Hugo-Bashing Is Unsporting
Margaret Waller died two weeks ago. To many, she was the 81-year-old mother of eight children, and owner of the Waller farm, which lies directly east of Rice Lake and the Paul Hugo Farms Wildlife Management Area in Hugo. To others, at the Washington County Courthouse for instance, she is the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against the Rice Creek Watershed District - which is an agent of the state of Minnesota - for the alleged illegal taking of her property.
It is a sad thing that Mrs. Waller died before she had a judge's ruling on her claim.
It is also a sad thing that the Pioneer Press continues to run its Hugo-bashing articles, as it did on the front page of its Sunday edition last weekend ("The ducks, and hunters, return to Rice Lake" Oct. 1, 2006).
The article, by Chris Niskanen, could have been written about the great duck-hunting opportunity afforded Twin Cities hunters in Hugo on the occasion of the state's waterfowl opener last weekend.
Instead, it was a thinly-disguised, regurgitated version of what I have come to expect from the Pioneer Press where Rice Lake is concerned: attitude and inaccuracies. The article insinuated that the city of Hugo and its property owners mindlessly continue to build homes along state recreation areas and, in so doing, thoughtlessly undermine the rights of Twin Cities hunters.
First, for the record, most of Hugo's 10,000-plus residents appreciate the great outdoors and the efforts made to set aside recreational spaces in their city. Many moved out to Hugo for the open space and quality of life the city affords. Many have recently voiced their opinions in public hearings on the preservation of rural areas in the city. Hugo continues to work to develop many parks, both active and passive, for its residents.
The suggestion that "urban conservationists" have the corner on environmentalism is a slap in the face to people who have come to Hugo to raise families along its lakes, waterways and wetlands.
Some Hugo residents never had to move here at all. They were born here, and so were their parents, and so were their grandparents and great-grandparents. Hugo has four farms recognized through the Minnesota Farm Bureau's Century Family Farm Program.
Margaret Waller had the foresight to place her farm into a long-term agricultural preservation program. She was a conservationist.
Another farm immediately adjacent to Rice Lake received a grant from the Rice Creek Watershed District and one from the Washington [County Soil and Water] Conservation District for construction of a nutrient management system - cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly agricultural technology.
To insinuate that Hugo residents are environmentally-blind suburbanites is just plain wrong.
Let's get to the facts.
The article states: "Rice Lake was drained in early 2005 after the local watershed district allowed the city of Hugo to clean out a nearby ditch." Wrong on two counts. First count: The ditch maintenance was designed, contracted out and monitored by the Rice Creek Watershed District. The RCWD bore the legal responsibility to clean the ditch and it secured all necessary permits from the DNR and others. The city of Hugo did not clean out the ditch. Second count: The ditch - which by, the way, is a Judicial Ditch, giving it certain legal protections - isn't just "nearby." According to DNR records, it actually runs through Rice Lake: the lake is "subject to the ditch." That means the ditch, created by court order in 1906, has historically controlled the level of the lake.
The article goes on to say that Rice Lake "is one of many public hunting areas threatened by development .as new houses sprout like McMansion mushrooms along Rice Lake's east shore." The Pioneer Press article leaves the reader with the impression that owners of new homes on the east side of Rice Lake want the lake lowered. First, there are no new housing developments on the east side. The folks there have been paying their taxes, some of which are explicitly designated for ditch maintenance, for longer than the Department of Natural Resources has existed. And, I haven't heard a peep out of the folks who have bought new homes on the west side.
Nope, the landowners who have been rattling the legal cages live along Rice Lake's southern, eastern and northern shores. And they've been there far longer than the DNR's Paul Hugo Farms Wildlife Management Area has been around - the DNR bought the property in the early 1970s as a relative newcomer to Hugo. The lake was a lot smaller then.
If Rice Lake is threatened by development, it's because the state passed up an opportunity to enlarge its property before development came. In 2000, Retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice John E. Simonett, a highly-respected mediator, recommended that the state proceed immediately with securing land around Rice Lake to head off future problems. In 2001, the DNR agreed to do it.
That didn't happen.
Meanwhile, the owners of the property west of Rice Lake sold their land to a developer, who did what developers do, build homes - not "McMansion mushrooms" - for middle-class families.
DNR area wildlife manager Bob Welsh is quoted as saying, "This is just one example of the assault on our wildlife management areas by development." Let's be perfectly honest about this. There is no "assault." There is, however, a matter of property ownership.
It is true that the state's waterfowl hunters, some of whom live in Hugo, have a stake in preserving such places as Rice Lake. Hunters' "license fees and a federal excise tax on sporting goods" helped buy the public property around Rice Lake. Do surrounding property owners have any smaller stake in preserving their property rights? I think not.
There are currently three lawsuits pending by local landowners who argue their property rights have been taken without due process. They would simply like to be paid for the acres of farmland they can no longer use because of government-sanctioned flooding of their land.
The Pioneer Press appears convinced that the city of Hugo will continue allowing housing to encroach on recreation areas. Perhaps the newspaper should be writing editorials suggesting that the state purchase the land it needs, instead of hiding behind an environmental flag and planting it in the middle of Hugo.
Blaming families for buying houses near the Twin Cities' hunting playground is simply mean.
I suggest the Pioneer Press quit its Hugo-bashing and do its homework.