family transportation costs, greater need for costly infrastructure such as roads and sewer lines, and snarling congestion. Business as usual cannot meet the evolving needs of Minnesotans and cannot help us protect Minnesota’s future!

Quite simply, we need cities to adjust their zoning codes to allow more innovative development that can provide more options for where people live and how they get around. A number of cities have already made some of these changes, but many cities have limited planning staff and lack the capacity to tackle this task. A key goal of Building Sensible Communities was to provide assistance for cities as they determine the best ways to better support transportation options.

In the bill:

performance-based targets to support planning that reduces the need to drive; the targets would be incorporated into the existing Metro area planning process overseen by the Metropolitan Council
a comprehensive planning assistance program from the University of Minnesota would create a toolkit for communities to rethink their land-use planning and offer training and technical assistance to communities as they implement some changes
adjust the timeline for 10-year updates to city comprehensive plans to better coincide with the best available demographic information from the U.S. Census (the changed timeline would also help speed up implementation of adjustments to planning)

Became law:

The Metropolitan Council will work with communities and stakeholders to create a planning resources report for communities to evaluate the best ways that planning can help reduce air pollution, congestion, and the cost of infrastructure.

2. School Siting
It is common knowledge that schools have a big impact on our lives and our communities. What isn’t as well know is that for decades the Minnesota Department of Education has had de facto requirements that often force school districts to replace historic neighborhood schools with new schools on the edge of town. These moves have forever changed the character of many small towns and neighborhoods across the states because of arcane limitations on local control. They also have made it unsafe for many kids to walk and bike to school because the new schools are often on busy roads or in areas without good sidewalks.

My hometown of Moorhead provides a good example of the problem. The elementary school that my sister attended was in a neighborhood that was largely built in the 1920s-1950s. It was on a relatively quiet street and many kids were able to safely walk or bike to school. As the school was in need of renovation, the school district looked to rehab the school, but was told by the state that it should strongly consider rebuilding the school instead because the cost of rehab was getting close to the cost of building new. Then the state strongly urged the school district to find a bigger site than the two-square blocks that the school was on because of relatively arbitrary minimum school acreage requirements.

The result of all this back and forth was that the school district felt compelled to build a new school on the edge of town. Many people were very upset, but the district said that they had little choice (because of these outdated state standards). The old school building is now vacant and while there is a gleaming new school, it is right adjacent to the main north-south highway heading out of town, which separates the school from most of the nearby housing. It is a scary proposition to think of six-year-olds crossing that street and I doubt that many parents do anything but drive their kids the few blocks to school. Plus, throw in the cost of new infrastructure to support the school and you have a far more expensive school than it would have been if they could have just renovated the old school.

In the bill:

eliminate de facto minimum school acreage requirements
eliminate de facto requirements that discourage school renovation
include in a school building proposal ways to maximize the potential for shared facilities
include in a school building proposal steps to support safe walking and biking

Became law:

all pieces

3. Mn/DOT Planning
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) makes numerous critical decisions about how to invest in our highway system, intercity rail system, and transit system across the state. For decades, Mn/DOT focused almost exclusively on highway planning and building with only cursory consideration of how walking, biking, transit, and rail connect with driving to support an overall multi-modal transportation system. Mn/DOT has been making notable strides to consider transportation more broadly. But evolving transportation and demographic trends (people are driving less and our population is aging) and environmental and quality of life realizations mean that Mn/DOT needs to accelerate its shift to support transportation options.

In the bill:

toward the end of the process, a goal for Mn/DOT to support a transportation system that reduces the need to drive evolved into a Mn/DOT-led analysis of the impact of demographic, socioeconomic, and travel trends on transportation system needs, air pollution, and future transportation revenues

Became law:

Nothing. Governor Pawlenty vetoed the Omnibus Transportation Policy bill, which included the Mn/DOT analysis; the veto was due to other considerations and came after overwhelming support in both the House (123-11) and Senate (59-2).

4. Greater Minnesota Planning
Minnesota used to have a small Department of Planning that served as a resource for communities across the state as they developed plans and zoning. Since the department’s elimination five years ago, there has been a notable gap that has left many small cities, townships, and counties scrambling to keep up. Many communities have openly asked for more planning assistance to address these needs.

