A long-running local government collaboration in southwestern Minnesota is helping to insulate the region from the kind of controversies and misinformation that have plagued rural clean energy projects in other states.

The Rural Minnesota Energy Board has its origins in a regional task force that was set up during the mid-1990s as the state’s first wind farms were being built. The task force was instrumental in persuading state legislators in 2002 to create a wind energy production tax, which today generates millions of dollars in annual revenue for counties and townships that host wind projects.

The group’s scope and membership has since gradually expanded to include 18 rural counties that pay monthly dues for support on energy policy and permitting. The board represents members at the state legislature and in Public Utilities Commission proceedings. At home, it facilitates community meetings with project developers, helps draft energy-related ordinances, and educates members and the public on the benefits of energy projects.

The result, say clean energy advocates and developers, has been a uniquely consistent approach to local energy policy and permitting that makes it easier for renewable companies to do business in the region.

“The rural energy board has been a critical, important body and one of the major reasons why renewable energy has been successful in southwestern Minnesota,” said Adam Sokolski, director of regulatory and legislative affairs at EDF Renewables North America. “Their policies have encouraged good decision-making over the years and led to a stable and productive region for energy development.”

EDF Renewables has worked with the board on at least nine projects in the region. Sokolski said he’s come to admire its approach to policy making, its support for transmission projects, and its efforts to educate members on clean energy. 

“It’s positive to have county leaders talking to each other about energy projects, about how … they can approach those projects so they best benefit their constituents and the public,” he said.

Southwest Minnesota has the state’s densest concentration of wind turbines and is increasingly attracting solar developers, too. Wind turbines account for more than 4,500 megawatts, or around 22%, of the state’s generation capacity, making Minnesota a top 10 state for wind production.

‘It’s all economic development’

The board counts the wind production tax among its most significant accomplishments. Large wind farms pay $1.20 per megawatt-hour of generation. Counties receive 80% of the revenue, with the remainder going to townships. A similar fee also exists for large solar projects.

The fee delivers millions of dollars annually, allowing local governments to construct buildings and repair bridges and roads without raising their levies for years. According to American Clean Power, Minnesota municipalities receive $44 million annually in taxes, and private landowners receive nearly $41 million in lease payments from wind and solar companies.

That has enabled counties to stave off opposition by pointing out that turbines and solar are economic development, according to Jason Walker, community development director for the Southwest Regional Development Commission, which manages the board, said the local government revenue generated from wind and solar projects has helped reduce opposition to projects.

“It’s all economic development here,” Walker said.

When opposition does emerge, such as around a recent 160 megawatt solar project in Rock County in the state’s far southwest corner, the board works with commissioners to make sure local leaders have factual information as opposed to misinformation.

Peder Mewis, regional policy director for the Clean Grid Alliance, praised the board for creating an information-sharing culture among members that helps prepare them for clean energy development. He said many developers appreciate that the region’s ordinances are similar because of the board, and that they have maintained good relationships with members over the years.

“There are other parts of the state that are thinking, ‘Is there something here that we could replicate or duplicate?’” Mewis said.

Jay Trusty, executive director of the Southwest Regional Development Commission, said the board plays an essential role in lobbying for state policy to support clean energy development. In addition to the production taxes, the board regularly defends the local distribution of those funds when lawmakers consider other uses for the revenue. The board more recently lobbied for changes to the state transmission permitting process, which were approved this year, and it supported an expansion for Xcel Energy’s CapX 2020 high-voltage transmission project before state utility regulators.

Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner John Tuma recalled the board’s support for the state’s 2008 renewable energy standard, which gave Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty important rural support for signing the legislation.

“They bring an economic voice to the table,” Tuma said, adding that the board continues to be active in conversations about regional grid policies.

Nobles County Commissioner Gene Metz has served on the board for 12 years. The region’s decades of experience and collaboration on wind energy has helped make residents more comfortable with clean energy projects, he said, leading to fewer controversies. 

In counties outside the board’s territory, “they’re getting more pushback, especially on solar projects,” he said.

Gene’s cousin, Chad Metz, serves as a commissioner in Traverse County, which is not a member and has a mortarium on clean energy projects. Chad Metz sees clean energy as inevitable and wants the county to join the rural energy board to protect its economic interests. “The benefits outweigh the negatives, and it will just become part of life,” he said.

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In 2009, an invasive tree pest was discovered on an ash tree in St. Paul. This past fall, 15 years later, the city cut down its last ash tree. 

While St. Paul and other more populated cities have been aware of the emerald ash borer for some time, many Greater Minnesota cities are more recently learning about the pest and facing the challenges it brings their communities. 

Restrictions on moving wood have helped contain the ash borer’s spread, but spread along transitways, mainly through human traffic still persists. 

This past summer, the city of Glenwood in the southwestern part of the state faced its first emerald infestation on an ash tree. Pope County went under “quarantine” per state rules and then the city later conducted an inventory of the ash trees in the area to get a sense of what might be the fallout. 

What they found was approximately 978 ash trees in public areas. Of those, roughly 40% were in the “fair, bad or dead” category, according to city administrator David Iverson. 

“We have to make some decisions of what we’re going to do with regard to these trees,” Iverson said. “Do you start taking them down or not?  And what we’re finding is it sounds like … dead trees are tougher to take down because their branches drop off and they fall around, versus a healthier tree is easier to take down than a dead tree.”

But resources are limited. Glenwood is looking for funding sources for this because if it doesn’t find something, Iverson said there’s a high chance the city would have to do some restructuring of other city projects. Taking down a tree he estimates costs around $1,000 per tree, and that doesn’t take into account replanting. 

“It’s one thing to take down trees, but it’s somewhat unrealistic to think a city our size is going to be able to pay if you were going to take down, say, 100 trees, and take down half of these trees we have in four or five years,” he said. “I just don’t know how some of these small towns are going to be able to come up with funds to do this because there’s always only so much money. So, I have a feeling we are going to have to look to … nibble down the size of some of these other street projects that we look to try to do or forgo a project for a year and just jump on a bid to take down a number of trees and just use the money that way.” 

The League of Minnesota Cities (LMC) is pushing for more state funding for communities struggling with the emerald ash borer. It’s not an issue that’s leaving anytime soon, said Craig Johnson, the senior intergovernmental relations representative for the League of Minnesota Cities. 

According to Johnson, there’s significant cost in doing an inventory to find out where ash trees are and their state of health. A concern is the tree becomes more hazardous as it gets more infested. 

“Ash trees get so brittle when they die that they can literally explode. A six-inch branch can just shatter from even a bird landing on it,” Johnson said. “They are definitely a public health and safety issue. If you have emerald ash borer, and there’s a tree that looks like it’s starting to die, it has to be removed or it is going to start falling on people and cars and houses.” 

There’s an element of timeliness in finding a solution for these communities, but it has to still be financially viable. Iverson said as soon as Glenwood found out about it, city workers strapped in their boots. 

“We have a very green community with a lot of trees, which we really enjoy … and it’s the pride of our town,” Iverson said. “You hate to see the loss of all those trees, but yet, if it’s there, you’ve got to do something. We just cannot sit on our hands.”

LMC has sought funding in past years to give communities with emerald ash borer infestation priority on the state’s money to help with the response, like the community tree-planting grant program, established in 2024 to prioritize projects for communities with emerald ash borer infestations. In the 2023 session, the DNR received funds for a “ReLeaf” program, with around $16 million during that biennium dedicated to grants to help communities with removal and tree planting. In subsequent years, a recurring $400,000 will be granted to the program, which LMC fears might get cut into with a tighter budget.

“This year, the budget is going to be extremely tight, and there are going to need to be cuts to the budget, not adding new spending to the budget,” Johnson said. “We are going to be working pretty hard to make sure that the emerald ash borer funds that are in place stay there and that where possible, we reallocate some other funds to provide more resources there, because every year more and more cities are having emerald ash borer hit.” 

Different approaches to the borer 

When dealing with the emerald ash borer, St. Paul opted to get rid of all its ash trees, while Minneapolis took a different approach, targeting at-risk trees and removing those while treating the bigger healthier trees. 

Angela Gupta, an extension educator at the University of Minnesota, said the federal government for a long time supported the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) emerald ash borer surveilling, but it’s no longer a federal priority. MDA still has strict quarantine rules, like policies to limit the spread of firewood in certain areas, which Gupta said is why it’s taken this long for the bug to get to infest some areas of the state. 

“The idea with a quarantine for emerald ash borer is, if you have emerald ash borer in an area, you want to retain it only in the area and don’t let it get out of that area,” she said. “That’s been pretty successful. So part of that is buying time. If we can buy time for science to come up with ways in which to manage emerald ash borer or to mitigate the damage, then we may be protecting our resource.”

