Someday historians will look back on April 2, 2005 as the day Minnesota decided to reverse a century of wrongheaded environmental decisions. In doing so, they will describe a political rally that took place on the state capitol steps at St. Paul, a rally that brought 5,000 Minnesotans together to issue a call for environmental responsibility.
I believe they will forget that the rally was initially a call to bring back the ducks, a goal that was the result of a century of wetland drainage and environmental degradation on what was some of the richest soil in the world. The rally did accomplish that, but it also brought together Minnesotans who wanted more than just ducks. They wanted clean water, and most of all, political leaders who would embrace and accept the time for change was now, even though almost everything done in future weeks, months and years, will cost more than if their predecessors had been environmentally responsible.
It took a unique individual to bring all of the various groups and citizens to that point. But Dave Zentner has always been unique; a man with foresight, determination, and as he’s grown older, respect for the views of all. I know Dave well, and hardly a week goes by when we fail to talk.
When I first met him, he was a conservation leader, but more of the firebrand variety. He was just finishing his second term as national President of the Izaak Walton League of America. Back then, he’d double up his fists and charge into any crowd of environmental despoilers. Today, he’s older and wiser, and before days end, he’ll have those same despoilers eating from his hand.
Consider what the rally accomplished.
Minnesota’s Governor and the Senate Majority leader were there, each representing different political parties, and they were falling all over themselves climbing onto the conservation bandwagon. That was made possible because the rally gained steam and soon it was apparent that it had incredibly strong public support. Thus, Zentner and his band accomplish the single most important thing when you are seeking change.
Support.
Strong Political support
The only problem is that it took place much too late. Of course, history also shows that it’s easier to get angry over something when you have lost it.
Yes, the rally started over ducks but by the time they gathered in St. Paul on April 2, it included lots of conservation and environmental organizations that rarely mix, and even more rarely, even talk with each other.
And the rally proved that if you can make things politically popular, politicians can be expected to do what politicians have always done. They’ll test the water, check the air, and then look at the latest poll. And on April 2, 2005, it all came together.
North and South Dakota, take notes.
This isn’t about keeping the horde of Minnesota hunters and anglers at home. This is about adopting a blueprint for conservation success that will work everywhere.
We should know by now that Minnesotans descend on the Dakotas during fishing and hunting seasons for good reason.
The fishing and hunting is better in the Dakotas.
But let’s not start doffing our caps and patting ourselves on the back and bragging of our own conservation leadership. Truth is, we aren’t any different than Minnesota outdoorsmen were back when the degradation was taking place. And don’t kid yourself. The fact that Minnesota land is more valuable than land in either Dakota played no small role in the degredation occurring there first.
And most of our own political leaders react the way they do, mostly in favor of some rather stupid agricultural practices, because they only hear loud voices from those who do those things.
You and I? Well, the pheasant hunting hasn’t been this good since the 60s and fishing is just fine, thank you.
What, me worry?
Maybe we should.
Maybe we should realize that we’ve lost more native prairie during the past decade than we gained from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
Maybe we should realize that though there are some good people in the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the leadership isn’t necessarily pro-wetlands.
In fact, if anyone thinks Dean Fisher, the former South Dakota State Conservationist, acted alone when he unilaterally tried to lower our wetland delineation standards, then you’re a good customer for those selling bridges in Brooklyn.
Friends who should know, including many who work within the biological arena, tell me the NRCS is looking the other way most times when wetlands are being drained.
That’s something that should make you angry if you like wildlife or want your kids to see what you’ve seen.
The problem is, when someone plows a new piece of prairie or lays drain tile in a field in eastern South Dakota, what they’re really doing is, in return for a short term profit, creating some long term deterioration in our lakes and rivers.
When the grass disappears, so do the ground nesting birds, including the pheasant, which generates $100 million dollars annually, and does more to keep small South Dakota towns alive than all the farms that remain on the land.
But some might wonder how plowing prairie hurts water quality.
Golly, that’s elemental. Water flows downhill, and it ends up in a road ditch, and when there’s enough of it flowing, into a river or lake. No one has ever defied the law of gravity with any success. That water also carries silt and nitrates that foul our water, dirty it, shorten the useful life of our lakes, and along the way, hurt our fishing and even our drinking water, as any thinking Iowan can tell you.
