A public hearing for the South Fork Crow River One Watershed, One Plan held a public hearing drew a contentious crowd Nov. 27.
The meeting’s intent was to present and discuss a draft for a comprehensive watershed management plan for the South Fork Crow River, which covers portions of McLeod, Renville, Meeker, Kandiyohi, Wright, Carver, Sibley and Hennepin counties. However, it turned into an argument with officials about land rights, ditches, freedom and constitutional rights.
Rachel Olm, scientist at Huston Engineering, presented an overview of the plan.
“One watershed, one plan is not a new layer of government,” Olm said. “It’s instead focusing on existing local partnerships and existing collaborations. It is not a regulatory program. It’s instead focusing on voluntary actions. And it is not a technical report generating new content and materials. It instead is a comprehensive plan that builds off the framework of existing data. It’s intended to be a public facing plan.”
If approved by the state, the plan would give the South Fork Crow River One Watershed, One Plan $1.2 million of non-competitive money to disperse to area farmers who want to improve their land.
“Since water is blind to political boundaries, the state and local governments as well as watershed districts came together and created a recommendation that watershed planning should transition to something that functions over a watershed boundary,” Olm said. “So the One Watershed One Plan is the planning program in which state money is given to the local government partnership groups in order to develop a plan that manages resources for the next 10 years.”
Prior to receiving public comment, McLeod County Board Chairman Paul Wright reminded the attendees that, “This is all based on a voluntary program for landowners to come forward and look for some of the funding that is available. There is nothing here to control or restrict. This is not an extra layer to government. This (program) is for anyone who wishes to voluntarily come forward and ask for funds to do some improvements on their land.”
There seemed to be confusion among the attendees about the intent of the meeting.
“Where’s the flag,” a resident of Cedar Mills said. “Did we start the meeting with a prayer at all? No. I’ve never heard about this stuff since yesterday. How come the farmers were not sent a separate letter about this paper? Can somebody say in laymen’s terms what was going on? What is wrong with the way it was before? Is there something wrong going on now? Who’s benefiting from this?”
Another speaker, McLeod County resident, criticized the county for permitting the installation of larger tiles than infrastructure can handle. The complaint centered around the county’s allowance of 24-inch tiles into 12-inch tiles, contributing to the problems at hand. He argued that the county, while unable to address this tile issue, now seeks to advise and regulate farming practices, including cover crops. He criticized the county for allowing organizations like Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited to purchase adjacent land without paying taxes, affording them the freedom to impact tile and land as they please.
“McLeod County, you’ve created this problem all by yourself,” he said.
Doug Benson’s main complaint was the lack of transparency and losing trust in the board’s intentions.
“You wonder why people don’t trust you anymore,” he said. “I don’t trust because this is what’s happening. This is what happened. This is why you put a limit on it (speaking) so that if the people had something to say they couldn’t say it.”
People had three minutes each to speak at the public hearing.
Benson went on to say anyone who voted on the One Watershed program is an “American traitor.”
“Government is now our enemy in most cases. We cannot trust them anymore,” Benson said. “You want to be a communist dictator, right.”
A Cosmos resident voiced skepticism that most of the funds will be used on paperwork, commissioners meetings, outings and junkets, rather than addressing tangible issues like soil removal to allow the river to handle more water.
“I mean, they focus more on bureaucracy, keeping the bureaucracy going,” he said. “That’s how Washington and state governments and school boards and all this stuff work. They spend a lot of their money on their plan, their paperwork, their thick report, but yet nothing gets done. There’s no soil removed, there’s no dams replaced.”
One resident brought up the 1992 United States vs. Williams a Supreme Court case in which Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion on the case that had to do with the presentation of exculpatory evidence to a grand jury.
“The people are the fourth branch of the government,” the resident said. “Everybody understand what I’m saying. The people are the fourth branch of government. The common law grand jury belongs to us. The Supreme Court cannot override the common law.”
After public comment ended, board members responded, which continued to yell questions.
One person asked if they would get responses to the questions asked.
“The comments that are received during the public hearing are filed as part of the public record of the plan,” Olm said.
Renville County Commissioner Randy Kramer emphasized challenges and complexities faced by the board group. He acknowledged the difficulty of satisfying everyone’s concerns.
“We’re trying to do this in the best interest of everybody here,” Kramer said. “This isn’t us against you or us against the state. We’re trying to have a plan that we can all work with. We all know where this is going. If we didn’t do this, there might not be any drainage. I mean that’s kind of the direction it’s taking in St. Paul at this time, is that there shouldn’t be any drainage. Well, if we don’t have agriculture, we don’t have anything. That’s my opinion.”
“We’re here to put practices in place that satisfies all or tries to satisfy,” Kramer continued. “We’re not going to satisfy everybody. There’s no question about that. But our duty here was to adopt a plan and it’s our plan … What we’re trying to do is make this best for everybody.”
Coleton Draeger, McLeod SWCD resource conservationist, asked the crowd if they had read the document prior to meeting. No one raised their hand. He explained that if he knew everyone’s knowledge of the program, responses could be tailored to better explain the plan.
Wright explained why the board needs to adopt a plan.
“We can’t get any of that money unless we have a plan for those that voluntarily want to participate in a project,” he said. “This is all about the voluntary landowner, who is looking at a project. We can assist them, even if they are in a township. We can get that money the landowner needs to do improvements on their land. I think this has been framed completely wrong for individuals to a degree, but we really need to bring it back to what this is actually about. This is a benefit of those individuals that voluntarily have a project. Without this plan, we have zero ability to bring that money home.”
Mark Zabel, Carver County Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor, told the crowd he wants the best for his county and the neighboring areas.
“This is the ‘small d’ of democracy form of government, and what we get to do about it,” he said. “We get to do it ourselves. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. This is a voluntary program that you get to work with us to get stuff that you want done. Cleaner water, water that flows the way that we hope it will downhill.”
The board gave unanimous support for the adoption of the plan. The next step is a 90-day review, then the plan will be forwarded to Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources for approval.