Gupta said there are good options for treating the trees now, which can pay off for communities where the concentrations of the pest are low. Treating is a good option for trees that haven’t lost too much of their canopy yet. But if a tree has lost more than 30% of its canopy, it’s likely too late to treat, according to Gupta. For trees near an infestation, Gupta said it’s recommended to treat if it’s within a 10-15 miles radius. 

She advises if a community has to cut down trees, they replant them with a variety of species so they don’t end up in a similar situation down the road.

While Minnesota has been at controlling the spread of the infestation, in recent years even despite quarantines, it has gotten harder to contain the spread, one reason for which is climate change, Gupta said. 

Temperatures of negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit will kill 90% of the insect, studies show.

This past winter, when temperatures were warmer and there was no snow, conditions were ideal for the ash borer to survive and spread. The emerald ash borer is now being found in areas it wasn’t before, like the Chippewa National Forest in northern Minnesota. In areas of the state, like some spots in northern Minnesota, places that previously remained safe from the pest, due to temperature, quarantine rules and other factors, black ash trees may now be more at risk. 

“Emerald ash borer will be able to benefit as we get warmer,” Gupta said. “That’s a concern because Minnesota is the state with the largest ash resource in the United States at this point.”

Ava Kian

Ava Kian is MinnPost’s Greater Minnesota reporter. Follow her on Twitter @kian_ava or email her at akian@minnpost.com.

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The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency finalized the changes to two of its general permits for feedlots this month, which typically apply to those with 1,000 or more animal units. The changes, which go into effect June 2025 and February 2026, have some farmers worried, but others relieved. 

The main changes are an online tool to develop a manure management plan, added regulations for tracking data when transferring manure to someone else and some prohibitions on manure applications to ensure best management practices. 

Many of these changes are “steps in the right direction,” said Matthew Sheets, a policy organizer with the Land Stewardship Project, a nonprofit with a focus on sustainable agriculture. 

Prior to the plan being finalized, people with various ties to the permitting system voiced their likes and dislikes during an open comment period. 

Sheets said he’s happy with the requirements for tracking manure application. 

“For a while it has been that the way that large CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are able to get rid of some of their liquid manure is by working with somebody else who is going to apply that on their fields. They essentially sell it to another person. And up until now, at that point of sale, that’s where the tracking stops as well,” Sheets said. “In these new rules, the tracking doesn’t stop there.” 

He wants more tracking about groundwater quality, but including this manure specification is a good step, he said. 

Hesitations about tracking 

Others, like Loren Dauer, the public policy director at the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation have concerns about application tracking and its associated information. While he’s happy to see the tool online and on an accessible platform, he’s concerned that the owner of the feedlot that’s producing the manure will have the responsibility of collecting that data and sharing it with the state.

“If you’re the farmer or the landowner who utilizes manure, you are now going to be required to essentially give up your crop history data,” he said.  “From our perspective, this was proprietary data. These are farmers, individuals that utilize this information, and if you’re a larger feedlot, and you’re providing this manure to several other landowners or farmers … does that one feedlot have the right to hold all that information and report that back to MPCA? In our opinion, that should not be the case, because it is kind of private.” 

He suggested the MPCA instead collect the information separately instead from the permittee (who’s providing the manure) and the receiver of the manure. 

Glen Groth, the president of the Winona County Farm Bureau Federation, said he’s heard concerns about how this will be tracked. 

“If you give manure to a neighbor or sell manure to a neighbor, you’re expected to ensure they comply with the current manure application regulations. Well, how do you make them comply to it? And then, you know what happens if they say, ‘Yeah, you bet I’ll put down the cover crop within a certain amount of time,’ and then they don’t?  … How do you hold your neighbor to account?” 

The MPCA has stated that feedlot owners are required to ensure manure application is done appropriately and, if a manure recipient consistently fails to comply, then the permittee should consider no longer doing business with that recipient. If despite the permittee’s best efforts, recipients don’t follow the regulations, MPCA can take enforcement action against the manure recipients. 

Those at the Land Stewardship Project disagree, saying that the requirement isn’t necessarily onerous. 

“Even though that is something that is an additional piece that must be kept by the person that is spreading that manure and the operator of the CAFO … it is just one of the bare minimum things that we can be doing to support and ensure that our the best management practices are going to be adhered to,” Sheets said. 

Groth and Dauer are also concerned about the best management practices that are required for permit holders, which include specific practices such as applying the manure to a growing perennial or row crop or planting cover crops to a range of other practices depending on the time of year. There are specific regulations for the areas that are considered “vulnerable groundwater areas.” 

The MPCA has stated it will recognize “good faith efforts” to establish a cover crop because of weather uncertainty, which can impact cover crop growth.

But the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation feels these regulations, when coupled with the existing Groundwater Protection rules, may have farmers in a bind. 

“With the Groundwater Protection rule from the Department of Agriculture, you’re not allowed to apply commercial fertilizer during the fall time without some of these practices. And so a lot of these farmers have kind of turned to using manure from livestock to kind of fill their needs and their nutrient plans,” Dauer said. “We’re not providing a lot of options for our farmers to have nutrient plans in these areas because this new groundwater vulnerable area, is also similarly where the Groundwater Protection area is as well.”  

Groth, who’s not too worried about the impact of these regulations on his own crop operation, said he’s heard from farmers in his area about how these new rules could affect them. 

He’s worried that these new rules may potentially inform future regulations on feedlots, especially expanding these regulations to those who don’t currently need to apply for the permits because of the size of their feedlots. 

“If these regulations apply to smaller family farms, they could be very difficult and very expensive to comply with,” Groth said. 

He said it’ll be financially challenging for farmers to do some of those best management practices, especially regarding manure application, if it has to be done in the spring. 

“The rule says that manure can’t be applied in the fall unless certain conditions are met, or it has to be applied in the spring. Manure applied in the spring, that could greatly increase the amount of manure storage someone has to have, which is very expensive on farms these days. And it could be just a time constraint. We have situations where it’s gone from snowy and frozen to perfect planting field conditions in two weeks. Two weeks aren’t enough for a lot of farmers to get their manure applied in a responsible manner, or to even hire somebody to do something like that.” 

Future impacts on feedlots

In Winona County, Groth estimated there are just a handful or two of feedlots that apply for these permits. But there are many farms on the edge, meaning having just a couple more cows would require them to apply for this permit. 

“There’s a lot of farmers, far more than just a handful, that are just right on that cusp of needing this or not. So the concern is, if this is baked in the law, these somewhat impractical new requirements, that they could lower the threshold at some point in the state of Minnesota … meaning (farms) somewhat suddenly would have to comply with these rules,” Groth said. “And then (that would) apply to hundreds of farms in the county rather than just five to 10 or a couple dozen.” 

He worries that these regulations would prevent farms that want to expand from doing so. 

“I think you see a bit of that in Winona County already. We got this extremely low animal unit cap. And I think you see a number of people in Winona County farm families that either they get away with it by having to own two or three facilities rather than one, which is not efficient from an environmental permitting and manure management standpoint, nor is it from a purely economic production standpoint,” he said. 

Groth said a solution is needed that would reinvigorate the dairy industry. He thinks being more liberal with permitting dairy facilities to encourage more dairies could be one of the ways to achieve better groundwater quality, and encouraging perennial crop production like alfalfa, which is feed for cows and also helps reduce nitrate contamination in groundwater.

Ava Kian

Ava Kian is MinnPost’s Greater Minnesota reporter. Follow her on Twitter @kian_ava or email her at akian@minnpost.com.

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WASHINGTON — The new Congress and Donald Trump’s return to the White House has created new opportunities for Rep. Pete Stauber when it comes to his efforts to promote copper and nickel mining on the Iron Range.

As the chairman of the panel that has jurisdiction over mining issues in the House Natural Resources Committee, Stauber, R-8^th District, is well positioned to push mining-related legislation.

“I’m excited about the work ahead,” he said.

Stauber was also chairman of that key panel in the last Congress and was able to get several mining-related bills approved in the U.S. House. But the legislation stalled in the U.S. Senate because the chamber was controlled by Democrats who ignored Stauber’s bills.  

After November’s elections, control of the Senate shifted to the GOP, which could help Stauber’s efforts, and he has an ally in Trump, who said he supports efforts to expand mining on the Iron Range.

On Monday, one of the many executive orders Trump signed directed the Interior and Agriculture Departments to “reassess any public lands withdrawals for potential revision.” That could affect a moratorium the Biden Administration placed on sulfide ore mining on 225,504 acres of federal land and waters within the Superior National Forest.

