TEL: (218) 740-3175 FAX: (218) 740-3179 EMAIL info@MnResponsibleRec.org WEBSITE: www.MnResponsibleRec.org

June 29, 2004 Via Facsimile and U.S. Mail

Greg Downing

Environmental Quality Board

300 Centennial Bldg

658 Cedar Street

St. Paul, MN 55155

Greg Downing:

Thank you for taking time to talk with me on the phone this afternoon and for encouraging us to reiterate our concerns in writing regarding assignment of the RGU on our June 17, 2004 petition.

Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation (MRR) objects to assignment of RGU responsibility to the Eveleth-Gilbert ATV/Off-highway Motorcycle Joint Powers Board or to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). We request that the role of RGU be reassigned to St. Louis County.

• The DNR has inappropriately allowed the joint powers board to act as both "local government sponsor"/fiscal agent and recipient for approved state trail funds. This presents a conflict of interest discussed in our attached letter to the Minnesota State Auditor’s office.
• The joint powers board was created solely for development of the petitioned project (see attached Joint Powers Resolution) and has no higher authority beyond development of the project. The board will grant no permits for the project but is in fact wholly dependent on other entities, mainly St. Louis County, to provide such permits.
• As "project proposer" the joint powers board lacks "separation" or objectivity regarding the proposed project as evidenced by its actions to date. The board has proposed, flagged, and even begun cutting vegetation for an ATV/dirt-bike motorcycle track without written easements from key landowners. The proposed dirt-bike track is flagged 20’ from the paved edge of the Mesabi Trail bikeway, for which a $7 million investment has been made and 100,000 non-motorized users are expected in the next year. This demonstrates a disregard for potential significant environmental effects on this nearby and valued resource.
• The joint powers board lacks the necessary resources for conducting adequate formal environmental review. While the board has requested and received state trail funds to develop the proposed project it appears to lack the matching funds required for completion of the project, thus a $35,000 request for matching funds to St. Louis County. If the joint powers board lacks funds to complete the project it likely lacks funds to complete environmental review on the project.

In our phone conversation today you reported that Tom Balcom with the DNR contacted you to request that the DNR be assigned the role of RGU. MRR strongly objects to such a reassignment based on the following reasons:

• What limited authority the DNR has over the proposed project has already been exercised. As stated in the attached grant agreement "The State’s sole responsibility under this Agreement is to provide funds to the local unit of government." According to Scott Kelling, DNR Trails and Waterways Division, Tower (218-753-6256) funds for the project were already approved as of March 22, 2004. As you noted in our phone conversation, entities that have already made final government decisions regarding a proposed project cannot be assigned the role of RGU.
• In approving funds for the proposed project the DNR has demonstrated a disregard for potential significant environmental effects on "nearby resources". That the DNR has chosen to put this resource at risk is a violation of the agency’s mandate to protect the state’s resources "unimpaired" for future generations and casts immediate doubt on the DNR’s ability to review potential significant environmental effects on the proposed project.
• In approving funds for the proposed project the DNR has encouraged the very obvious conflicts of interest which a 2003 legislative audit of the DNR’s motorized trail program recommended it avoid. That the DNR has chosen not to implement a single one of the audit’s recommendations again casts immediate doubt on its ability to be an objective reviewer of this or any other motorized recreation project.
• DNR has a long and consistent history of seeking to escape environmental review on off-highway vehicle (OHV) projects.
• DNR successfully appealed a January, 2002 decision by Cass County District Court which would have required the agency to complete Environmental Assessment Worksheets on projects in its Region 3 Off-Highway Vehicle Plan for north central Minnesota. DNR fought against other attempts by MRR to require the agency to complete such review on OHV plans in other regions.
• Regarding the Moosewalk/Mooserun ATV Trail in the Finland State Forest, DNR staff completed last minute environmental review reportedly "under the gun from the Commissioner [x-Commissioner Garber]" and did so from a distance relying on information from the Silver Trail Riders Snowmobile Club who had recently caused substantial damage to area wetlands bulldozing trails without permits. During formal environmental review and a period in which all final governmental actions were prohibited, DNR funds were released and construction took place on an ATV trail connecting with what was at the time a proposed Moosewalk/Mooserun ATV Trail. DNR released its EAW on this project during winter holiday, not only making it impossible for citizens to inspect the site under snow and ice but initiating the 30-day comment period when Minnesotans where unavailable to comment. DNR refused to post its EAW on the agency website for comment even though the agency had recently posted much larger Off-highway Vehicle Plan documents, including maps and tables seeking public approval for its OHV trail making plans.
• Despite a number one recommendation by the 2003 Office of the Legislative Auditor’s Program Evaluation Report: State Funded Trails for Motorized Recreation that "Environmental Assessments be prepared for many types of OHV projects", DNR Deputy Commissioner Mark Holstein lobbied the legislature to successfully "suspend" public and environmental review on DNR OHV projects. Thus, the DNR has succeeded in deleting the public’s one and only legal right to petition for environmental review and challenge DNR OHV projects in court.

• County is only governmental unit for which remaining approval is required. $35,000 in county funding is required by the project proposer and has not been approved. Easement across a 40-acre parcel of county-managed tax-forfeit land and easement from the county to cross portions of the existing Mesabi Trail are also required but have not been granted.
• St. Louis County is the single local unit of government that encompasses both the communities of Eveleth and Gilbert involved in the proposed project.
• County appears to have resources to complete environmental review, as it already considering making a $35,000 grant for the project.
• County will bear burden of mitigating cumulative impacts from proposed project. St. Louis County’s Sheriff’s department, already engaged in extraordinary enforcement efforts to patrol currently designated routes and scramble areas connecting with the proposed project, would bear the bulk of the burden in policing the proposed route. $18,000 in additional St. Louis County Sheriff staff time to police the existing scramble area in Gilbert and $8000 to patrol the Mesabi Trail in department have not been successful in protecting the Mesabi Trail or adjacent wetlands or private property.
• St. Louis and Lake Counties Regional Railroad Authority, developer and manager of the $7 million Mesabi Trail which is 20’ away from the proposed dirt-bike motorcycle/ATV track is governed by a board which includes representation from the St. Louis County Board of Commissioners. The greatest concerns of petitioners, in direct response to EAW items regarding "odors, noise, and dust" and "visual impacts" and "nearby resources…in proximity to the site…designated recreation areas and trails" are impacts on the Mesabi Trail bikeway.

Regarding the proposed project for which we have petitioned for completion of an EAW Minnesotans for Responsible Recreation objects to assignment of the role of RGU to the Eveleth-Gilbert ATV/Off-highway Motorcycle Trail Joint Powers Board or the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. We request the St. Louis County be reassigned the role of RGU on the petitioned project.

Given that decisions regarding MRR’s petition for EAW on the proposed project are in limbo, that well defined conflicts of interest could negatively effect that decision from our point-of-view, and that the interests of the residents of St. Louis County and the 55,000 users of the Mesabi Trail are immediately at stake, we request a timely determination by the EQB as to reassignment of the RGU on the proposed project.

Please call on me at 218-590-6188 if there is any other information I might provide.

Thank you,

Jeff Brown,

Executive Director

Attachments

• June 29, 2004 Letter to Minnesota State Auditor

• Eveleth-Gilbert ATV/OHM Trail Joint Powers Board Resolution
• Grant agreement approved by DNR March 22, 2004

c. Kathy Docter, Special Investigator, Minnesota State Auditor