In the bill:

a grant program to support innovative planning in Greater Minnesota

Became law:

nothing

5. Environmental Review and Global Warming
The environmental review process helps ensure that we take a hard look at the potential environmental impacts of large projects. While greenhouse gas emissions are beginning to be incorporated into the process, the full impacts are still not adequately considered as a part of the process.

In the bill:

update to the environmental review process to ensure that the global warming impact of transportation and development projects is fully considered

Became law:

nothing

5. Wetlands and Carbon Sequestration
Wetlands have intrinsic value as sinks that help store carbon.

In the bill:

the recognition of the carbon sequestration value of wetlands

Became law:

the recognition of the carbon sequestration value of wetlands

Next Steps
Much work remains to ensure that land-use and transportation planning recognizes the broad impact of these decisions on the quality of life for Minnesotans. The Metropolitan Council planning resources report will certainly help communities better understand ways that they can rethink land-use planning, but additional support will be necessary to ensure that communities across the state are able to understand and adjust their zoning codes to match.

Additional steps are also necessary to ensure that Mn/DOT and the Metropolitan Council fully consider the impact of transportation investments and to ensure that the agencies better coordinate transportation with local land-use planning.

We also need to make more strides to remove planning barriers between other agencies, including the Department of Education, Pollution Control Agency, Housing Finance Agency, and Department of Employment and Economic Development. We must integrate our planning across agency and level of government if we are to fully address the complex issues of land use and transportation.

CSA Farming 101

Brian — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:11:17 +0000

If you have ambitions of launching a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm anytime soon, or even if you’ve already started one and need some guidance now that the reality of raising food for other human beings has set in, an event being held next Thursday (June 25) is right up your alley.

Threshing Table Farm, just across the St. Croix in western Wisconsin, is hosting a Farm Beginnings field day on troubleshooting a CSA start-up. Mike and Jody Lenz are in their third year of doing the CSA thing, and have a lot of critical insights to share about what works, as well as what doesn’t work so well.

Just as importantly, Dan Guenthner and Mike Racette, two of the most veteran CSA farmers in the region (combined, they have over 30 years of CSA farming experience under their belts), will lead this workshop, providing more down-and-dirty, hands-on information than you can shake a garlic scape at.

I can’t emphasize enough how rare it is to have this much practical knowledge available in one place at one time on a working CSA farm. Click here for details.

Snouts at the Trough

Brian — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:11:27 +0000

During the past several months, some in the pork and poultry industry have asked the USDA to spend millions of dollars of tax money to stabilize low prices caused in part by overproduction. Here’s the kicker: the USDA continues to guarantee loans to new and expanding CAFOs, the very operations contributing to the overproduction. The phrase, “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” comes to mind. At least you hope that’s all that’s going on.

Groups like the National Pork Producers Council would like the USDA to stabilize prices by, for example, buying up excess pork. Indeed, on March 31 the Agriculture Department committed to a $25 million bonus pork buy. That came almost exactly a year after the NPPC got the USDA to implement a $50 million buy-up of pork products. Last month, the NPPC asked the USDA for an additional $50 million pork buy. Get ready for a long summer of such requests.

“As to what we might ask for in the future, I wouldn’t rule anything out,” NPPC President Don Butler was quoted by the Red River Farm Network as saying last week. He went on to state that members of the pork industry are “free-market traders and we’d like to remain that way.”

Actually, industrialized livestock operations have a history of sticking their snouts into the taxpayer trough, as LSP and other members of the Campaign for Family Farms documented in a special report last winter.

Big players in the hog industry claim they have a right to such tax-funded buy-ups because of the recent swine flu outbreak. True, the flu has put a damper on retail pork sales in recent weeks. But at the core of the current basement-level prices for hogs is massive overproduction by specialized CAFOs—overproduction that predates the flu outbreak.

Specialized CAFOs are built for one thing, and one thing only: pumping out as many animals as possible in as short a time as possible. When you are that specialized, it’s very difficult to adjust production levels (let alone species) in response to market conditions. Frankly, it’s not a very innovative, or nimble, way to produce livestock, and we shouldn’t be subsidizing it with our tax money.

University of Missouri swine economist Glenn Grimes says the hog herd needs to be downsized, and that lenders will likely make credit tighter in the next several months to bring that about.

That’s why it’s particularly egregious that the USDA continues to guarantee loans to new and expanding specialized hog and poultry facilities, which are contributing to the very overproduction that taxpayer dollars are being used to try and remedy. The USDA’s guaranteed loans to specialized operations are contributing to further consolidation of the marketplace, putting more independent family farmers out of business.