Stauber said he plans to reintroduce his marquee bill, the Superior National Forest Restoration Act, this week. But even on a more favorable political playing field, the lawmaker still faces hurdles.

Stauber’s wide-ranging bill would reverse the Biden administration’s 20-year ban on copper and nickel mining in Superior National Forest and reissue key federal mineral leases to Twin Metals, a mining concern that has for decades tried to establish an underground copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum mine about nine miles southeast of Ely.

Stauber’s legislation would limit environmental and regulatory review of mine plans of operations within the Superior National Forest to 18 months and block judicial review of reissued leases or permits.

Environmentalists who oppose the expansion of mining also have their allies in Congress.

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, plans to introduce a bill Tuesday that would permanently establish the moratorium in Superior National Forest. Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, and Kelly Morrison, D-3rd District, are among the 17 Democratic co-sponsors of the bill. 

McCollum’s legislation, called the Boundary Waters Wilderness Protection and Pollution Prevention Act, would not restrict taconite or iron-ore mining anywhere else in Minnesota. But the legislation faces strong political headwinds in the GOP-controlled House and Senate. 

Currently, the revocation of two Twin Metals leases are under consideration by a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The leases were renewed by the previous Trump administration and canceled in January 2022 under the Biden administration. A coalition of environmental groups, including Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and the Wilderness Society, joined the Biden Interior Department in seeking to uphold the cancellation of those leases.

Some of the things Stauber’s legislation aims to accomplish can be done by Trump with a stroke of a pen. He campaigned on reversing the 20-year moratorium on mining in the Superior National Forest and there is speculation he will also try to reinstate Twin Metals’ leases.

Ingrid Lyons, executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, one of the environmental groups battling mining companies on the Iron Range, said Trump’s inauguration “kicks off the countdown to an all-but-certain and unprecedented revocation of Biden’s historic mining ban in the Boundary Waters watershed.”

“The robust record of science, law, public opinion, and economics is clear — copper mining does not belong on the doorstep of America’s most iconic landscapes,” Lyons said in a statement.

Those who oppose the introduction of copper and nickel mining in Minnesota say copper, nickel and other ores are in rock that contain sulfides, and when exposed to air and water those sulfides could generate acids that leach toxic metals into the water that feeds into the Boundary Waters.

Meanwhile, Twin Metals and other mining companies that have proposed projects in the state say they have the technology to protect the watershed.

Senate could be a challenge

Stauber said “he doesn’t want to get in front of President Trump’s executive orders” that could affect Twin Metals, but wants to move forward with his legislation anyway.

Stauber is also confident that another bill that would impact mining in Minnesota that passed the House but not the Senate last year will also be considered this year. That bill would streamline the federal permitting process and limit federal environmental review of proposed mining operations.  

Stauber said that holding a Senate vote on the legislation could put Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both Democrats, on the spot. “Our two Minnesota senators will get a chance to vote on these mining bills,” he said.

Even with a GOP-majority Senate, Stauber would need the support of at least seven Democratic senators to reach the goal of 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

Yet Smith opposes the legislation, a spokeswoman for the senator said. Klobuchar’s office did not have an immediate response.

“We don’t think he has the support in the Senate to withstand a filibuster,” said Becky Rom, chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters.

A key Stauber ally, Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, told reporters last week that legislation that would clear the path for the Twin Metal project in Minnesota — as well as a copper mine in Arizona and another project in Alaska — could be attached to a budget reconciliation bill that, under Senate rules, is not subject to a filibuster.

Westerman said the Twin Metals project has been a “political ping pong ball” and that it’s up to Congress “to step up and say, ‘Quit the political ping pong and build the mine.’”

But Senate rules for a reconciliation bill says all items in the legislation should have budgetary impact, that is they must either cost or raise money, and it may be difficult for the proposed mining legislation to meet that requirement.  

In any case, Twin Metals says it’s grateful for its support on Capitol Hill.

“Twin Metals Minnesota appreciates the champions in Congress that recognize the significance of the domestic mineral resources that are available in northeast Minnesota, which are urgently needed to accomplish our nation’s energy transition, job creation and national security goals,” the company said in a statement.

While environmentalists are lobbying lawmakers and taking mining companies to court to stop the development of copper and nickel  production in Minnesota, there are those who want the expansion of an industry that is now largely limited to mining taconite, a sedimentary rock containing low-grade iron ore.

Virginia, Minn.-based Iron Range Engineering — a joint project of the Minnesota State system, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and Minnesota North College — teaches engineering to students who are employed by the mining industry. Its director, Ron Ulseth, said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the political change wrought by November’s election.

“From my point of view, I’m excited for the opportunity for mining expansion,” he said. “We have something to offer the mining companies and look forward to serving them.”

But Ulseth is also skeptical that the new Trump administration can remove all obstacles, which include the requirement the state sign off on the new proposed operations, too.

“Why didn’t it happen between 2016 and 2020?” he asked, referring to the first time Trump was in the White House.

Ana Radelat

Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.

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Flood control along the Mississippi River is a central piece of a newly passed federal law — work that advocates believe is critical as the river basin sees more frequent and severe extreme weather events due to climate change. 

The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) is passed by Congress every two years. It gives authority to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to undertake projects and studies to improve the nation’s water resources. 

Signed into law Jan. 4, this year’s package includes studies on increased flooding in the upper basin, flood mitigation measures throughout the river system, ecological restoration, and a $6 billion floodwall in Louisiana. 

The Mississippi River is managed in large part by the Army Corps, so it often features prominently in the bill, with a dual aim of making the river more suitable for shipping and restoring environmental degradation from flooding, nutrient pollution and climate change. 

Kirsten Wallace, executive director of the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, called this year’s WRDA “a pretty special one.” She said it contained wins for many of the diverse stakeholders along the river, including shippers, environmental advocates, riverfront communities and federal and state agencies — who don’t always agree. 

Advocates lauded the law’s emphasis on nature-based solutions. In a press release, Stephanie Bailenson, policy team lead for The Nature Conservancy, said, “Since 2016, Congress has directed the Corps to consider natural and nature-based solutions alongside or instead of traditional infrastructure. This latest act continues that trend.”

But all of these projects are only promised, because funding doesn’t come until later, when Congress appropriates it. Many projects authorized in previous versions of the law are still unfunded, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Here’s what will affect the river in the Water Resources Development Act of 2024: 

Study of flood risk on the upper Mississippi River

The law authorizes a large-scale study of flooding on the Upper Mississippi River System, which includes the Mississippi River from its headwaters to where it meets the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois, as well as the Illinois River and portions of some smaller tributaries.

The upper river has seen two major floods in the last few years; one in 2023, and one in 2019, which lasted for months and caused billions of dollars in damage. 

The study’s chief goal: figuring out how to reduce flood risk across the entire river system, instead of relying on municipalities to try to solve flooding problems themselves, which can sometimes have impacts downstream. North of St. Louis, for example, levees constrain the river to protect communities and valuable farmland from flooding — and some levee districts have raised those levees higher, safeguarding themselves but effectively pushing floodwaters faster downstream. 

“This plan allows more of a comprehensive way for levee districts to improve what they currently have … in a way that doesn’t put them in a position to be adversarial or just impose risk somewhere else,” Wallace said. 

She said the study will be a challenge, but that levee districts are eager for solutions as flood risks and heavier rainfall increase. 

Once the study receives funding, it will be led by the Army Corps’ St. Louis District, Wallace said. It’ll solicit input from cities, towns and ports along the river, recreators, the shipping industry and federal environmental agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Flood projects for cities from the headwaters to the delta 

Cities and towns along the river could get help for the localized effects of flooding too, thanks to several projects authorized by the law. Upstream, that includes La Crosse, Wisconsin, which will enter into an agreement with the Army Corps to study the role of the city’s levees, which were constructed around the river’s record flood in 1965. 

“We have to have an eye on maintaining what we’ve got and looking toward the future and whatever conditions the river might undergo to be prepared as best we can,” said Matthew Gallager, the city’s director of engineering and public works. “Because obviously, nature is going to win.” 

Downriver, Louisiana secured the largest project authorization within the law. To protect communities in St. Tammany Parish, a county north of Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana plans to build a $5.9 billion levee and floodwall system totaling 18.5 miles in length to protect over 26,000 structures, most of which are family homes. 

The St. Tammany Flood Risk Management Project is slated to receive $3.7 billion in federal funding. The other 35% will come from non-federal sponsors, such as the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). 

