Walter Mondale on the St. Croix: 'More challenges, tougher challenges' ahead

Walter Mondale can electrify a room, especially one filled with people who care as much as he does about the river he loves most.

"I don't come as an expert. I come as someone who loves this place," Mondale told about 300 people who greeted him with a standing ovation at a recent appearance at a Stillwater hotel to discuss the St. Croix River's future. "It's a blessed gift to all of us. I hope we do everything we can to make certain that we handle this river with wisdom, with justice, with courage."

To conservationists, Mondale is revered for what they see as an achievement even greater than his political ascent to Jimmy Carter's vice presidency — ensuring federal protection of the St. Croix and its Wisconsin tributary, the Namekagon River. Then a U.S. senator, Mondale and fellow Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin led a campaign to shelter the rivers under the auspices of the U.S. Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, where they've remained protected since 1972.

But at a public event sponsored by several conservation groups and only a softball's throw from the St. Croix, Mondale talked less of the past than of a growing human pressure that threatens the St. Croix's shorelines.

"I think we ought to plan on more challenges, tougher challenges, than the ones we've been through," he said. "People starve to be near the river, the water, especially if it's a beautiful river and a fresh one. There's something in our whole being that pressures us to stick close to it.

"What you have here is really magnificent," he added. "The pressure will be on in ways I can't contemplate as the population builds to move in closer, and to get a little better view of the river."

Some of the pressure Mondale spoke of comes in the form of landowner proposals to alter rules and laws to allow bigger houses with more prominent views of the river. Decisions to grant those "variances," as they're known, now rest exclusively with local governments because of a 2010 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that removed the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) from the oversight role it had held since 1972.

Because much of the private land along the lower St. Croix is already developed, most variance requests involve razing older houses and cabins and replacing them with larger ones.

State Sen. Katie Sieben, DFL-Newport, one of five other speakers at the event, described the conflict this way:

"There's an increasing trend that favors development along the river," she said. "Debate then, and now, centers around tension between some landowners and developers, and environmentalists. The landowners and developers desire to remodel existing structures or build new housing along the river, which is often at odds with those most interested in preserving the river for all Minnesotans into the future."

Sieben said bills in the Legislature to grant the DNR more authority in variance decisions have run into stiff opposition — even among members of her party.

Another speaker, the DNR's Keith Parker, said the state agency has "political will" to protect the Lower St. Croix River — the area south of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway — but its ability to regulate variances "has been eroded significantly."

Parker said that the DNR wants its regulatory oversight of variances restored, but that the agency would "operate with a collaborative spirit" with local governments and property owners to protect the river.

Chris Stein, superintendent of the vast national park that ranges from the 1880s Boomsite location just north of Stillwater to the farthest reaches of the St. Croix and Namekagon rivers, said other threats to the protected rivers include polluted tributaries, man-made structures such as gravel pits and cell towers, and Asian carp.

Should the carp get past locks in the Mississippi River and swim into the St. Croix, he said, they would devastate the river habitat and destroy a multimillion-dollar recreation industry.

Although the public speaking event centered on Mondale's predictions for the future, it also included personal stories from Sieben and State Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, both of whom were romanced on the river by the men they married.

Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski, who lived at the time in Ohio, told of a cross-country trip to California with his mother after his parents' divorce when he was a boy. The trip ended well short of California after his mother caught a view of the picturesque rivertown of Stillwater. Now, he said, he can't imagine life without the river.

Little was said about the new St. Croix River bridge, now rising above the water at Oak Park Heights and destined for a late 2016 opening. Former WCCO-TV news anchor Don Shelby, the master of ceremonies, told the audience that "we're not here to complain about the bridge or promote the bridge."

But Mondale, in his closing comments, implored conservationists to figure out a strategy to protect the river after the bridge opens.

"I was opposed to it, but it's there and we'll live with it," he said. "But I think there are a lot of questions about how we deal with it, how best we can protect the quality of our river despite that bridge."

Congress, in 2012, approved the bridge, and its construction received support from Gov. Mark Dayton and most of Minnesota's congressional delegation. Mondale, at the time, said the exemption allowing the bridge to be built would encourage development proposals on the other 202 rivers protected under federal law.

Mondale said conservationists must work hard in coming decades because threats to the river will mount.

"The reason for the scenic river system was to reverse that by protecting the rivers that were still protected, to get there in time before they were exploited to look like the other rivers. There were signs along the St. Croix of a lot of things that were afoot. I think we passed it just in time."