February 21: Shoreland zoning standards update, petty politics, and Darby Nelson
MCEA board member Don Shelby has a nice profile of Darby Nelson, one of Minnesota's conservation heroes and the author of a new book on Minnesota lakes, in today's MinnPost. Nelson describes the paradox that we Minnesotans say we love our lakes, but we are at the same time destroying them.  We cannot even get new compromise shoreland zoning standards approved.  All have recognized that the current standards are out-of-date and need to be updated, and a broad group ranging from resort owners, local governments, lake associations, and environmental organizations worked with the DNR to come up with consensus new standards that local governments could adopt and enforce.

But then Governor Pawlenty inexplicably vetoed his own DNR late in his Administration, and then the DNR ran afoul of a statutory provision that gives agencies 18 months from any new authorization for rule making to get the rules formally noticed.  The easy fix is for the legislature to reauthorize the rules, but politics gets in the way.  This Administration says getting this done is a priority, but they won't even put the shore land reauthorization in their own agency bill.  At the same time, since the current Administration says it support this measure, some in the legislature reflexively oppose it, and claim the updated rules impose all sorts of new draconian requirements, none of which are true.  And then the Association of Minnesota Counties, who participated in developing the new rules in the first place, declares its opposition as an "unfunded mandate," even though the counties have had the same enforcement responsibility for shoreline zoning since the early 1970's and the updated rules wouldn't change that one bit.  So while we fiddle here in St. Paul, the lakes we claim we love get worse and worse.  This would be funny if it weren't so tragic.  We deserve better.

February 17: Growing concern about sulfide mining? Check out the sled dog effort to raise consciousness about sulfide mining. 

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