This vicious cycle has got to stop. It’s not good for family farmers, rural communities or the environment. It’s certainly not good public policy.

LSP and other members of the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment have launched an initiative to get the USDA to suspend government-backed loans to new and expanding specialized hog and poultry facilities. There’s a precedent: when similar market situations arose in the past, USDA suspended loan programs for the construction of such specialized facilities. This statement from the Jan. 8, 1999 Federal Register says it all:

“It is inconsistent with USDA policies for FSA [Farm Services Agency] to continue to finance construction of additional production facilities through direct loans and loan guarantees while other agencies within USDA expend resources to ameliorate over-supply conditions.”

Does that situation sound familiar?

Click here to sign an online petition calling on Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to suspend guaranteeing loans to these specialized operations. The petition will be sent in by Aug. 1 or so. For details, contact LSP’s Adam Warthesen at adamw@landstewardshipproject.org or 612-722-6377.

The Way to Dusty Death

Brian — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:18:45 +0000

The May 26 Minnesota Crop Progress Report contains a troubling note: “Strong winds eroded soils and damaged newly emerged crops in some areas.” That’s Dust Bowl talk, and like the Dirty Thirties, we can’t blame it all on natural causes. A lack of diverse crop rotations is making our land more vulnerable than ever to extreme weather. Unfortunately, recent actions at the Capitol could send even more soil airborne.

There is no doubt weather patterns are not cooperating with getting farm country covered in green this growing season. A huge swath of central and southwest Minnesota—the heart of the corn and soybean region—is in the midst of a drought. And it’s getting worse. The USDA’s topsoil mositure map for May 26 rated 27 percent of Minnesota’s land “short,” and 11 percent “very short” of moisture. By June 1, the map showed the “very short” region spreading west from the Twin Cities region like a waterless blob. Now, 31 percent of the state’s land is “short” of topsoil moisture, and 19 percent is “very short.”

Of courese, extreme northwest Minnesota has the opposite problem: too much rain, and in some cases farmers have been forced to burn cornstalks in the field in a desperate attempt to get ready for planting. The extreme southeast corner of the state seems to be getting the right amount of rains at the right time.

But reports out of our state’s cornbelt are troubling: farmers are talking about dust storms the likes of which they haven’t seen in decades. Remember those pair of 90-degree days we had a couple of weeks ago when the wind blew and blew and blew? It was like the Upper Midwest’s version of the Santa Ana winds. The fact that they did not blow up a significant rainfall at such a key time in the planting season, was devastating. Moisture was sucked off the land and it didn’t return.

In the midst of those hot winds, Redwood County farmer Paul Sobocinski simply stopped his field work one day and drove around the neighborhood to take it all in. Sobocinski started farming 1976, and he told me recently he had never seen wind erosion so bad.

“So much soil was moving that it made me sick,” he says. “One neighbor had his road ditch fill up with soil, and he had to dig it out with a skid steer. Half his woven wire fence is buried.”

Sound familiar? Such descriptions can be found in images and historical accounts from the Dust Bowl, such as Timothy Egan’s excellent The Worst Hard Time.

Let’s not get carried away: things need to get a lot worse before we’re seeing erosion so bad that whole cities are engulfed, entire fields go airborne and children die of “dirt lung.” As a result of some of the lessons learned from the Dirty Thirties, we’ve made a lot of progress in conservation tillage and other farming methods that keep the land in place.

But what’s worth noting is that like the Dust Bowl days, many people are dismissing this recent round of severe erosion as a natural phenomenon that’s out of our control. Like lightning and tornadoes, soil filling ditches is just what happens when Mother Nature decides to misbehave, goes this thinking.

As Egan and other writers have pointed out, the belief that the Dust Bowl was a totally natural disaster dominated society’s thinking to such an extent that we almost missed out on the opportunity to do something about it. It eventually became clear that plowing up perennial grasslands and replacing them with water-hungry crops in places like the High Plains was a recipe for disaster once dry weather patterns set in. A lot of windbreaks and other conservation measures were put in place as a result of this realization. The Dust Bowl also helped cast doubt on the environmental (and agronomic) sustainability of indiscriminate use of the moldboard plow.

Sobocinski, who is also an LSP organizer, sees similarities to today’s situation. Too often agricultural experts, policymakers and even farmers are assuming that the extreme erosion that results from drought (or severe thunderstorms, for that matter) is as natural as the weather event itself.

