In 1962, the historian Evan Jones published a book with the title “The Minnesota: Forgotten River.” While the book was really about the storied history along the river (such as Henry David Thoreau’s visit in 1861), the waterway has been much less forgotten in recent decades as advocates have worked to reduce pollution from sediment and fertilizers.
A dizzying array of state and nonprofit groups have spent decades cleaning up the river. The health of the river has also been the focus of conversations every June for the past 17 years at the Minnesota River Congress, including this year’s meeting in Mankato.
These cleanup efforts could soon get a boost with state legislation to create a Minnesota River Commission, perhaps as early as next year’s legislative session.
“I’m quite sure there will be something proposed. It’s in the works,” said state Rep. Paul Torkelson, a Republican whose district includes Brown and Redwood counties that border the south bank of the river. “It’s a complicated history, and geology makes it very challenging.”
Related: Task force wades into the complexity of water stewardship in the Land of 10,000 Lakes
A rich river story
On Oct. 23 in New Ulm, advocates met to celebrate “For Love of a River: The Minnesota,” a 2018 book that captures the current state of the river, framing its vast history with environmental perspectives through the encounters of Darby Nelson, his wife, Geri, and the people they meet.
Over five years, the Nelsons paddled and camped along the entire 335-mile length of the river. In the book’s prologue, Darby Nelson writes, “Far too prevalent is the uniformed opinion that the entire area contains nothing but corn and bean fields cultivated by farmers who callously pollute the river for their own short-term benefit. Not true! There is a much richer story to tell.”
“It’s a beautiful river to paddle,” Geri Nelson said. “And fish for sure, and there are so many places you can come in and go out. You can make it a short trip or a long trip. When you’re paddling, you’re not in civilization. It’s really a pleasant, pleasant place.”
With regulation controlling untreated industrial and municipal wastewater, “it’s certainly gotten better,” she said. “Fish and mussels are starting to come back, but the geology is such that it erodes so easily, and practices on the land have made that worse.”
Darby Nelson, who died in 2022, grew up near the Minnesota River in Morton, taught at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and served three terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
‘No collective response’
Despite the plethora of projects and commissions, steady stewardship of the river has been lacking over the decades, advocates argue, which led to the push for legislative action.
In 1988, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) launched the Minnesota River Assessment Project, followed in 1990 by the Minnesota River Implementation Project. After two years of study, a citizens advisory committee offered 10 recommendations, including creating a commission.
Instead of a commission, in 1994 the Legislature established the Minnesota River Joint Powers Board, composed of commissioners from the 37 counties in the river basin. It was dissolved in 2014.
“After that there was no collective response from the state to address the continuing decline of water quality and quantity conditions that remain today,” Scott Sparlin, Minnesota River Congress organizer and director of the New Ulm-based Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River, wrote in a document related to the legislative proposal.
“Our primary focus was establishing the water storage program, and we did get some good funding from the state of Minnesota,” Sparlin said. “We did have a part of the Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022 for grants and the water storage program, he said. “Minnesota was granted $22 million, but under the Trump administration the money was rescinded.”
“The secondary focus of the Minnesota River Congress was to establish a Minnesota River Coordinating Commission to oversee and help implement and potentially fund water quality projects,” Sparlin said. “We don’t have a state entity to deal with the Minnesota River,” such as the Mississippi Headwaters Board or the Red River Basin Commission.
Sparlin testified to the Legislative Coordinating Committee on Minnesota water policy. “They had made it one of their 10 focus areas,” he said. He has also met with leaders at the Board of Water and Soil Resources, the Department of Natural Resources and the MPCA.
“There’s been good discussion and no apparent pushback,” Sparlin said. “I’ve discussed this with bipartisan leaders in the Senate and in the House. The goal is to get legislation into this next session, get a hearing and see how far we can take it. When you talk about solutions, it’s bipartisan. We’re not talking about anything that everyone doesn’t agree upon.”
Torkelson said he sees the legislation forming something similar to the Red River Basin Commission.
One step forward
Sparlin describes progress thus far as “one step forward and a couple of steps back. And then you include climate with flooded fields and bridges being washed out, and dams breaking. Infrastructure is becoming a big part of this,” he said. “Once these crazy events happen they’re very destructive.”
Along with sediment levels exceeding water quality standards, too many nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus continue to exceed standards, according to “Our Minnesota River: Evaluating the health of the river,” an MPCA report. Cost estimates for decades of future water quality work range up to nearly $400 million.
Related: When the Minnesota River flooded Carver County in 1965
Along with water storage, improving soil health on cropland is seen as another way to slow down the runoff. “If we can improve the integrity of the soil health with cover crops, saturated buffers and those types of things, that improves the ability of soil to absorb more water,” Sparlin said.
“Within the flood plains of our major tributaries and the flood plains of the river itself, there’s a lot of areas that have storage capacity that aren’t being utilized, and this isn’t about taking farmland out of production,” Sparlin said.
“We are making progress, and we want to build on that,” said Torkelson, the state lawmaker. “The Clean Water Fund has been active; we have more data available. The state’s One Watershed One Plan will be helpful, and county board level involvement is critical. The buffer compromise is a good example; we have nearly 100% cooperation,” he said. “It’s important to recognize that model and all the good work that has occurred. It’s not any one thing; it’s a combination of efforts.”
Within the Minnesota River Basin, a number of organizations have been working on water quality and related issues. In 1960, the Lower Minnesota River Watershed District was formed to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, focusing on navigation. The Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River organized in 1990, followed in 1992 by CURE (Clean Up the River Environment) in Montevideo.
More information is available at the Minnesota River Basin Data Center at Minnesota State University, including this video on the river’s revitalization.
Forrest Peterson is a Greater Minnesota-based freelance writer.
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