UPDATE: Short-sighted? Well, it’s not so simple. There’s a lot of history, and a lot of attempts to deal with the conundrum of state School Trust land in this wilderness area. Needed more info, so I went directly to the source! Had a good lengthy with DNR rep, and I’ll be updating this. The fed’s page is missing crucial info – see “Press Release” below. Until I get to a thorough review and update, check that out, it answers most of my questions:

The DNR has proposed a sale of our School Trust Lands to the feds The School Trust Lands, and it’s a mess, has been for decades. A major aspect of this is that the state cannot lease or sell off timber or mineral rights within the national park, so it is NOT generating revenue. It’s a quite literal stranded asset, it’s the state’s but the state can’t do anything with it to generate revenue for the trust!

COMMENTS DUE SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 11:59:59 PM (Central Standard Time).

Per the DNR’s site, are “2.5 million surface acres and 1 million additional acres of mineral rights included in the School Trust Land portfolio.” “Funds that are distributed from the Permanent School Fund are determined by student enrollment on a per pupil basis rather than by the concentration of School Trust Lands in a given school district.” However, as above, those parcels within the Boundary Waters wilderness aren’t generating a dime.

There has been an attempt to exchange, through a number of parties, for Potlach landwhere trees just weren’t growing fast enough and Potlatch wants out. Sounds reasonable, but…

In addition to the DNR and the School Trust folks, there’s the feds owning and operating the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and there’s also the tribes’ jurisdiction over 1854 Ceded Territory, which covers most of the area where the School Trust land is. A letter was sent by area tribal governments notifying the DNR that there would be no expansion of School Trust lands within Ceded Territory, no partial or full land exchange in that area.

Ceded Territory covers almost all of the Superior National Forest, plus pretty much doubling the area heading south to Pine County. What’s left? Perhaps there’s that area outside the Ceded Territory to the northwest of St. Louis County into Koochiching County, but … So now what? It seems that outright sale of the land is the only option.

This difficult position is probably why the fed’s page doesn’t make sense, it’s not explained.

From the fed’s page, here’s Phase One of the Plan of DNR and the Minnesota Office of School Trust Lands, CHECK IT OUT:

Phase One of the Plan

The federal Draft Environmental Impact Statement was withdrawn on July 3 2024:

Superior National Forest; Minnesota; Superior National Forest School Trust Land Exchange Project; Withdrawal of Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Huh??? It was completed a long time ago and has sat there moldering. Now it’s history. So what does that mean?

A little birdie told me about this Comment page, and from there I started digging:

COMMENTS DUE SEPTEMBER 3, 2024 11:59:59 PM (Central Standard Time).

From there, there’s a link back to this project page to see what it’s all about (clear as mud), what’s proposed, what land is affected:

School Trust, St. Louis County, and TCF Land Purchase

According to the Press Release, “The SNF anticipates analyzing the comments and environmental effects of the proposed project and making a decision using a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).” That means NEPA will not apply, an Environmental Impact Statement is not necessary, the end. So will comments have any impact? And given no expansion of School Trust land in Ceded Territory, what options are left?

????????????

HERE’S THE PRIMARY DOCUMENTATION

On that project page, you can find these documents – BUT NOT THIS PRESS RELEASE. AGAIN, IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT EXPLAINS PROCESS AND LACK THEREOF, i.e. use of CATEGORICAL EXCLUSION:

… Press Release is the best place to start, and do review the links below. Yeah, it’s a lot, but at least skim, so you can make an informed comment:

School Trust, St Louis County, and TCF Land Purchase (66600)

School Trust, St. Louis County, and TCF Land Purchase Scoping Cover Letter.pdf

School Trust, St. Louis County, and TCF Land Purchase Scoping Package.pdf

Attachment A_School Trust Candidate Parcel Overview Map and Land List.pdf

Attachment B_St. Louis County Candidate Parcel Overview Map and Land List.pdf

Attachment C_TCF Candidate Parcel Overview Map, Index Map, Area Maps, and Land List.pdf