But he sees it differently. Some erosion is always inevitable. But Sobocinski couldn’t help but notice that the farms that have dropped diverse crop rotations within their fields were eroding the worst. Over the years, these farms have replaced pasture, small grains such as oats or rye and even hay ground with corn, soybeans and sugar beets. Pasture and forages can offer year-round protection to the soil. Small grains can help protect it earlier and later in the growing season while building up the health of the soil. Annual crops like corn cover the land at best four months out of the year—and they require a lot of inputs, including water, to thrive.

As livestock have left family-sized farms and demand for corn-based ethanol has climbed, soil-friendly rotations have evaporated. In some parts of southwest Minnesota, at least 90-95 percent of farmland is planted to annual row crops.

It’s the same all over the Midwest. A Journal of Soil and Water Conservation study found that farmers surveyed in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota made little use of cover crops such as rye, despite the widespread acknowledgment that they are good for the soil. Only 11 percent of surveyed farmers had used cover crops in the previous five years.

In Sobocinski’s home county, for example, more than 248,000 acres of corn was harvested in 2007, up 20,000 acres from 2002. Those additional row-cropped acres have come at the expense of pasture, hay and small grains, and that’s a problem, says Sobocinski, who raises corn, soybeans, small grains and alfalfa on his 240-acre crop and livestock farm.

“The best scenarios I see is when a farmer has grasses, small grains, corn and soybeans in a mix all planted in one tract of land,” he told me. “The worse scenario is where one tract of land is planted all to one crop.”

Soil scientists like Gyles Randall have been warning for years that the trend toward increasingly less diverse (or nonexistent) crop rotations is not sustainable. Monocropping makes the land (and farms) less resilient in other ways—pests and diseases thrive in such simplified systems.

Meanwhile, the scientific evidence is piling up that diverse cropping systems not only build soil quality, but can help make row crops like corn better able to withstand extremes like drought (boy, that’s sounding good about now).

The trend toward fewer rotations preceded the recent ethanol boom (and will likely outlive any crash in that market). Federal government policy that rewards monocultural row cropping and penalizes diversity can take much of the blame. That’s why it’s so important that new Farm Bill initiatives like the Conservation Security Program reward soil-friendly farming systems that rely on diverse rotations.

It’s also why we need to shift livestock off of specialized factory farms and again make them a consistent part of diverse, family sized agriculture—it doesn’t do you much good economically to raise hay or grass if there are no animals nearby to add value to those plants.

But use of cover crops and diverse rotations has also dropped because of a major information gap that exists in farm country. Our land grant university system and government agencies like the USDA and Minnesota Department of Agriculture have a bumper crop of data available on how to raise row crops. But details on successfully establishing more diverse plantings are hard to come by.

That’s too bad, because there are a lot of good ideas to be gleaned from the past, before chemical agriculture seemed to make diverse rotations a luxury. Even better, we’re seeing some new ideas on utilizing diverse rotations and crop rotations coming out of places like the Rodale Institute and even the University of Minnesota.

But that information is not getting to farmers as much as it should. Another recent Journal of Soil and Water Conservation study concluded that more needs to be done to translate the decades of cover crop research into practical information for farmers.

That’s why Sobocinski and other farmers concerned about the lack of diversity in our cropping systems find it so ironic that the same week half of southwest Minnesota was airborne, decision-makers in Saint Paul were gutting initiatives that can help keep that soil closer to home.

As we reported here, the Senate and House Agriculture Finance committees shaped an Agriculture Finance Bill that cut the annual budget of the MDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant Program from $160,000 to $100,000. And then Gov. Tim Pawlenty took a line-item veto pen to it and eliminated one year of funding, making for an almost 70 percent overall reduction in this program.

This is a crippling blow that has a proven track record of promoting soil-friendly farming. Farmers who qualify for these grants are able to do the kind of on-farm research that they would normally never have the resources to undertake. The results of this research are reported in the internationally-respected Greenbook.

The Greenbook has done plenty to take the mystery out of diversifying cropping systems for farmers—sustainable as well as conventional.

“While lawmakers and the Governor crippled programs that have a proven track record of making farming more soil-friendly, they maintained funding for pet projects like fertilizer research,” says Sobocinski. “Meanwhile, the soil flies.”

