Sand storm

I visited the St. Croix Watershed Research Station last week — a Science Museum facility near Marine on St. Croix which hosts 20 or so scientists studying how land use affects rivers around the world.

At the entrance to the main building is a display of the couple dozen kinds of mussels that were once found in the Minnesota River. The Minnesota used to be home to more species of mussels than the St. Croix, although it's now the St. Croix that is known for mussels, including some of which are rare and endangered.

The Minnesota River flows through primarily agricultural land, and it is nearly devoid of mussels now, largely due to excessive sediment. Some of the species of mussels displayed on the research station's wall are extinct, others have disappeared from the river but can still be found in other rivers.

The health of the St. Croix's mussels has been on many people's minds recently because of the incident in April when a containment berm burst at a sand mine along the river near Grantsburg, WI. The mine spilled fine sediment into the river for five days before a hiker noticed it and alerted authorities. (The ultra-fine sand mined at the site is used in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking.")

The impacts to the river from the sand mine spill are still being analyzed, but this is not just a matter of a little more sand in the river. The Wisconsin DNR has acknowledged that the type of ultra-fine sand which got into the river is not "native" to the river.

Photo of contaminated stream taken by hiker who reported the issue.

Suspended in the creek which flowed from the mine to the river, the water gave the appearance of "coffee with a lot of cream."

The map below is pulled from the Minnesota DNR's rare species inventory database, showing where rare mussels and fish have been found in the vicinity of the Grantsburg sand mine incident. The stream carrying the sediments from the mine enters the river just below the Highway 70 bridge.

The blue dots on the map represent vertebrae species, such as fish, which could include gilt darter, southern brook lamprey, and lake sturgeon.

The orange dots are survey sites where mussels have been found — each dot represents an inventory site where up to seven different species have been found. Mussels include:

Note: All species of mussels are protected by law, and it is illegal to take live mussels or even dead mussel shells from the St. Croix River.

Endangered Higgins Eye Mussels (USFWS photo)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the 38 mussel species that live in the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers put it "among the world's greatest mussel watersheds."

Tiller Corporation, the Maple Grove, MN-based mining company behind the Grantsburg mine, is currently trying to get approval for another mine next to the river — this one a gravel mine downstream in Scandia.

Local residents have been fighting that mine for a couple years, both because of its location, proximity to the river, and the heavy truck traffic that will transport material from the mine and through the small community.

Photo taken on property adjacent to Tiller/Zavoral proposed mine site

The Scandia mine proposal is nearing the end of its environmental review. When the draft Environmental Impact Statement was released in April, local writer Laurie Allman published an in-depth article about it on St. Croix 360. She listed many concerns about the proposal and the adequacy of the environmental review, and then poetically described what is at stake:

The Grantsburg mine — currently the only of its kind along the St. Croix — had been operating since just last July. In less than a year, the mining company built a containment berm out of the wrong material, didn't monitor it, and didn't notify the DNR when it failed.

A settling pond at the Grantsburg mine, photo taken before the containment berm failed.

By all accounts, the companies involved have been very cooperative so far. The DNR just sent the case to the Wisconsin attorney general for prosecution. By my calculation, they could face total fines of up to $50,000. Perhaps a big enough fine will be incentive enough to mend their ways, but the Wisconsin DNR's recent history suggests they won't be punished severely.

Governor Scott Walker has made loosening environmental protections one of his top priorities. Last month, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that inspections by the DNR had declined significantly from previous years. In one notorious incident, one of Walker's appointees gave a slap on the wrist to a company which was illegally treating farm fields with human waste at three times the legal limit — bad enough to contaminate nearby drinking water wells.

The Grantsburg mine? It hadn't been inspected since last fall.

I have canoed the stretch of the St. Croix around Grantsburg several times. We've gotten out and swam in the little rapids below the Highway 70 bridge where the contaminated stream flowed into the river.

The river is a paradise for me and a lot of people. I can't wait to share it with my new daughter. The silence, the sandbars, the fish. And the mussels. I can already see the hot summer day several years from now when she will canoe, swim and fish it with us.

In April, a hiker saw a muddy stream flowing into the St. Croix River and said, "That isn't right." The only question which remains is if his government will agree.