Building upon the 50th anniversary of the Water Trails Program in 2013, the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) was pleased there was a successful Water Trails Tourism Summit in 2014. Having a Summit was one of our goals when we first organized in 2012.

We thought it would be important to bring friends and user groups together with outfitters, tourism promoters and communities along water trails to build capacity for the DNR program, along with encouraging stewardship of our waterways.

The diversity of Summit attendees and the interest of participants at the event proved that these Summits can be a useful addition to the paddling community.

We had a key representative of the standup paddleboard community present at the Summit who made a presentation. And a DNR staffer explained and told us how successful the I Can Paddle program was in 2014.

Because of the Summit and the flow of ideas presented there, we will be reviewing our goals and mission for this upcoming year, and seeking new ways to help and interact with people who support the State Water Trails Program. The DNR's great planning and support of the Summit, along with the generous giving by sponsors and the local planning partners from St. Cloud, generated a "perfect storm" for the CAC to move forward.

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The Minnesota Water Trails Tourism Summit, which took place in St. Cloud on Sept. 29 and 30, brought together over 140 community representatives and paddling enthusiasts from across the country. The summit was the first of its kind in the nation, bringing together tourism and outdoor recreation interests to build communities’ capacity to promote paddle sports.

At the summit, 75 attendees paddled the Beaver Islands area of the Mississippi River, a state designated Wild and Scenic stretch of the river south of the dam in St. Cloud. Other attendees visited St. Cloud State University's Outdoor Endeavors program and Clear Waters Outfitting Company to learn more about the economic impacts of paddle sports.

Programs at the summit included connecting youth to the outdoors, creating paddle friendly communities, and how to promote water trails. Tom Landwehr, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), welcomed attendees to the event and introduced the day's keynote speaker Natalie Warren. Warren, founder of Wild River Academy, spoke about communities from the paddler's perspective.     

“The Summit was a rare and wonderful opportunity for city officials, representatives of the DNR and other state agencies, and fellow outfitters to come together with the united purpose of promoting paddle sports on the amazing Minnesota State Water Trails system we know and love,” said Robert Stai, an outfitter from Northfield, MN.

Keynote Speaker Natalie Warren

Natalie Warren was one of the first two women to paddle over 2,000 miles from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay. This expedition inspired Natalie to start Wild River Academy, a non-profit organization based in Minneapolis dedicated to engaging communities in watershed education through outdoor recreation. Every fall, Warren leads an expedition down a major river in the US to bring attention to issues and successes surrounding urban water trails. 

Her presentation, Your Community from the Paddler's Perspective, focused on integrated recreation and economy in relation to the health of our rivers and river towns.

Evening Keynote Speaker Greg Lais

Greg is the founder and Executive Director of Wilderness Inquiry. Since 1978, he has directed the organization’s growth and development, collaborating with many along the way to build a world-class organization that has directly served more than 350,000 and touched the lives of millions more.

Greg spoke of Wilderness Inquiry's Canoemobile, a roving fleet of six hand-made, 24′ Voyageur canoes that travels across America to bring environmental literacy and dynamic outdoor learning experiences to urban youth. Since inception, Canoemobile has served over 7,000 youth in 20 cities across the nation.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will postpone the new aquatic invasive species training and trailer decal program that was due to launch at the end of January while legislators consider changes to the program.

Under a law passed by the state Legislature in 2012, anyone trailering a boat or water-related equipment such as docks and lifts in Minnesota is required to take aquatic invasive species training and display a decal on their trailer. The effective date is July 1, 2015.

“With the legislative interest in this educational program and ongoing discussions about possible changes, we are postponing the launch until we see if the Legislature acts this session to modify the program,” said Bob Meier, DNR assistant commissioner.

The DNR supports the education that would be provided under this law, but recognizes there are some concerns with the way the law is currently written. For example, people transporting boats on trailers through Minnesota to another destination are required to take the course and display a decal even if they don’t put their boat in Minnesota waters.

Since the training and decal are currently not required until July 1, the DNR wants to remind people that there will be time to see what happens legislatively and still take the course and receive decals. The agency will post online any updates on trailers and alert the media if there are any program changes.

As I look back on the past 25 years of the program, I have seen that some of what we do extends beyond immediate outcomes. One of those was the cleanup of May 7, 2003. It involved members of the Minnesota 4 Wheel Drive Association (MN4WDA). The project was to clean a 27-acre, abandoned, tree-covered rail yard along the river, just east of downtown St. Paul. That event vividly illustrates the importance of committed volunteers involved in natural resource stewardship.