PolyMet mine site identified as important habitat

Erin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:41:35 +0000

News from Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness:

The PolyMet mine site was identified as important habitat by the Forest Service and the DNR in the late 1990s, as part of the Superior National Forest Plan revision process.

For more information, visit the Friends website.

Minnesota beach report

Dave — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:57:25 +0000

Conservation Minnesota this week is launching its second year of regular reporting on summertime public beach conditions in Minnesota. Using data from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s Lake Superior monitoring program and our own research on conditions at inland beaches scattered across the state, we’re trying to develop a picture of the health of Minnesota’s recreational waters as they affect swimmers, and to help get the word out about any beach closings or advisories.

Exposure to pathogens can be a health problem at public beaches, as the Minnesota Department of Health notes. For example, in in 2001 there were over 3,000 confirmed cases of infectious diseases, including Giardia, Campylobacter, Shigella, Salmonella, e.coli and more.

Reader information — suggested beaches to check on, news about advisories or closings, or summertime beach stories and memories are all welcome. Simply contact dave@conservationminnesota.org or cmstaff@conservationminnesota.org.

A Few CSA Shares Still Left

Brian — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:01:36 +0000

The list of Twin Cities area CSA farms that are sold out for the 2009 season is growing ever-longer, but there are still a few spots left for adventurous localvores. Check out LSP’s list (we’ve marked the SOLD OUT farms) and start counting the days toward that first delivery of fresh produce. And if you really want to whet your appetite for local, sustainable farming, attend one of the screenings of the new movie Fresh in Minneapolis June 2-3. Yumm.

Capitol Update for May 29, 2009

Erin — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:40:51 +0000

This week’s Update from lobbyist John Tuma:

“When we ended our cruise and our canoes grated on a sandy beach for the last time our hearts were heavy and yet how happy.”
- Sigurd Olson, The Nashwauk Herald, July 22, 1921

Sigurd Olson is a giant in Minnesota’s conservation history as one of the leading voices through the mid-1900s for the preservation of wild places like our beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park. He was also an acclaimed writer, penning his classic The Singing Wilderness in 1956, a must-read for any environmental activist. So respected was Olson that his likeness is one of only a few busts displayed within our State Capitol. It seems almost providential that Olson’s bust stands guard to Capitol committee room 107 where most of the Senate environment and conservation issues are addressed. The very committee room that saw this year’s Legacy Amendment conference committee conclude its work providing the first set of critical investments for lakes, rivers and wild places that will span 25 years.

What’s interesting about the above quote is that it comes from a 1921 article recently discovered in the archives of the local paper in the town where Olson first taught after college. If the timing is accurate, this would probably be his first article on wilderness travel describing his first trip into the Boundary Waters. The article shows glimpses of his later descriptive genius of wilderness travel. Thanks to the Ike’s Kevin Proescholdt, my favorite wilderness historian, for sharing this interesting piece of history.

Just like that satisfying last paddle stroke as you cruise into a Boundary Waters landing at the end of a trip, the last edition of my session musings is always dedicated to recognizing those in the Legislature who championed the environmental cause. I’m probably violating some sort of copyright or writers’ etiquette, but I have affectionately called these recognitions my “Sig” awards in honor Sigurd Olson.

First, a disclaimer. These are my personal suggestions alone. They are only my impressions as an old, overweight voyager who has traveled the wilds we call the legislative session in years gone by. I recognize there are many who could be honorable mentions. This year’s Legislature has many individuals who have fought passionately for the protection of our Great Outdoors and would be too numerous to include. So here is my call for the three Sig awards for 2009, but feel free to add your thoughts below.

Rookie of the Year. There are many freshmen legislators attempting to catch their stride on environmental issues, just like Sig was trying to catch his stride back in 1921 as a writer. The one that stood out to me was Rep. Gail Kulick Jackson (DFL- Milaca) during the long House floor debate on whether to remove the prohibition on nuclear power plant construction in Minnesota. Kulick Jackson came to the Legislature through a very tough race winning by only 89 votes in what is considered a very conservative district; a district that is close to a nuclear power plant and the state’s largest coal power plant with many of the workers living in her district. In her race for election she committed to supporting nuclear power, but after a very thoughtful consideration of the facts through her service on the House’s energy committee she changed her mind. The concerns regarding the long-term storage questions and other problems arising from the nuclear option led to her changing her position. It’s always refreshing to see a legislator actually consider the facts and be willing to use good judgment.