“By authorizing the St. Tammany project for construction, Congress recognizes again the national importance of Louisiana and that CPRA can work with the Federal Government to execute a multi-billion coastal protection project successfully,” said CPRA Chairman Gordy Dove.

The law also authorizes a federal study of the Lake Pontchartrain Storm Surge Reduction Project, a component of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan meant to protect nine parishes bordering the lake. The Army Corps will investigate whether the proposed project to reduce flood risk is in the federal interest. 

Other approved flood control projects will be funded along the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries, including the Ouachita River in Louisiana. Several counties in Mississippi will also receive funding to improve environmental infrastructure, such as water and wastewater systems. 

Near Memphis, the bill authorizes the Hatchie-Loosahatchie Ecosystem Restoration project, which covers a 39-mile stretch of the lower Mississippi River. The project aims to manage flood risks while also restoring and sustaining the health, productivity and biological diversity of the flyway. 

In New Orleans, a study was authorized to investigate ecosystem restoration and water supply issues, such as the mitigation of future saltwater wedges that threaten drinking water and wetlands at the very end of the Mississippi River. 

More support for the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program 

The law also increases the amount of money Congress can give to the Upper Mississippi River Restoration program, which funds habitat restoration activities and scientific research on the upper river. 

Congress increased the money it can direct to the research part of the program by $10 million, bringing the total the program can get to $100 million annually. 

The boost “really is a recognition of the value of the science … the understanding that has improved about how the system is functioning over the last three decades,” said Marshall Plumley, the Army Corps’ regional manager for the program. 

If given extra funding, Plumley said program staff want to use it to better understand the effects of the increased amount of water that has flowed through the river in recent years. That increase, partly attributed to wetter conditions due to climate change, is changing the river’s floodplain habitats, including forests and backwater areas. 

A change to how new water infrastructure gets funded

The Mississippi River functions as a water superhighway, transporting around $500 million tons of goods each year. Infrastructure to keep shipping running smoothly is costly, and one adjustment in WRDA 2024 is aimed at shifting the burden of those costs. 

Taxpayers have been funding inland waterway infrastructure for nearly two centuries, but Congress established the Inland Waterways Trust Fund in 1978, which requires the private shipping industry to pitch in. 

Today, the trust fund’s coffers are filled by a 29-cent per gallon diesel tax on commercial operators that use the Mississippi River and other inland waterways, adding up to about $125 million per year in recent years. New construction — like wider, more modern locks and dams on the upper river — is paid for through a public-private partnership: the private dollars in the fund, and federal dollars allocated by Congress. 

Until recently, the private dollars covered 35% of new construction costs and federal dollars covered 65%. The new WRDA adjusts that to 25% and 75%, respectively. 

Advocates for the shipping industry have long believed taxpayers should have a bigger hand in funding construction because it’s not just shippers who benefit from an efficient river. 

The balance in the trust fund “always limits” construction that can happen in a given year, said Jen Armstrong, director of government relations for the Waterways Council. 

“We can’t afford to have projects take three decades or two decades to complete,” Armstrong said, “because we have other locks that are deteriorating.” 

Armstrong said she believes shifting more of the cost to the federal government will accelerate those projects. 

Not everyone supports the cost share change, however, including American Rivers, which has opposed the creation of new locks on the upper Mississippi in favor of helping the river revert to more natural processes. 

Kelsey Cruickshank, the group’s director of policy and government relations, called it “a disappointing development that continues to give short shrift to the incredible ecosystem of the world’s third-largest freshwater river system.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the upper river experienced major floods in 2022, the floods were in 2023. This story has been updated. 

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The Nature Conservancy and American Rivers also receive Walton funding.

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Imagine a place where you can offer your unwanted materials to others and, at the same time and location, take items discarded by others. 

Sure, there’s Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing groups. But not everyone wants to spend time online — particularly on a Meta platform, where Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing groups are commonly housed, as Meta eliminates fact checkers and changes their speech policies. And though thrift and antique stores may be options, they might not have everything you need, they might not take everything you have and you might not necessarily have the time to hop from store to store for one reason or another. 

To combat waste, activists — including those involved with advocating for the closure of the downtown Minneapolis incinerator — are calling for locations where people can dispose, reuse, recycle and compost their collective waste. They are calling those places “resource recovery parks.” 

What’s a resource recovery park?

According to a 2000 report to the California Integrated Waste Management Board written by Gary Liss, a California-based zero waste consultant, resource recovery parks could locate “reuse, recycling, compost processing, manufacturing, and retail” operations in one facility. Similar to thrift stores, they allow people who wish to discard an item to do so, as well as for others to buy discarded items. In an email, Liss added that there are no minimum requirements a resource recovery park has to meet to be considered a resource recovery park. 

One example in California is Urban Ore. The park operates on a 3.5-acre-lot with a 35,000 square-foot warehouse in southwestern Berkeley accessible by public transit and a bikeway. Since 1980, the park has accepted items for resale, including medical devices, doors, bathtubs, sound equipment, books, bike parts, clothing and laptop cables. 

Urban Ore has gathered goods in different ways, first starting operations in the city of Berkeley’s landfills, eventually moving to the city’s transfer station and ultimately settling in the southwestern Berkeley warehouse in the early 2000s. The organization continues to station a truck at the city of Berkeley’s transfer station, where it transports items to the warehouse. 

Urban Ore also has a team that does item pickups and dropoffs by appointment. Pickups are free, and sometimes the organization pays for items. Those wanting deliveries pay on a sliding scale. 

Urban Ore doesn’t take everything — mattresses, styrofoam, dirty clothing, window blinds and explosives aren’t accepted, either they think the items won’t sell, aren’t salvageable or could be hazardous to human health. Appliances are accepted for a fee. 

Jered Higgins, who is moving into a new apartment with his wife, decided to drop off some electronics to Urban Ore one Sunday afternoon, instead of listing the items on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or taking them to Goodwill. “I’m not on anything Meta and my other option was to do Craigslist or potentially donate it to Goodwill or another place that will take it. I usually come here first, especially when I have something else I’m looking for too,” Higgins said, adding he was looking for power cords for older electronics that Urban Ore stocks.  

Urban Ore’s sales, particularly their home improvement items, have increased since the pandemic began, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The increase in sales allowed them to replace their roof and install a solar panel array that reduced their power bill by a factor of 100. 

Urban Ore does not have composting facilities on-site. Liss, the zero waste consultant, says resource recovery parks do not necessarily have to include on-site composting. 

Other challenges remain. For the past year and a half, Urban Ore’s workers have been negotiating a contract with the owners, after a majority of their non-managerial workers voted to organize a union with the Industrial Workers of the World. 

More needed to achieve zero waste, says Hennepin

Meanwhile, Hennepin County’s Zero Waste plan calls for exploring the creation of resource recovery parks. The county already operates something similar — the Transfer Station and Recycling Center on Jefferson Highway in Brooklyn Park. 

The Brooklyn Park facility accepts drop offs of recyclables, organics and household hazardous waste and provides a “free product center” where people 18 and older can take up to 10 items such as paint that were dropped off by others, so long as they do not resell them. Usage is restricted to those living in the seven counties that comprise the Twin Cities area. 

Officials also are considering adding technology at their Brooklyn Park facility to pull recyclables from the trash, before they are buried in landfills or incinerated. They are also looking for a way to expand drop-off and collection options for hard-to-recycle items.

The county is not looking to add reuse retailers or repair space at the Brooklyn Park facility. “I think we have a lot of great options across the county already. There are a lot of places to donate, there are a lot of places to buy used items, and they don’t necessarily need to be all in the same place. It’s just weighing what’s convenient for people and what should be the purpose of this site,” said Ben Knudson, Hennepin County’s Waste Reduction and Recycling manager. 

Liss, the California-based zero waste consultant, said many resource recovery parks do not sell things they collect directly to the public, “Often because they weren’t designed for that function.” He added that in his view new resource recovery parks should sell items collected directly to the public if the parks can display the products and handle customer traffic.

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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Andrew Garberson has a message for drivers in cold-climate states like Minnesota: Yes, you can still drive an electric car.

Public scrutiny over how well EVs perform in cold weather has grown in recent years following high-profile incidents, like one in Chicago last winter, when several Tesla drivers found themselves stuck in line for hours, waiting for their turn at public charging stations as temperatures dipped below zero. Many drivers reported that the cold had not only sapped their batteries of power but also made charging them a major hassle.

Cold weather temporarily reduces the available energy of EV batteries and slows their ability to charge — though they’ll function normally again in warmer conditions. Heating the car’s cabin during winter also requires energy from the battery, meaning less fuel for travel.