This cleanup marked the beginning of a brownfield restoration used as a textbook example of how such projects should be done. The site of this exemplary project was the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary.  The start of the site’s cleanup was a one-day service project that contributed to a project that still attracts investment after 12 years of progress. Fifty-five club members (including family), arrived there on a Wednesday for a 4-hour effort following a normal workday. They shared their expertise with heavy equipment of all kinds. They arrived with six skid loaders, custom-built 4X4 trucks with trailers, and all-terrain vehicles. With the added help of a few homeless tent-dwellers in the area, they winched out rotting, water-soaked trash from the bluff-side caves as well as everything else imaginable from throughout the 27-acre site.

As darkness set in, 37 tires had been removed (half of them mounted), a 30-yard dumpster was filled with demolition debris (including shingles, timbers, patio block, plaster walls and remodeling left-overs), two 30-yard dumpsters filled with general waste (20 bed springs, 6 chairs, 6 sofas, a toilet, carpets,  shelving and two refrigerators, etc.) and a 20 yard roll-off overflowing with scrap metal (bath tubs, barrels, a safe, water heaters, etc.). Cans of discarded paint and oil, a car battery and other chemicals, plus a few dozen railroad ties, topped off the household and industrial hazardous wastes found on site.  Before dark, 3,040 pounds of recyclable metal, 39,500 pounds of general rubbish, and 54,000 pounds of demolition debris had been removed, totaling 96,540 pounds of trash. They gathered trash at the amazing rate of 24,135 pounds per hour!

Joining in with the organizational skills of the Lower Phalen Creek Project (LPCP), the MN4WDA was able to supplement the efforts of the 25 groups coordinated by the LLPCP.  For example, Minnesota DNR Metro Greenways had already awarded a grant to the project. That was leveraged by more support from the National Park Service. Public acquisition of the site was completed just six months prior to the May 7th cleanup by the four-wheel club, and the grand opening of May 21, 2005 was just two years later!  By 2006, over $10 million had been contributed to the effort. A number of groups, along with the MN4WDA, contributed their sweat equity. The dramatic cleanup results coming from the May 7th event provided the first tangible view for what would become the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary.

The MN4WDA is but one example of the 650 organizations that, since 1989, have removed over 6.4 million pounds of trash from our public waters through the program.  Prior to the nature-sanctuary project, they staged cleanups on the Minnesota Valley State Trail in Shakopee and the Crosby Farms Regional Park in St. Paul. On other occasions between 2000 and 2012, they did cleanups in an abandoned salvage yard on the Minnesota River at the Belle Plaine State Wayside. These efforts totaled well over 300,000 pounds of salvage-yard trash, including thousands of dollar’s worth of recycled metals. Their most recent effort in Belle Plaine resulted in 10 dumpsters loaded with mixed metals and demolition debris. The value of the retrieved scrap metals actually produced a payment of $2,770 over the costs of transport and disposal.

The physical transformation of the “huge mess” that once described the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary began with a volunteer cleanup on May 7, 2003. The volunteers came from an off-road vehicle recreation association strictly as a community service.  The effort powerfully demonstrates how partnerships across groups and agencies can result in rapid positive change and great momentum. It also shows how the Adopt-a-River program can play a part in an on-going cause greater than itself.

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With the disbanding of the Minnesota River Board – a nearly 20 year old organization which provided leadership, built partnerships, and supported efforts to improve water quality in the Minnesota River Basin – there is a need for a basin wide organization to take up where the Minnesota River Board left off. This was one of the primary topics up for discussion during the second Minnesota River Congress.

The second congress, held on October 30, 2014, in New Ulm, and attended by more than 100 people, discussed ideas from previous meetings, and voted on a list of organizing options that would encompass the entire river basin – nearly 15,000 square miles in southern Minnesota.

The most votes went to developing a new organization to replace the now disbanded Minnesota River Board. The idea of using an existing not-for-profit organization placed second.

About two dozen people volunteered to participate in small groups working on components of organization or collaboration. A meeting to develop components of the organization structure and potential projects is being planned for late January.

Details of the potential organization structures, themes from past meetings, and planning committee members are posted on the Minnesota River Watershed Alliance webpage: www.watershedalliance.blogspot.com/.

“The goal is to create some type of citizen-led, basin-wide, and effective entity to assist, but not compete with, existing organizations already working to improve the natural and economic vitality of the greater Minnesota River valley,” Sparlin says. “The next phase will occur at a third congress sometime in March or April.”

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