Instead of dodging the issue like many “nervous Nellie” freshmen, she courageously stood up on the floor and gave an excellent speech outlining her change of heart that was more befitting a seasoned veteran. Instead of running from the issue she stood on principles. As I am sure Sigurd Olson learned in his years of battling to preserve Minnesota’s wild places, it is not the use of power or influence that the produces environmental wins, but rather statesmen standing on principal. For her principled stance and statesmanlike courage to do the right thing, Gail Kulick Jackson has earned a Sig award.

Rising Star. One of the more rewarding things for me after being around the Capitol halls as long as I have is to see one of our young environmental champions start to catch their legislative stride. This year’s rising star is without a doubt Rep. Kate Knuth (DFL – New Brighton). She has already played critical roles on our behalf with regards to global warming and other key environmental issues, in no small part because she is really smart. What was evident this year as a chief author of two critical bills on toxic chemicals was her ability to guide the legislation as opposed to just carrying it. I’ve learned from my many years of Boundary Waters canoe travels that pretty much anybody can paddle a canoe, but it takes an extra special ability to really guide a successful trip. The same is true for being a good legislative author. Any legislator can get up to talk and push a button, but it takes a special ability to guide legislation through the process. Rep. Knuth shows a deep passion for, and intellectual understanding of, the issue she takes on, but this year we started to see her showing the necessary patient savviness that makes a good legislative author.

When the bills dealing with the toxic chemicals were taking a beating both in the Senate and in the conference committee as a result of strong opposition from chemical lobbyists with support from the Governor’s office, she didn’t fold. She saw the dilemma clearly and carefully positioned the legislation to get as much out of this year as she could while still working to build alliances for the future fight. Sig would have been pleased to see her carefully working on building those alliances with fellow legislators in the halls outside the conference committee, only a stone’s throw from his bust. The forces of toxicity had better beware, that is the kind of deadly combination of moxie and brains that I’ve seen in other successful environment champions, such as former Representatives Dee Long and Willard Munger. Therefore, Rep. Kate Knuth is well deserving of a Sig and hopefully many more for years to come.

Environmental Champion of the Year. There wasn’t much debate from my Green Team lobbying colleagues when I mentioned who I felt was the hardest working amongst our environmental champions at the Legislature this year. Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL – Minneapolis) was like one of the veteran Voyagers of old who used to ply the waters of Sig’s beloved border country: a combination of commitment, versatility, endurance, and a touch of sly cunning. Sen. Dibble and fellow chief author Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL – Minneapolis) used all those skills to achieve some of our goals in our Building Sensible Communities initiative. They were able to creatively finesse the language of our initiative to keep it alive through multiple committees. When it was clear that a stand-alone bill could possibly be vetoed by the Governor, they creatively tucked away several of the provisions in multiple omnibus bills — a crafty move that increases the odds of success, but takes a great deal of work to manage as a chief author.

In addition to Building Sensible Communities, Sen. Dibble repeatedly played the role of key defender of many environmental initiatives that were under attack. He was a vital player along with Rep. Bill Hilty (DFL –Finlayson) in fending off the repeal of the nuclear power plant ban. He was also the chief negotiator in preserving transit funding. It is no small feat in a year where we faced a multibillion-dollar deficit to be able to walk away from session and say that transit funding was preserved without the need for a farebox increase. They had to use some creative financing, but that’s just more proof of his stature as a veteran environmental champion. Therefore, this year’s Sig award goes to a well deserving Sen. Scott Dibble.

Ahh . . . we’ve come to the end of another legislative journey where “our canoes grated on a sandy beach for the last time” this year. We are fortunate to have arrived safely through another voyage. The MEP team is not only grateful for the work of champions like Rep. Kulick Jackson, Rep. Knuth and Sen. Dibble, but also for all those hard-working citizen activists like you who make our efforts possible. Your willingness to attend meetings, send letters, make phone calls, and simply be active in your communities makes our success possible. This was evident this year more than ever as a result of the passage of the constitutional amendment by overwhelming numbers last November. As an every day Capitol observer, it was evident that your voices were heard loud and clear with the passage of some critical investments in our Great Outdoors. As a result, the real work now begins out in the field restoring and protecting our Great Outdoors. Hope you have time this summer to get out to enjoy our Great Outdoors as we continue to work together to pass it on to the next generation.