Research has found that freezing temperatures can reduce the average driving range of an electric vehicle anywhere from 25% to 41%, depending on the circumstances. So, a car that can drive 100 miles on a single charge when it’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside may only be capable of going 59 to 75 miles in freezing temperatures.

But Garberson, who lives in Iowa and works as the head of growth and research for the EV advocacy group Recurrent, said incidents like the one in Chicago have been overblown in the media, and that drivers shouldn’t avoid buying an electric car just because they live somewhere with cold winters.

“I drive an EV every day, and my winter is almost as harsh as yours [in Minnesota],” he said. “The anxiety around winter and reduced range, while it’s not inaccurate, is just a bit overhyped.”

EVs aren’t the only cars to suffer performance issues under frigid conditions. Conventional gasoline cars lose between 10 percent and 20 percent of their driving range when the temperature drops from 77 degrees Fahrenheit to 20 degrees, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

If drivers are properly prepared, most EVs should hold up fine in cold situations, Garberson said. Drivers can take certain steps to ensure their commute goes as smoothly as possible, he added, such as preconditioning their batteries before charging them — a setting on most modern EV models that warms the battery to an optimal temperature, allowing for faster charging.

Recurrent also reviews EV models every year to see how much cold weather impacts their range, which could help shoppers choose which model would work best for their needs, Garberson said. This year, the organization looked at 13 popular models, analyzing real-world driving data from over 10,000 vehicles. It found that those models lost 21% of their range on average when temperatures drop to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But the loss varied drastically by model and year.

The Tesla Model X had the smallest range loss, with an 11 percent decrease, while the Volkswagen ID.4 had the largest at 37%. The biggest factor, Garberson said, was whether the vehicle had a heat pump, which is more efficient than conventional heating systems and therefore reduces overall power use. Studies show that the power needed to heat the car’s cabin is a big reason for range loss.

The EV models that did not utilize a heat pump, including the ID.4, saw their batteries reduced by an average of 28%, compared to an average of 13% for cars with heat pumps, Recurrent’s analysis found. Overall, heat pumps added roughly 10% extra range to cars during freezing conditions, the report said.

Garberson said cars built in 2020 or later are more likely to have heat pumps installed than older models. Many popular models now have them or will soon have them, he added, noting that Ford added heat pumps to its 2024 F-150 Lightning and is adding them to its Mustang Mach-E in 2025.

“A lot of the [car companies] have added heat pumps because they’ve realized how important it is for people in northern climates,” Gaberson said. “So that’s my No. 1 piece of advice, is just do a little bit of research about the technology in the car because it can make a 10 to 15% difference in overall range.”

Ingrid Malmgren didn’t know her Tesla Model Y, which she bought in November 2022, had a heat pump when she decided to take her family on a four-hour road trip from her Vermont home to Quebec City, Canada, last February. The day they left, she said, the high was 7% Fahrenheit.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous about it,” said Malmgren, who works as the senior policy director for Plug In America, another EV advocacy organization. “But it was a complete non-issue. We charged once along the way.”

Malmgren said her experience is a common one for first-time EV buyers. A recent Plug In America survey of more than 3,000 EV owners found that 70% of the respondents worried about battery range before buying an electric car. The survey, however, also found that only 35 percent remained concerned after owning an EV.

“What we’ve found with our Plug In America survey is that a lot of people have concerns about cold weather operation of electric vehicles,” she said. “But once they get in an electric vehicle, once they start driving an electric vehicle consistently, they find that these concerns go away.”

The vast majority of the EV owners who remain concerned about range own EVs built before 2020 and live in rural areas, Malmgren added, where charging infrastructure is scarcer and drivers typically travel longer distances.

The survey also ranked owner satisfaction for different EV models, including for the car’s battery range. Out of the 14 different EV models included, Rivan’s R1T truck received the highest satisfaction rating for range performance from the survey respondents. Tesla’s Model Y sedan received the second-highest rating.

Charging speed may be another factor prospective EV buyers want to consider. Garberson said newer models can typically charge faster than older models. His 2021 Hyundai Kona can charge in 30 to 40 minutes, he said, while his wife, who drives a 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5, can charge her car in 12 to 14 minutes. Some used EVs that were built a decade or more ago, while cheaper, may take even longer to charge or require multiple charges a day, he added.

The most important thing to consider is your driving habits, Garberson said, adding that most drivers won’t even notice when their EV loses range during cold weather.

“The average daily driving distance, it’s like 30.2 miles,” he said. “So it doesn’t matter what EV you have. Any difference in range and cold conditions — or hot conditions, for that matter — isn’t going to be something that materially impacts your daily driving.”

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Jay Dee Nichols stamped and packed stiff willow branches between maple wood posts, with muffled crunches.

At 63, the semi-retired handyman from the Wisconsin city of Black River Falls has trapped beavers before. But he’s never heard of a mock beaver dam — much less constructed one.

“It gives you an appreciation for what beavers do,” Nichols said over the shrill beeping of a skid loader. A scratch on his forearm oozed blood, drying into a scarlet smudge.

“They’re one of the hardest-working animals out there, I guess.”

Nichols’ muck boots sloshed in a pool of water that already was forming behind the freshly constructed beaver dam analog, or BDA. The semi-porous wooden structures are often installed across streams to redirect water or capture sediment.

Nichols and three other workers were as busy as beavers for a week in October constructing 12 of them in a forested wetland. 

It’s all part of Jim Hoffman’s latest project.

The BDAs span an unnamed, man-made channel that drains overflow from a reservoir on Hoffman’s cranberry farm, north of Alma Center in Jackson County. The water runs into South Fork Halls Creek, a trout stream where actual beavers have taken up residence.

Hoffman, 60, hopes the BDAs, which could pool up to 1.7 acre-feet of water during floods, improve water quality, stabilize eroded stream banks and enhance wildlife habitat. Most of all, he seeks to trailblaze a path through the state’s onerous dam-permitting process so other Wisconsin landowners can follow in his footsteps.

“There’s a lot of different streams and tributaries that could benefit from this,” Hoffman said.

As average Wisconsin temperatures and precipitation increase in response to climate change, scientists, environmentalists and regulators point to the promise of nature-based solutions. 

Enter the beaver.

North America’s largest rodent is infamous for wood munching. Where they chew, wetlands often follow. The natural sponges filter water and offer flood protection.

The U.S. once was home to 60 million to 400 million beavers, which inhabited a range extending from the northern Mexican deserts to the Arctic tundra. But European and American settlers hunted them to near extinction.

As their population dwindled and agriculture and urban development expanded, wetlands disappeared. Wisconsin, like the rest of the country, lost roughly half since the late 1700s.

Without maintenance from nature’s “ecosystem engineers,” many of the nation’s once multi-threaded streams also became single-channeled and incised — disconnected from their floodplains. When this happens, water tables sink, water temperature increases and plants die. If torrential floodwaters funnel through the simple stream systems, they flush out wildlife and wood.

Nature can repair itself, but the process of restoring stream complexity can take millennia. Mock beaver dams can jump-start the process, reducing the timing to mere decades.

They also can slow the flow of runoff and allow watersheds to store more water. Hoffman sees their potential to limit flooding in Wisconsin, potentially saving taxpayer dollars and creating wildlife habitat.

Watershed councils, conservation districts, Indigenous tribes, and state and federal natural resources agencies frequently deploy them in the American West. But their use in Wisconsin, a state with a historically tempestuous relationship with beavers, is novel. Many regulators believe the critters’ dams harm trout, and the state’s fisheries and forestry divisions contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to wipe out beavers that live on designated streams.

Fewer than a dozen permitted projects that incorporate BDAs or similar wooden structures have been built in Wisconsin to date. The Department of Natural Resources recently approved two on trout stream tributaries, signaling an openness to test their potential despite concerns from fisheries managers. Construction is underway in other Mississippi River basin states too, including Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri.

Wisconsin regulators generally treat BDAs as dams that impound water, making for an arduous and expensive permitting process. 

Hoffman spent more than a year and $20,000 to obtain his permit. He is the CEO of a vast Wisconsin construction company and has a running joke.

“The one thing you never do is call the (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) and ask them, ‘Do I need a permit for this?’” he said.

What are beaver dam analogs? 

A healthy streamscape requires space for water to slowly meander. That requires messy wood obstructions like fallen trees and debris-filled logjams.

Much like real beaver dams, the analogs obstruct water and disperse the flow across a wider area. Water pools above and below the dams, and upstream surface height increases.

Sediment accumulates behind the obstructions, sometimes transforming an upstream pool into a wetland and eventually a meadow. But nature’s randomness means beaver dams or analogs can fail.

