A note from Executive Director, Catherine Neuschler

It's a long-standing truism that Minnesotans live for our glorious summer months, when we can get out and enjoy everything the state has to offer. From outdoor sports (playing OR spectating), to parades and festivals, to activities that take advantage of the state's natural landscapes - especially our 10,000 (and more!) lakes - we fill up our summer days.

The EQB staff are keeping plenty busy for the summer. As you'll see elsewhere in this newsletter, we have a new staff person and a summer student from the Increasing Diversity in Environmental Careers (IDEC) program. IDEC is a partnership between Conservation Corps and three of our member agencies (MPCA, DNR, and BWSR) and I'm very excited we have been able to work with them and play a part in these students exploring potential career paths.

We're also prepping for some big end of summer and early fall events where we hope to see many of you. We've been working with the MPCA on a pollinator exhibit and pollinator day (August 29) at the State Fair's EcoExperience, so if you are a State Fair fan, mark your calendars to check that out. Finally, we're planning for a series of community conversations around the state that will make up this year's Environmental Congress. Those events are planned for the week of September 23; more information will be coming out soon.

In addition to all the exciting work we're doing, I'm finding time to get out on the lakes in my kayak and sustain that connection to water that led me into the environmental field. I hope all of you also get to enjoy some sustaining summer adventures! 

Board

We are excited to share the Governor's appointment of two new EQB Public Board Members. Angela Smith will be joining the board to represent Congressional District 5, and Ed Brands will be joining us to represent Congressional District 7. Additionally, current Board Member Nick Martin has been reappointed to represent Congressional District 4. Please join us in welcoming our new board members! We look forward to hearing the new perspectives they’ll bring to the Board.

Staff

We're excited to welcome Sarah Lerohl and Elizabeth Batsaikhan to the EQB team! Sarah will be part of the Environmental Review team, providing technical assistance both generally and with a specific focus on supporting DEED’s energy transitions office and the energy transition communities. Sarah has been working for MPCA’s landfill operator certification and training program, and has a lot of local experience from working for Western Lake Superior Sanitary District.

Elizabeth is a student worker joining us through early August from the IDEC (increasing diversity in environmental careers) program. She’s a rising senior at Macalester double majoring in Environmental Studies, with a concentration in Climate Science and Policy, and in Chinese Language and Culture. Elizabeth hopes to learn about the regulatory framework and processes that govern environmental policy and management, how environmental policies develop towards sustainability, and gain insights on potential career paths in environmental policy. 

We asked for your thoughts on the mandatory categories for environmental review - and you replied! We are very pleased to see interest in environmental review programming from both the public and practitioners. Commenters made it clear that Minnesota is a beautiful place to live, work, and play and that we can all rally around protecting and improving our land, air, and water. From all written sources, EQB received 680 substantive written comments. Additionally, about 25 separate comments on mandatory categories were documented by notetakers during listening sessions. Many of these comments are helping shape the 2024 Mandatory Categories Report. To stay up to date on this process, please sign up for email updates here. 

The environmental review program has had a data management plan update! The update includes information and metrics that need to be collected for the EQB to better understand the implementation and assess the effectiveness of the program. To collect this information, we plan to send follow-up surveys to RGU contacts when they have EAW projects posted in the EQB Monitor.

1. The first survey will be sent to the RGU following the notice of availability for the EAW. This survey will ask for information about when certain steps within the process happened, to help with understanding the amount of time it takes to complete an EAW; it will also ask about the interactions between RGUs and project proposers prior to publication. The survey will also help inform us on any engagement efforts that may or may not take place before publication.
2. The second survey will follow the publication of the EIS need decision and again will be sent to the RGU. This second survey will better inform the EQB on the impact environmental review had on the project.

The information the we gain from these surveys will improve the understanding of how RGUs are carrying out the program and help us determine if improvements to the program could benefit program participants. In total, the two surveys are only expected to take 5-10 minutes to complete, so please take the time to fill them out!

Still to come...do you have the tools and support to do environmental review? We want to know and will be sharing more about this project later.

This year we are celebrating pollinators with a special event at the State Fair. Make sure to visit the Eco Experience building to check out a GIANT movable Monarch butterfly. The butterfly will be on display throughout the entirety of the fair, so don't miss out! Additionally, on Thursday, August 29, we will celebrate Pollinator Day with fun pollinator-related activities and experts at the Eco Experience Sustainability Stage sharing important information about pollinators, their connection with climate change, and ways to help them. Additionally, people will be able to visit exhibitors located at the DNR fair grounds from 9am - 3 pm, and participate in a pollinator habitat hike at 11am.

Photo by: Heather Holm