After more than a month of organizing and researching complexities and concerns surrounding a possible gravel mine in northeast Rice County, many residents of Nerstrand were left disappointed.
The Rice County Board of Commissioners approved the controversial interim-use permit to allow the mining operation and denied an Environmental Assessment Worksheet at the end of a four-hour meeting Tuesday morning. The decision left several members of the public feeling frustrated, especially after their coordinated effort to gather 100 signatures and petition for a third-party EAW.
Early last month, the Rice County Planning Commission recommended approval of Milestone Materials’ request to mine for gravel in the area, but concerns began to brew among locals and experts who form the Nerstrand MN Conservation Society. The group began as a response to this mining project.
In particular, people said the area known as the Big Woods Corridor is “not the right place for a pit,” which several members of the public also noted at Tuesday’s meeting. Erik Sahlin, who has helped lead the charge against the mine, is now running for District 1 commissioner as a direct result of this controversy.
“The Big Woods Corridor is a product of extraordinary effort by so many different people over decades,” he told commissioners Tuesday. “We’ve got farming families donating millions of dollars worth of land. Like the Prairie Creek Wildlife Management Area … We’ve got farmers and their neighbors committing millions of dollars worth of conservation easements, like the Forest Legacy Program. The Valley Grove community rallying to raise over $400,000 to save land that’s now prairie and oak savanna. And that’s this land right here.”
As Sahlin described the work that people have done to preserve the land, he pointed to a map of the Big Woods Corridor that he created with maps from other governmental agencies, adding his own markers and labels of important conservation projects and ecological features.
Background info
After the Planning Commission recommended approval of the mine, concerned residents continued to rally against it. Commissioners noted at the May 14 meeting how unprecedented the public participation was for such a small mine.
The day before the last meeting, Rice County Attorney Brian Mortenson sent a memo to commissioners that the public couldn’t comment on something twice. Since there had been comment at the Planning Commission meeting, there was no chance for them to technically speak at the regular county board meeting.
This drew criticism from the public, including former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson. Despite the public’s inability to speak, they filled nearly every seat at the meeting.
Their concerns spanned a wide range, including groundwater pollution, traffic safety, noise, habitat destruction and even a pair of bald eagles that nest on the site. St. Olaf College environmental studies professor Kiara Jorgenson was also instrumental in identifying these initial concerns.
Ultimately, the commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of setting another public hearing and extending the permitting process to gather more information. The follow-up meeting was held Tuesday morning.
Dissenting commissioners argued that the problems were blown out of proportion.
Community input
The night before, several members of the Nerstrand MN Conservation Society gathered to discuss the strategies and topics they planned to discuss at the meeting.
They decided to have someone who would introduce the Big Woods Corridor, someone who would talk about the economic impacts a mine could have, someone to talk about groundwater, someone to talk about frustration among constituents and more.
Among the group, Gary Wagenbach, a retired biology professor and conservation activist who served as a Rice Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor for several years. He had notes and opinions from notable geologists, which he used to address commissioners.
“Does karst exist on the site?” he asked commissioners. “Karst consists of limestone or St. Peter sandstone in this location. It’s evidenced by springs, sinkholes, and other pathways for surface water to get into the groundwater and down into the aquifer.”
Karst, landscape with soluble rock types like limestone and sandstone, can provide pollutants with a path to the aquifer. The county’s hired consultants, Bolton & Menk, used maps from the 1990s to determine whether karst were present.
The findings suggested there is no evidence of karst within a 5-mile radius, but Wagenbach said the outdated maps and lack of on-the-ground assessment is not enough to make that determination.
“As my anthropologist friend said, quote, ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,’” he said. “Karst could be there. Big Woods Park has karst. That’s been demonstrated.”
Big Woods State Park is less than five miles from the controversial site, which indicated a flawed analysis to Wagenbach. He had several other reasons for speaking out against the mine, including a lack of knowledge about Rice County’s sediment locations.
“Is the Big Woods Corridor recognized?” he asked. “No. Has Rice County mapped or screened for deposited sediment, some of which is mineable. Answer is no. The option is available through the DNR. The map doesn’t exist for Rice County. You’ve never asked for that. Is there a sitemap for nitrate contamination? No. Are the wells in the area all mapped through the well index in figure three in the reports? Answer is no. Some are missing.”
Not all members of the public were as data-driven as Wagenbach. Tony Perella, for example, noted the reason he moved here some years ago.
“I moved to this area a couple of years ago,” he said. “I was drawn to it because of the pastoral landscapes, the agriculture, the nature, the beauty of it all. I work outside the county. I bring my income to this county and spend it here. I wouldn’t have done that if there was a mine down the road.”
Some supported the mine, like Bill Holmblad, the owner of Hillside Excavating.
“The mining for this is mostly underwater,” he said. “You’re not gonna see anything; you’re just gonna see a lake develop. And when it’s all sloped off and grassed in, then it’s just going to look like it was always there. Your biggest complaint on property values, when it’s all done, is going to be the people coming and saying, ‘My house is a mile away from this thing. Why is it increasing my property values?’”
In total, 30 members of the public gave comments for and against the gravel mine.
Afterward, commissioners discussed the petition for a EAW, before voting 4-1 to reject; Commissioner Galen Malecha was the only one to support it. Then, they discussed the permit itself.
While some lightly touched on the concerns of the public, discussion mainly focused on hours of operation, setbacks from the creek and berm height.
Vote reaction
Again voting 4-1, with Malecha as the dissenter, the commissioners approved the mining operation. After the hours of public testimony from experts calling into question the validity of consultant’s research, commissioners only made one amendment to the permit.
The mine is only allowed to operate for five Saturdays a year, in order to prevent traffic backup during busy days at the nearby park. Several other conditions were included in the permit, but that was the only amendment after public comment.
“My reaction to this is just deep disappointment,” Sahlin said. “I’ve seen so many neighbors working so hard for a better review process and result on this pit mine. To see the environmental assessment get voted down 4-1 and then the pit mine to get approved 4-1, I don’t think any of us were ready for such a lopsided result. It’s hard to know what to make of it. It seems to me that we count on our elected officials to see the big picture and to put the needs and values of Rice County first. And it looks like that didn’t happen today.”
Jorgenson also made the point that commissioners “missed the forest for the trees.”
“I am very disappointed that level of conversation didn’t emerge at all in the conversation the commissioners had amongst themselves,” she said. “They were asked by multiple people to consider ‘How does the proposal of this small pit on this small parcel relate to this larger effort?’ And they didn’t talk about that at all.
“… These commissioners went right into hours of operation and areas of setback. They missed the bigger picture, which is that this parcel is related to many, many others. And the kind of activity that takes place here will greatly impact what can and cannot take place on these other parcels immediately surrounding it, and it’s foolish to think otherwise.”
She agreed with Wagenbach about the lack of evidence for karst.
“So you heard Dr. Wagenbach refer to the maps that the consultant used being quite dated, from the ‘90s,” she said. “I mean, I’m a professor. I don’t let my students use data from the 90s in any of their academic research. For good reason, right? So, you know, basing our opinions on that today is just totally, woefully inadequate.”
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