amount of NRP funding for planning and restoration helped define and enhance
why this regional park is a special place with some very unique and important
places and attributes. Here are my observations and some questions about the
Park Board planning process. Strategically, it seems that a major piece of this
Master Plan should be a prelude for federal funding for an important piece of a
national park and that we work closely with Mississippi National River and
Recreational Area Superintendent Anfinson on how the National Park Service or
Army Corps of Engineers could provide longterm funding in a much larger
appropriation bill. The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP), which is
funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund and administered by the
National Park Service might also be a funding source. A master plan without
this is incomplete.
I attended the last CAC meeting on Dec. 10th for the Mississippi River Gorge
Regional Park and have followed the process and public meetings. I used my one
minute of public comment to say that I donât think the main problem with the
river gorge is that it needs more stuff. The most important plan for the future
of the gorge is the need for vegetative management to maintain the biological
integrity of this special place and how to provide access that treads lightly
on habitat and that is not just a park for human activity. Master plans are
about how money will be spent. If the plan invests money in everything but the
ecology of this special place, we have failed to see the forest for the trees.
I said I was trying to find the right metaphor- imagine that there is a
terrarium in a living room with all kinds of plants and animals that will die
if we donât take care of them. But we are spending our time and our money
talking about what kind of furniture and lighting we need to look at this
special thing.
It was a long meeting (the last in the CAC process) with a major focus and time
spent on whether mountain bike trails should be part of the plan.
In response to my concerns, park staff stated that this is only one part of the
process and that there is a separate planning process that deals with
vegetation and habitat that will address these issues and provide funding -and
that this CAC was based on capital expenditures (and habitat and vegetation are
not capital infrastructure)
Someone asked why invasive species management was not more prominent in the
final edits of the last CAC. The answer was that it didnât need to be because
it was in the guiding principles and many other places in the plan.
What gets funded matters. If we look at the total of investment in this
regional park and if the first priority is not the ecology of this special
place, I think the process is a failure.
I realize that there has been some work on plans for ânaturalâ areas and
restoration, but I donât see any actual connection to this Master Plan-
planning process.
So I have no idea if a newly discovered plant that was thought to be extinct in
Minnesota is in the middle of a trail or if there is any Master planning that
identifies endangered or protected species outside of the oak savanna area.
As a process question: I was told not to worry about my concerns about ecology
and restoration, because unlike the public CAC process for capital spending,
there is some invisible process that is not completed that will be the other
part of the master plan added later ( but have no impact on the design?)
I appreciate all the work by the CAC members. I have been so impressed by all
the people who are willing to spend the time to form the recommendations that
guide the final board decision. But I do not know why there is a two part
planning process with one part very visible with many community meetings and
there is another equally important planning process that no-one has seen?
I believe that maintenance should significantly drive planning and not be a
separate task added later.
It is unfortunate that the Park Board Ecological System Plan wasnât completed
first. It could have been an important piece of how management should inform a
Master Plan that should be more integrated with vegetative management..
There were conversations about naming things but Horace Cleveland remains a
personna non grata in the River Gorge. Horace Clevelandâs vision and
persistence was why we now have not just parks, but a system of parks. The
river gorge was preserved as parkland because of his work. There is nothing in
our park system that includes his name despite the previous park boardâs
request to name all or part of the river gorge for Cleveland and his vision for
preserving natural areas for future generations.
I never want to oversimplify complex issues or diminish the wonderful prairie
remnant next to Giggly Hills, but here is my four word summary of what the
Mississippi River Gorge Regional Park Master Plan should include:
Fund the Forest First
Thanks,
Scott Vreeland