Attachment D_School Trust, St. Louis County, TCF Overview Map.pdf

Attachment E_Minnesota DNR BWCAW Withdraw Letter.pdf

Attachment F_St. Louis County Consideration Letter.pdf

I’ve not seen anything about the Boswell “discharge” lately (that term “discharge” is an improvement over “leak” or “spill,” those sound too dainty!). It seems KAXE is reporting, but STrib and MPR? Concerned, I fired off a missive to the MPCA to get the latest, and turns out, it’s a federal issue, and it’s the EPA in charge:

EPA page – Minnesota Power Discharge

The July 19 update was jawdropping — the first sentence, confirming the July 20th KAXE report:

MN Power updated the estimated release volume from approximately 1 million gallons of coal residual slurry water to approximately 5.4 million gallons.

5.4 million gallons…

Color me skeptical, but can that be cleaned up? How? What comes to mind is the bogus “Dilution is the solution to pollution.”

Here’s the EPA’s latest update:

July 22 – August 8, 2024: Site Update

Soil excavation in the source area is complete. EPA and MPCA continue to monitor and sample water quality in Blackwater Creek and larger Blackwater Lake area.

The sediment sampling plan for Blackwater Creek has been approved with expected sampling on Friday. EPA, MPCA and LLBO discussed and approved preliminary ground water/geoprobe investigations. To date, more than one million gallons of water from Blackwater Creek has been recovered from three sumps along the shoreline. A plan has been finalized and approved to increase water pumping/recovery to add an additional 500 gpm.

EPA met with Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (LLBO) natural resources and wetlands staff, MPCA, MN Power and Barr Engineering to tour the impacted area and focus on Tribal natural resource protection and further defining the nature and extent of the release.

It’s been about a month an a half…

The EPA page bears watching. Once more with feeling:

EPA page – Minnesota Power Discharge

Kamala Harris has picked Tim Walz, yes, our Gov. Tim Walz, as her choice for Vice President. I’m heartened and looking forward to the next 90some days.

The clips, stories, videos turning up are perfect. You betcha there are some things he’s done, some of his policies, that I’ve fought, objected to, grimaced, but for this ticket, at this point in time, what a great choice. And he got to this point so quickly, though from a look at his life, his career(s), he’s been preparing carefully, one step at a time. Exceedingly well rounded background, with no scandals, no felonies much less 34, no platoon of ex-wives, no grifting.

Harris and Walz — Looks like a winning combo to me. “Let’s Make America Not Too Bad Again” How Minnesotan can ya get?

Meanwhile, I’m rather down for the count, a cracked tooth yesterday morning on peanut butter toast(!), spent yesterday and today at dentist, and it’s not salvageable (I’d TOLD them it was cracked, and it is, top to bottom), so next week, I get to lose another tooth. Meanwhile, I am a CRABBY-PANTS! Look out!

The Trump administration “policy” was just plain WRONG!

I’ve been wondering if it’s dawned on the Repblicans and MAGAs yet that Trump’s absurd positions and bizarre statements about COVID matter, and that his phenomenal policy failure has an impact in the context of elections. It’s such a DUH! But that would require looking at the facts, so hard to ignore, but facts, who cares about facts, eh?

As of June 14, 2023, 1,134,641 people in the U.S. died of COVID:

And voter demographics:

But yes, let’s look at the facts. 858,323 voters over 65. If ~53% of the voters 65+ are R voters, roughly 454,911 of those voters died of COVID. (Recognizing that there is a distinction between R voters and MAGA voters, also recognizing that many R voters are fed up with MAGA, and even some MAGAs are fed up, add them to defecting or dropping out voters.) Has it occurred to the Rs that the anti-vax and anti-mask and “OPEN UP” and denial of COVID had an impact on their base?

Oh my… let’s dig a little deeper than COVID!

There’s race to consider:

Check this out, Monday, July 29th at 8:00 p.m. ET — preregister:

WHITE DUDES FOR HARRIS

And then if you look at the chasm between old fart men and women:

So with a little triangulation, it’s clear that white men 50 and up need work. Well, we all know this, but there it is.