BDAs are not in themselves a solution, experts say, but tools that initiate natural processes that mend degraded waterscapes. 

While their popularity increased in the 2000s, historic drawings indicate that small wicker and log dams were constructed as early as the 19th century to “correct” streams in France.

Construction these days hasn’t changed much, with workers pounding posts directly into a streambed and weaving willow or juniper branches between them. Gaps can be plugged with sediment. The analogs, which are biodegradable and transient, function well when constructed in sequence like natural beaver dam complexes. Proponents hope that using natural materials and hand labor reduces building costs, enabling more miles of restoration.

When human and beaver engineers meet

When Hoffman installed his cranberry marshes more than 20 years ago, a developer taught him an important marketing lesson: christen the business after the resource you are destroying. The developer named his housing division Fox Ridge. Hoffman, in turn, called his cranberry operation Goose Landing.

Yet, in Hoffman’s case, he didn’t necessarily displace geese. Hundreds occupy his reservoir on a given day, leaving droppings that serve as free fertilizer.

The 1,000-acre property serves as a laboratory of earthworks and a wildlife cornucopia. 

Hoffman, a Stanford engineer by training, returned to Wisconsin from San Francisco Bay in 1989 and joined the road construction business his great-grandfather started more than seven decades prior, before the United States had an organized highway system.

After starting the cranberry operation, Hoffman mined frac sand, then obtained his commercial fish farming license. Now, he’s stocked the former mining pits — since filled with water — with an angler’s dream: walleye, hybrid muskie, perch, crappie, bluegill and bass.

Hoffman sped past one of the ponds in his Ford Bronco, pointing out the artificial islands he created. To add vegetation, he grabbed trees by their rootballs and shoved them into the virgin soil.

“I like to change my environment,” he said. “I’m an earthmover by character — by business.”

Hoffman’s efforts to “rewild” his land led him to plant turnip and radish plots for deer along with oak trees to recreate a piece of Wisconsin’s historical savannas. He’s replaced row crops with prairie grass and intends to install an osprey nesting box on one of his ponds — even if it means the birds of prey eat his fish.

Mock beaver dams are Hoffman’s latest push.

His interest in them blossomed after he helped a Nordic skiing buddy release an orphan beaver on his property. They constructed a lodge for the two-year-old rodent, tucking in a stuffed teddy bear to keep it company.

“Well, it instantly swam into the pond, and that was the last we saw it,” Hoffman said.

In a section of forest far from the cranberry marshes, the drainage ditch turns into what appears to be a natural stream, which cuts through steep banks.

On both sides lies what resembles a 3- to 4-foot-tall effigy mound running perpendicular across the creek bed. Hoffman wonders if beavers were the original architects.

“It might be hundreds of years old,” he said. “I’m hoping the beavers come back here and say, ‘Well, we almost got a dam built!’”

Mock beaver dams used out West

Science backs Hoffman’s belief in the restoration power of beaver dam analogs. In one of the first major studies, researchers evaluated their trout impacts and potential to reverse stream incision.

Bridge Creek, a high-desert watershed in north-central Oregon, bore the signs of livestock overgrazing and beaver removal. Following severe storms, the main channel gradually disconnected from the landscape’s floodplain — conditions that persisted even 20 years after cattle stopped chomping on surrounding vegetation.

The researchers monitored conditions before and after installing more than 130 BDAs in Bridge Creek. They compared those sections of creek to areas that lacked BDAs — some that beavers called home and others they did not.

Prior to the study, Bridge Creek contained some beaver dams, but they frequently blew out during major floods. Sediment didn’t have time to accumulate and reconnect the channel to the landscape.

But the BDAs acted as reinforcements. 

Beaver dams in the study area increased more than sevenfold within the first eight years after the scientists added them.

In the BDA sections, land inundated with water increased by 228% and side channels increased by a whopping 1,216%, considerably more than the Bridge Creek sections that lacked them.

As the analogs rehydrated the aquifer, vegetation increased. Groundwater killed off scrubby plants, such as sagebrush, and water-loving willow trees took root.

Could mock beaver dams block or fry fish? 

The impact of beavers on fish remains a hot topic in Wisconsin. For some, it’s axiomatic that beaver dams block trout passage — a belief with a long history.

But that wasn’t a problem at Bridge Creek.

The researchers tagged about 100,000 juvenile trout, enabling antennas to detect fish movement at specific stream locations. They surveyed the stream for more than a decade.

The scientists determined that the installation of mock beaver dams increased the survival, density and reproduction of juvenile trout. They detected no changes to upstream migration in the tagged trout despite the massive increase in human and beaver-made dams. Several spawners passed through upwards of 200 during their migration.

Other studies conducted in California concluded trout easily cross BDAs, either by jumping or swimming up side passages.

Another objection to beaver dams stems from the belief they invariably increase stream temperature: Beaver ponds increase a stream’s surface area, which is warmed by the sun.

But at Bridge Creek, water temperature remained constant or decreased, even during summer. The researchers suggested that pooled water upstream of the dams percolated into the ground, forcing cool groundwater to upwell downstream and mix with that on the surface. An offset to the sun.

The complexes affected temperatures in other ways. 

On one hand, they buffered water temperatures. Stream temperatures periodically fluctuate with day-night cycles and across seasons, but the mock beaver dams compressed the rises and falls. On the other hand, the complexes created variety, filled with warm and cold spots, offering fish a buffet to choose from.

Some studies have documented downstream warming from the analogs. And others from the upper Midwest have documented increased temperatures below natural beaver dam complexes and in beaver ponds, but academics have questioned the research’s scientific rigor.

Nick Bouwes, a Utah State University faculty member who worked on the Bridge Creek study and co-authored a manual that many consider the BDA bible, agrees that the structures could block fish or raise water temperatures in certain ecosystems in his native Wisconsin.

But until there is solid evidence, he said, ultimately those remain assumptions that should be studied.

“It makes you wonder what fish did 3- or 400 years ago when there was an order of magnitude more beaver and an order of magnitude more fish in these systems,” Bouwes said.

Upholding the public trust

In September, Mike Engel, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, oversaw the installation of beaver dam analogs at Briggs Wetland near Beloit, Wisconsin.

The workshop brought together ecologists, consultants, resource managers and regulators from local, state and federal agencies, most of whom dipped their toes into BDA waters for the first time.

Although passionate about such tools, Engel says beavers and BDAs aren’t a panacea for all degraded wetlands or a warming climate.

“There’s certainly people who will grab a hold of the cute, fuzzy critter and like the idea,” Engel said, standing atop a beaver dam that formed a network of ponds adjacent to the Briggs property. “But I think more people will be interested in managing the amount of water they have — whether they need more or they need less due to climate change.”

In other words, what would a well-functioning watershed look like, and what tools and techniques can achieve those ends? The case for mock beaver dams depends on the setting.

“Out West, they have miles and miles and miles of public land,” said Thomas Nedland, who conducts wetland and waterway permitting with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

If the BDAs fail, “all the water that’s backed up ends up going into the woods or the floodplain” without risk to infrastructure, he said. 

“That’s not quite the setting we have here in Wisconsin.”

Such projects might lead to conflicts with property owners, especially if beavers move in and enlarge the structures. They might swamp adjacent corn fields or flood a road or backyard.

Wisconsin’s public trust doctrine also requires regulators to consider the public’s access to natural resources when making permitting decisions. The Department of Natural Resources may impose requirements to maintain the rights to boat, swim and fish, even on artificial ditches that are considered navigable waterways.

Hoffman’s project rang alarm bells for the local county conservationist, who fears the BDAs will attract beavers to the area, leaving floods and unfishable streams in their wake.

Getting the dam permit

State regulators must consider many factors in considering a beaver dam analog.

Throwing some sticks across a streambed is relatively simple, but several Wisconsin installations have relied upon consultants, federal workers or nonprofit organizations to navigate permitting.

“They’re really important devices. They have a lot of functionality. They’re very simple and inexpensive to install,” said Hoffman’s contractor, Clay Frazer, a restoration ecologist. 

“And they’re way too complicated to permit right now for the average person.”

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources required Hoffman to conduct hydrologic modeling and topographic surveying before regulators approved his BDAs, which stand roughly 3 feet high.

To satisfy regulators that the analog wouldn’t overturn when water pooled behind it, he had to load test the wooden posts.

Joel Pennycamp, a Hoffman Construction Company employee, strapped a scale around the top of one. Hoffman stood on the streambank holding onto the end of a neon orange string that stretched across the BDA. When Pennycamp tugged, each post could move no more than an inch. 

