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John Helland: Mississippi River Corridor Protection in Legacy Bill

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Conservationist John Helland writes of provisions in the Clean Water, Land and Legacy bill that have received little media attention.

Article 2 of the final outdoor and cultural resources legacy bill contains some items that differ somewhat from the regular appropriation purposes of the four new funds. These include a prohibition on state agencies purchasing coal tar sealant, preventing water pollution from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, endrocrine-disruptor monitoring, and amendments to the Mississippi river critical area corridor.

This post concentrates on the latter, which revamps a 30-year old law and designation to protect the Mississippi river shoreline within the metropolitan area. The changes in the Legacy law originally were in a separate bill, H.F. 424 by Representative Rick Hanson, that was part of a three-session effort to strengthen the standards for river protection. The Mississippi protection corridor runs from Dayton down to the southern end of Dakota county in Hastings. Representative Hanson amended the bill to the Legacy Act in April, with a $500,000 appropriation over the biennium to the Department of Natural Resources for its role in further protection along the corridor.

The critical area provisions codify the former transfer of the existing rules by the Environmental Quality Board to the DNR, which must come up with new rulemaking in 2010 for corridor protective standards and guidelines. All bluffs along the metro Mississippi must be mapped by the DNR, and natural features along the corridor (floodplains, wetlands, shoreland, scenic views, water quality, etc.) must be protected or enhanced. In developing new standards, the DNR must work with the Mississippi River National Recreation Area of the National Park Service, other related federal agencies, and all local units of government along the corridor.

The Metropolitan Council must incorporate the new protective standards into its planning processes, and work with the local government units to insure adoption and implementation of the standards. The standards will apply in the four land use districts under the Critical Areas Act: rural open space, urban open space, urban diversified, and urban development. Local government units must notify the DNR, after standards are adopted, of any discretionary action within a land use district on the corridor at least ten days before any final decision.

Friends of the Mississippi River, a nonprofit group working for the Mississippi, played a big role in both working with the DNR to improve the critical area corridor for protection and in working for the new law. They were assisted by other metro-area environmental groups, including the Friends of Ramsey County Parks. The upshot of these changes, once the new rules are finalized and put into place locally, is that more sustainable and landscape-enhancing development will occur along the metropolitan Mississippi, making it a more pleasurable scenic corridor with improvements in water quality.

John Helland: Mississippi River Corridor Protection in Legacy Bill

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