State, local leaders back Walz's proposed fund to help cities fight flooding caused by climate change

Legislators, city leaders and Minnesota's largest construction union on Wednesday backed Gov. Tim Walz's proposal for a $21 million grant program to help cities ease flood damage caused by climate change.

At a news conference in St. Louis Park, Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Katrina Kessler said increasingly severe rain events are overwhelming aged and undersized storm water systems. Walz's proposed program would help fund system upgrades to protect communities from extreme weather.

More than 155,000 homes and apartment buildings, 13,000 commercial buildings and 29,000 miles of roads in Minnesota reportedly are at risk of severe flooding, according to a study by the nonprofit First Street Foundation.

Along with the state's historic $7.7 billion project budget surplus, Minnesota expects about $6.8 billion from the federal government's infrastructure program. Walz proposes a $2.7 billion infrastructure package, with $940 million dedicated to projects designed to help communities adapt to changes brought by global warming, including the $21 million for flood mitigation grants.

"I frankly don't think it's enough, but I applaud Governor Walz for at least taking a small bite of a big problem," said Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart, DFL-Minnetonka.

Jason George, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49, said the funding would be an investment not only in infrastructure but in local contractors, workers and their families.

"There is no better use of the budget surplus that we are blessed to have here in Minnesota than reinvesting in ourselves," George said. "I look at it like a family's budget. When your family's doing well, and you have money in your savings account, that's the time you fix your house. … And that's what we do here in Minnesota."

"We're hopeful that this moment and this investment helps leverage some of the bipartisan infrastructure legislation money that will be coming to the state to actually get more done in this really critical area," Kessler said.

Sen. Steve Cwodzinski, DFL-Eden Prairie, said that during his 30 years of teaching American government and history at Eden Prairie High School, he displayed a 1989 Time magazine cover that named the "Endangered Earth" as the Planet of the Year. He said the grant program was taking "steps in the right direction."

"The reason why we're all on this planet is to solve as much of the puzzle as possible before we perish," Cwodzinski said. "And if we can solve one piece of the puzzle with that $21 million so that 'Armagetting out of here' never happens, then I'm all for it."

St. Louis Park Mayor Jake Spano said a statewide approach to climate change will help communities build resiliency. His city, which has implemented a number of sustainability policies and recently formed a coalition of 16 cities to declare climate emergencies, saw historic flooding along Minnehaha Creek in 2014.