Plow a piece of prairie and you eliminate nesting space for an incredible variety of birds, beneficial grasses for beneficial insects, and forage for domestic livestock and wildlife. When it rains or the snow melts, the water runs off the newly plowed fields at a rate four times what it did before, and now accomplishes the same thing the wetland drainer does.
You might say that when you plow a prairie, you kill something else.
Dead meadowlarks sing no springtime songs.
Of course, some will read this and the inevitable letters to the editor will follow. Dean’s at it again. He hates farming. He hates ranching. He wants to take our property rights away. He’s a damned environmental extremist, and that means he's a socialist.
Which is a lot like calling the prairie plower or wetland drainer, anti-wildlife. He isn’t, of course, because to him, it’s just another slough or, he’s turning that grass into productive farmland. He isn't doing it because he hates wildlife. What is true is that too often, he knows not what he does.
Aldo Leopold once believed that fewer predators meant more deer. He was a young man at the time and guilty of what he called “trigger itch.” So he saw a wolf and shot it, and described the fierce green fire dying in her eyes. He learned then that the mountain lives in fear of too many deer. He used that anecdote to write a chapter called “Thinking Like a Mountain.
Perhaps it’s time we Dakotans begin thinking that way. Most times, we don't, a major reason why slick politicians are so good at getting reelected. Hell, all they do is tell us what we want to hear.
Gas costs too much? Let's drill in the National Wildlife Refuges.
Filling up the truck isn’t as cheap as it once was.
Or the one that really sells in the eastern Dakotas.
Fill'er up with ethanol.
I’m not opposed to ethanol but I do wonder when research suggests it costs almost as much energy to produce it as it delivers. And if it weren’t for the tax breaks offered ethanol in South Dakota, it wouldn’t sell so well. If you doubt that, go fill up with ethanol in North Dakota where those tax breaks are non-existent.
But the push for more corn for more ethanol, along with a Farm Bill gone mad has driven producers to plow every bit of grass possible, and that’s typical of short term decision-making that has long term negative ramifications.
The same corn producer is told that he must become more efficient which leads him to install drain tile, and that gives us a net loss of more grassland and another wetland.
So does wondering about that, or questioning it, make me anti-farming? Or does it make me pro-reality?
So where are our Dakota conservation leaders?
There are a few conservation groups in the Dakotas that do some damn good things.
The Wildlife Federation in both states is solid, though you can usually find something to disagree with them on, such as a too-often-parochial view on anglers and hunters coming from Minnesota. But on most issues, they are rock solid.
The Izaak Walton League doesn’t exist in North Dakota, but it’s a good South Dakota group that’s in the right place on nearly all issues most of the time. Mike Williams, a longtime Ike from Watertown, SD, is one of the brightest conservation thinkers I know. Chuck Clayton from Huron, the current National Ikes President, is stubborn, focused, and effective.
The Sierra Club chapters in Sioux Falls and Rapid City are outstanding, though they too often get a bum rap from sportsmen who ought to know better.
I don’t know many conservationists or environmentalists who think as well or as effectively as Heather Morijah, a Sierra Club staffer in Rapid City.
But people like Heather often bear the brunt of the actions of some local Sierra Club chapter doing stupid things somewhere else, because whether you like it or not, the Sierra Club operates in a true democratic fashion, and democracy has no requirements for intelligence. If it did, many lawmakers would have to go home. Even so, Heather has won the trust of enough sportsmen to sit on the board of the SD Wildlife Federation.
For some reason, the Sierra Club undeservedly wears the “extremist” label when they oppose the public land grazing industry or some timber cutting or mining practices. I'd hardly call that radical.
Hell, you want to hear what radical is all about, listen to former National Rifle Association President Kayne Robinson speak some time. His antagonistic approach toward the Sierra Club has divided the national Outdoor Writers Association of America with nearly 200 members resigning. Course that’s the negative way of saying it because the truth is, 80 percent of the members stayed with the organization. Which means only about 20 percent bought Kayne Robinson's falsehoods.
That says at least something for outdoor writers.
Anyway, the point of this whole thing is that it would be good for the Dakotas if one individual would step forward. One with the leadership skills of a Dave Zentner, someone who could rally a few thousand Dakotans to stand on the steps at the state capitols in Pierre and Bismarck and call for more grass, taking care of wetlands, and clean water.
Or will we emulate our Minnesota friends and wait until we’ve lost most of what we have?