Analog proponents say the rigid requirements to build transient structures unnecessarily increase costs and dampen enthusiasm to use nature-based solutions for landscape repair. A potentially laborious permitting process also misses the broader point that process-based riverscape restoration is unpredictable.

“You don’t have to be an engineer. You don’t have to be able to operate large machinery. You’re not going to completely redesign a stream to what you think it should be,” Bouwes said. “Let the stream figure it out.”

One permitting difficulty stems from, in several instances, the state’s classification of the porous structures as dams. Regulators and applicants debate a principle point: Does a mock beaver dam actually impound water or, as researchers say, merely slow or delay it? State employees say they lack latitude to interpret because BDAs, plain and simple, fit the legal definition.

“I often hear back from applicants and they’re like, ‘Well, it’s not very big,’ or, ‘It’s not intended to be there for long,’ or whatever,” said Uriah Monday, a state dam safety engineer. “But they always acknowledge that they need that pool of water to create the energy it’s going to take to do whatever they’re trying to achieve.”

For instance, he said, a raised pool of water is necessary to saturate wetlands, carve stream meanders and trap sediment upstream.

Hoffman’s stream tributary may be artificial, but the state still considers its waters navigable and thus protected. Normally, when dams obstruct public passage, the Department of Natural Resources requires the posting of a portage route. 

For now, the agency isn’t requiring it, but Hoffman hopes to run with the idea.

“So I’m having some signs made up for the beavers in case they get confused when they’re swimming upstream and hit the dam,” he said, grinning widely.

The department also has authorized BDAs through a streamlined general permitting process. Hoffman’s mock beaver dams, however, did not meet the criteria to qualify.

“I don’t blame the DNR for it,” he said. “It’s just that they don’t have a system to accommodate our request.” 

Kyle Magyera, who performs government outreach with the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, believes regulators should carve out exceptions from the dam rules. 

Monday thinks the existing permitting system can work, as it already has, and will ease as the department learns more about the structures. That will include monitoring at Briggs Wetland and Goose Landing.

“We’re actually hopeful too,” Nedland said. “If there’s an efficient, cost-effective way for people to do these kinds of projects in a much easier way that results in less disturbance to the landscape, like boy, that’s a win.”

BDA permitting challenges are not unique to Wisconsin. Even the Bridge Creek researchers were unable to conduct a follow-up round of restoration due to regulatory hurdles.

“It seems like every state, you have to go through the growing pains of getting people familiar with these approaches,” Bouwes said. “When they see what we’re actually doing — we’re throwing sticks in the stream to slow the water down — they become a lot more comfortable with it.”

Balancing human and beaver needs

By mid-afternoon at Hoffman’s farm, evidence of the day’s construction littered the ground adjacent to the channel where the BDAs stood: empty plastic Powerade bottles, gasoline cans, a chainsaw.

Before getting off work for the day, Nichols and Pennycamp loaded it onto a utility vehicle. Hoffman, meanwhile, browsed through a printout of his state-issued permit, reviewing the details through reading glasses he perched across his nose.

“‘The water is a cool-cold headwater. The proposed dam will not result in significant adverse effects on this resource upon compliance with the conditions in the order,’” he read aloud. “In other words, don’t flood too much, don’t warm the water up too much. Okay, well we’ll debate that later.”

He flipped the page.

The beavers living at Hoffman’s farm are dispersing across the property. One colony chewed down some of his pines and aspens and plugged a culvert, expanding the shoreline as part of a project Hoffman didn’t plan.

It doesn’t bother him because he has more trees to spare and wants to live among the rodents, but he doesn’t begrudge beaver-bothered people. The critters create profound impacts.

Humans and beavers share a common drive to engineer their environment to live. 

“We’ve got to find a way to balance the different needs of each species,” Hoffman said. “You know, us included.”

Why is he doing all this? Permitting, pounding, portage-routing. Really, why bother?

Hoffman’s campaign is more than just a new permitting process. It’s an exhortation to the state 

to reconsider its treatment of beavers. If he can show that mock beaver dams don’t heat the water or block fish, perhaps the state will stop removing beavers and their dams from trout streams.

“We’re going to hopefully show to them that the beavers in the ecosystem are actually beneficial,” Hoffman said.

Going through the trouble is simply part of a kindred ecosystem engineer’s balancing act.

This story is a product of Wisconsin Watch. It was produced in partnership with the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

The post An ecosystem engineer’s vision: mock beaver dams to restore Wisconsin wetlands appeared first on MinnPost.

A decade ago, when news broke that zebra mussels had found their way to Cass Lake, I was dismayed but not surprised. Since escaping from the ballast of an ocean-going vessel in Lake Superior sometime in the late 1980s, the invasive shellfish have spread relentlessly throughout Minnesota’s waters.

Cass Lake, where I have frolicked and fished since childhood, was obviously vulnerable. With its famously robust population of walleye, yellow perch and muskellunge, the 16,000-acre lake — located in the Chippewa National Forest, about 15 miles east of Bemidji — has long been a destination for recreational anglers. It felt like a matter of time before the troublesome bivalves hitched a ride on someone’s boat.

In the years since zebra mussels arrived, the changes in the lake have been impossible to miss. Most strikingly, the once green-hued waters have become gin clear, a consequence of the dime-sized filter-feeders’ prodigious capacity to hoover up plankton and reproduce at astonishing rates.

In one regard, I have enjoyed this transformation. On certain still, sunny days, the lake is now an aquarium, with schools of big fish plainly visible as they cruise the edges of drop-offs and weed lines. Sometimes, the water is so clear you can make out the distinctive white patch on the tail fin of walleye ten feet deep. Prior to the invasion, I never saw that. 

At first, like many anglers at Cass Lake, I feared that the zebra mussels would ruin the fishing. That has not happened. On the contrary, as time passed, and the mussels encrusted virtually every submerged stick, rock and clam in the shallows, the fishing on Cass Lake has remained good. 

According to the annual fishery surveys of Cass Lake conducted by the Department of Natural Resources, for reasons that are not clear, both walleye and perch appear to be thriving in the wake of the zebra mussel invasion. 

So what’s not to love?

As it turns out, a lot.

At the same time the mussels have made the water clearer, they have deposited a layer of silty waste on the lake bottom. I have noticed this changed substrate while wading in the shallows. Areas that were once characterized by a firm, sandy bottom are now soft. When your feet sink into the muck, a plume billows around them.

This sediment is a combination of zebra mussel feces and undigested material referred to as pseudo feces. And it is now thought to play a key role in dramatically higher rates of methylmercury found in the walleyes and perch that swim in invaded waters.

It works like this: Inorganic mercury in the atmosphere — largely the product of human activities such as coal burning and gold mining — is deposited in lakes by rain. While inorganic mercury is a potent neurotoxin, it doesn’t enter the food web until it is transformed into an organic form, methylmercury.

That process — methylation — is accelerated by the microbial communities that flourish in the low oxygen environment found in that layer of zebra mussel waste. The methylmercury is ingested by small organisms, which in turn are consumed by larger ones, including fish. The further up the food chain, the more methylmercury accumulates, a process referred to as biomagnification (and the reason that government fish consumption advisories generally encourage people to eat smaller fish).

In a study published in the December issue of the academic journal Science of The Total Environment, researchers from the University of Minnesota, the Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies collected walleye and perch from 21 Minnesota lakes — 12 infested with zebra mussels, nine uninvaded — and then tested for mercury.

The results of the three-year survey are alarming: In lakes with zebra mussels, mercury levels in walleyes were found to be on average 72 percent higher than in walleyes from uninvaded lakes. For perch, the number is an astonishing 157 percent.

“That was a very big surprise to all of us. It speaks to how powerful this effect from zebra mussels is,” said biologist Naomi Blinick, a University of Minnesota researcher and co-author of the study.  “Zebra mussels are called ecosystem engineers, and they are. They change the very nature of our lakes.”

When Blinick started her research, methylmercury was not her main concern. She was more interested in investigating how zebra mussel invasions alter fish feeding behavior, in particular how walleye and perch rely more heavily on shallow waters because of mussel-induced changes to the food web.

Her study confirmed that the fish from invaded lakes were indeed getting more of their food from near shore waters. But when worrisome mercury results started coming in, the focus shifted and the study was expanded from 12 lakes to 21. (Zebra mussels aside, mercury levels vary between bodies of water, so Blinick and her colleagues wanted to make sure the lakes in the study shared basic ecological characteristics, making for an apples-to-apples comparison.)

What do these findings mean for human health?

In its fish consumption guidelines, the Minnesota Department of Health says sensitive groups — women of childbearing age and children under 15 — should eat no more than one fish meal a month once mercury levels exceed .22 parts per million.