Oh, but income… interesting that the middle and upper-middle income are more R than D, and then the highest income voters swing back to blue.

Now’s the time for this old fart demographic to get to work. Never ever take any election for granted, and don’t mistake blabbering on the internet for WORK. Words of wisdom from Robert Reich (mindful that Biden is no longer an issue):

How to prevent America and the world from falling into fascism

And as Heather Cox Richardson recommends, focus on what you do best, and do that in the political realm, i.e. this writer needs to WRITE! This was July 19, so about 3 weeks until the next one:

Letter: Manifestation of MAGA’s dangerous rhetoric

On his birthday in June, Shawn McGovern took ill, unknown exactly what happened, but he was found by Jeanne McGovern in bad shape, serious enough to be hospitalized, intubated, and then put on hospice. He died earlier this week. There’ll be a gathering off in the future, a little birdie said September maybe?

I’ve often told clients and friends that it’s weird when an ex dies, and that it is. Thankfully that’s ancient history and we had no unfinished business. He was firmly, clearly, stating his trust as Jeanne and I completed some paperwork last month at the hospital. Lately, he’d tuned up a couple of amplifiers for me that had been collecting dust, and rehabbed the speakers he’d built for my brother in the 70s that David gave to me in one of his moves from Minnesota. I’m remembering so many trips to Acme Electronics, and ? was it Market something, on Snelling?, and all the pages of calculations that went into designing the crossovers, and the hand winding of those crossovers — things have sure changed in electronics! I learned much by osmosis, which was a foot in the door for me in radio, sound, and transmission lines.

When he couldn’t do woodworking anymore, he gave Alan that big rolling box of pipe clamps. His table saw from 1975 was his pride & joy, used for the first of is really fine speakers he built in the basement back then, including my brother’s, which are now in my dining room. Most of his woodworking equipment wasn’t in his apartment, maybe he gave it away to folks who could use it.

We’d met when I was 15 or so, still in high school, when Sue Koob let me know about this odd marching band, and she and her sister had joined. My brother and I followed. I found a clarinet at Hy’s Loan (Buffet R-13, $50, unreal, neglected, had to take it apart and get it in shape, but just wow), got reacquainted, and joined the St. Lawrence Band, run by Shawn’s father and grandmother, with all of their large family involved in one way or another. From there, I took up alto sax, and also got to play in Clete’s 40-50s dance band based in a VFW on Lake Street, and then in ’80s went on to have some fun in horn sections. That family was a large influence, and I’m glad I got to keep them!

Summer of ’73 after the Forest Lake parade:

And a block party in my old neighborhood:

Summer of ’78, at 25 years old, that was when things went south for him, hospitalizations then, and a couple after that. Those extreme, unpredictable, and downright scary ups and downs were way too much for me to deal with, like the car left in the middle of Central & Lowry intersection, and the conspiracy theories around certain folks in management at HCMC, on and on. It took some time for him to get regulated, years, for docs to find meds that worked without horrible side effects, and for him to stay on meds to keep schizophrenic exacerbations at bay. He was able to do it, and was leveled out for decades, with a stable home in apartment building with staff that kept a helpful eye on him, supportive family members, and keeping up with his audio projects. Now and then, he’d send random photos of his electronics projects and collections which took up his entire apartment and a storage unit too!

From sister Jeanne McGovern-Acuna about Shawn McGovern, this post with details and remembrances of his life. Jeanne has been the sister of sisters, for decades keeping up with him, and for his last month she’d been taking care of him, monitoring his health care, and was the family point person on the scene, both exhausting and rewarding. She kept me in the loop, for which I am grateful.

Like his father Clete McGovern, he held strong political opinions, and like his father, delighted in political discussions. Thankfully the apple fell on the opposite side of the political spectrum, a consistent worker for DFL. Here he is at a Climate Change gathering at the capitol, just a few months ago:

Rest in Power, Shawn McGovern.