In invaded lakes, the study found, walleye typically reach that threshold by the time they are 14-inches long. When a walleye from invaded waters reached what many consider a prime size for the table – 16.5 inches – the median level of mercury was .30 parts per million. In uninvaded lakes, by contrast, walleye grew to be 18 inches before hitting the .22 parts per million threshold.

For perch, a fish long regarded as a best choice for table fare owing to its low spot in the food chain, the results were also discouraging. In invaded lakes, perch were found to exceed the .22 parts per million threshold once they reached a length of 8.8 inches. In uninvaded lakes, the study found, the likelihood of an adult perch exceeding that threshold was “near zero.”

In Blinick’s view, such findings highlight the importance of considering a lake’s zebra mussel status when choosing what fish to eat. In a statement, Angela Preimesberger, the Department of Health’s fish consumption guidance scientist, said the agency would include the data from the study as it updates its lake-specific recommendations.  

At Upper and Lower Red Lake in north central Minnesota, home of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the threat of the zebra mussel invasion is a subject of heightened concern. The tribe operates the only commercial walleye fishery in the state and many band members rely on the fish for their livelihood.

Although zebra mussel veligers – the larval form of the shellfish – were first detected in Upper Red Lake in 2018, to date no adult mussels have been found in either basin, making the connected lakes unique among the state’s top walleye waters.

“We’re not sure what’s going on,” said Tyler Orgon, a biologist who works for the tribe.  The conditions may not be suitable for the mussels, added Orgon, who theorized that there may not be enough hard surfaces in the lake bed for the mussels to attach to. 

“But that’s not to say they won’t take off,” he cautioned. “I think it’s too early to tell.”

For her part, Blinick said she hopes the mercury study will make Minnesotans more vigilant about preventing the further spread of zebra mussels. Currently, she noted, there are no feasible means to eradicate mussels from the 311 lakes in the state they are known to inhabit. 

In the course of her three-year research project, Blinick and her colleagues routinely encountered curious anglers at boat landings. “The comment I heard most often was, ‘The zebra mussels make the lake clearer. Don’t we like that?’” Blinick said. “I think that’s unfortunate. I wish we were more effective at getting the message out that this artificial clearing is a bad thing.”

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DE SOTO, Wis. — Jerry Boardman doesn’t remember exactly when he started collecting acorns in the fall.

But the thousands upon thousands of them he gathers to share with people working to improve habitat along the Mississippi River makes the 81-year-old resident of De Soto, Wisconsin, a small village between La Crosse and Prairie du Chien, a pretty big deal.

“It’s like a myth or a legend,” Andy Meier, a forester for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who receives a portion of Boardman’s bounty, said of the integral role it plays in his work. “It just has always been that way.”

In reality, Boardman began collecting around the time that the need for acorns — a nut that contains the seed that grows oak trees — was growing critical. For the past few decades, the trees that grow in the Mississippi River floodplain, known as floodplain forests, have been struggling. Although they’re named for their ability to withstand the river’s seasonal flooding, they’ve recently been overwhelmed by higher water and longer-lasting floods.

Overall, forest cover along the stretch of the river from Minnesota down to Clinton, Iowa decreased by roughly 6% between 1989 and 2010, according to a 2022 report on ecological trends on the upper Mississippi. In the years since, losses in some places have neared 20% — and were particularly acute following a massive flood event in 2019. 

What exactly is driving the excess water isn’t fully fleshed out, but climate change and changes in land use that cause water to run off the landscape faster are likely factors.

The result is mass stretches of dead trees that can no longer perform their functions of providing wildlife habitat, sucking up pollutants that would otherwise run downriver and slowing water during floods.  

Floodplain forests in the lower section of the river are also diminished. The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, which stretches from where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet, in Cairo, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico was once almost entirely forest. Today, about 30% of that land is treed.  

Government agencies and various nonprofits are attempting to reverse the forestland decline by planting new trees and volunteers like Boardman are key to the effort. 

Local is best

Reno Bottoms, a sprawling wetland habitat on the river near Boardman’s hometown of De Soto, is one place where tree die-off has been extensive. Boardman, who has been a commercial fisherman, hunter and trapper on the river for most of his life, called the change in forest cover in recent years “shocking.” To combat it, he puts in about 100 hours a year between August and October gathering acorns from the floodplain in De Soto, Prairie du Chien and La Crosse. 

To maximize his time, Boardman uses a contraption not unlike ones used to pick up tennis balls to scoop up the acorns. One small variety, though, requires one to “get down on your hiney or your knees” to pick them up, he said. For those, he relies on a little grunt work.

The idea is that if the trees that produced the acorns were successful enough at warding off flood damage to drop seeds, those seeds might be similarly resilient if replanted.

Boardman looks for acorns from the bur oak, pin oak and swamp white oak, the latter of which is particularly well-suited to the floodplain forest. And the numbers he puts up are impressive — last year, he collected about 130,000; this year, 65,000.

He splits up the total to give to the Army Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which have foresters planting trees to restore floodplain habitat.

“Pretty much everything that Jerry collects, in one way or another, will return to the river,” said Meier, with the Corps.

Last fall, for example, they scattered between 20,000 and 30,000 of Boardman’s swamp white oak acorns near McGregor Lake, a river backwater near Prairie du Chien where the Corps is piloting an effort to protect trees from flood inundation by raising the forest floor a few inches.

This spring, Meier said, he was “blown away” by the approximately 1,000 seedlings that had taken root there and begun to sprout.

Having access to Boardman’s acorns is important because it gives them the chance to experiment with direct seeding, instead of buying young trees and planting them. Direct seeding is both cheaper and more likely to result in a viable tree, because the seed is local.

“When we have an opportunity to get something we know came from the river, we know that it’s adapted to growing there,” Meier said.

Not every community has a Boardman, though, and many organizations doing reforestation work have to shell out for seed or look for options from further afield. 

For example, M&C Forest Seeds, based in Clarendon, Arkansas, pays seed collectors cash for acorns and then re-sells sorted seed to government agencies or nonprofits. M&C contracts with collectors to gather acorns at particular latitudes along the river, which they then market to replanting efforts at similar geographic locations. 

Living Lands and Waters, an Illinois-based environmental organization uses nurseries to cultivate oaks from the region and distributes more than 150,000 trees annually in three-gallon pots to volunteers or individuals. 

Little by little, through the efforts of various government agencies and nonprofits, it all ends up in the ground. 

For instance, since 2007, Living Lands and Waters has planted more than two million trees along waterways in the Mississippi River Basin. The Nature Conservancy, using U.S. Department of Agriculture and other program funds, has reforested about a million acres across Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas in the last 30 years. Much of that acreage was on low-lying farmland prone to flooding that had once been forest.

Volunteers key to planting efforts

Whether collecting seeds or planting them, volunteers like Boardman are key to making the work happen. 

Ev Wick, a fifth grade teacher at De Soto’s Prairie View Elementary, has taken his students out for an acorn-gathering day with Boardman for the past several years. Boardman scouts the best trees ahead of time, Wick said, then the kids get to work. They can pick up between 5,000 and 6,000 in a day, propelled by friendly competitions to see who can collect the most or fill their bucket quickest.

They’re interested when Boardman tells them all the acorns they collect will eventually be planted on the islands they see in the river, Wick said. 

Last October, Living Lands and Water brought together people from groups like the Clean River Advisory Council and the Rock Island County Soil and Water Conservation District to plant oak trees near the Quad Cities. Volunteers planted 85 oak trees in a park by the Mississippi River, in Illinois City, Illinois. This event helped restore forests but also provided opportunities for people to learn and connect with nature.

“We get individuals that may have never planted a tree before but want to come out because it sounds like a cool, fun thing,” said Dan Breidenstein, Vice President of Living Lands and Water. “Not only did they learn how to plant a tree, but they also learned about these different species that we were doing. Every time they visit that area or drive past that building, they’re connected to the area around them, and that tree’s not going anywhere.” 

Organizers are particularly tickled when young people show up.

“My favorite part of today is being outside and in the environment because I don’t go outside much,” said Brooklyn Wilson, a high school junior who volunteered at the October event. “The most important thing to understand is that as a community we need to be able to come together and help and pick up and do what we need to do to better our environment and neighborhoods.” 

Perhaps some of the young volunteers will follow in Boardman’s footsteps. 

As for Boardman, the chance to donate acorns or otherwise help out is a no brainer.

“That river has given me so much,” he said. “I’ve just got to give back all I can give.”

Disclosure: the Desk, The Nature Conservancy and the Clean River Advisory Council receive funding from the Walton Family Foundation.

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri. Support our independent reporting network with a donation.

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