A River of Misinformation

By Karl Bremer

When I exposed the Coalition for the St. Croix River Crossing’s big lie about the Obama Administration and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood supporting their Boondoggle Bridge, the Coalition’s director defended its claim in a blog posting of his own.

“Despite what some people want us to believe, recent comments by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood indicate that the Obama Administration really does want the St. Croix River Crossing to be built,” huffed Coalition Executive Director Michael Wilhelmi. “Honestly.”

“The only way one could think that his comments in support of the St. Croix River Crossing actually mean that the Obama Administration doesn’t support the St. Croix River Crossing,” Wilhelmi charged, “is when you ignore basic facts, as was recently done by a local blogger.” He linked to my column.

Today, the Star-Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis confirmed what I had reported last week: the Obama Administration has not thrown its support behind the Boondoggle bridge, and neither has Secretary LaHood, as the Coalition has falsely claimed. Mary McComber, the Coalition member who told Ripple in Stillwater that neither the Administration nor LaHood had expressed a preference for any particular bridge, also reaffirmed to the Star-Tribune what she told me.

According to the Star-Tribune: 

McComber, who was at the White House last month for a meeting with local officials, said Tuesday that [White House Chief of Staff] Daley did not specifically back the project and that the coalition's statement went too far. "Something has gotten mixed up somewhere along the lines," she said.

When one of Wilhelmi’s own Coalition members says they aren’t being truthful, that should tell you something.

The Star-Tribune went on to note:

Even though LaHood has said he supports building a bridge, he declined to back the specific legislation in Congress, saying that's something he never does.

The White House declined to comment for the Star-Tribune’s story.

Wilhelmi boasted in his missive that “We make sure that the details and facts that we use in support of the project are verified by a state or federal regulatory agency. Bridge opponents cannot say the same.”

Maybe when Wilhelmi sees his deceptions exposed by a big-city newspaper instead of just a “local blogger,” he’ll think better of continuing to make false claims about support for his Boondoggle Bridge that doesn’t exist. Then again, maybe he’ll just blithely accuse the Star-Tribune of “ignoring the facts” too, and continue to spew his river of misinformation.

Boondoggle Bridge Coalition muddies the St. Croix waters with more misinformation

By Karl Bremer

Michael Wilhelmi

Michael Wilhelmi, executive director of the Boondoggle Bridge-supporting Coalition for the St. Croix River Crossing, took umbrage at my recent post regarding the misinformation campaign of his Coalition. In a rather huffy response on the Coalition’s blog, Wilhelmi responded with more misinformation, and accused me of ignoring the facts. Let’s have a look.

Curiously, Wilhelmi begins by disclaiming ownership of the $700 million Boondoggle Bridge.

“First, the St. Croix River Crossing proposal is not ‘the coalition’s’ bridge,” Wilhelmi insists. That’s funny, because they’re the only ones lobbying for it, so if it’s not “their” project, whose is it?

Wilhelmi continues down this twisted path: “The Federal Highway Administration, which is led by Secretary LaHood, participated in the bridge design process and approved the bridge project with a Record of Decision. The administration even defended the project in a three-year court battle with the Sierra Club.” Therefore, Wilhelmi reasons, “the U.S. Department of Transportation supports this project.”

There are a few things wrong with that assumption.

First, the FHWA issued its Record of Decision on the bridge in 1995 during the Clinton Administration two presidents ago. The National Park Service (NPS) subsequently ruled against the bridge that administration’s FHWA signed off on, and the courts upheld the NPS’s decision.

It was the FHWA under the Bush Administration that issued a second Record of Decision in 2006 and defended the project in the Sierra Club litigation. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the current FHWA—which is led by FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez and not Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, as Wilhelmi states—supports the Coalition’s bridge.

Remember, it was under the Bush Administration in 2005 that the NPS gave the project a green light. That decision was reversed by the Obama Administration’s NPS after the courts sided with the Sierra Club in 2010 and ordered the NPS to reconsider its earlier approval.

Nor does it mean that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood necessarily supports the Coalition’s version of the bridge, as Wilhelmi claims. Even Coalition member Mary McComber admitted to Ripple in Stillwater that LaHood’s recent comments didn’t indicate support for any specific version of a bridge—only that it be done “within the law.” If Wilhelmi has any solid evidence of LaHood’s support for the Coalition’s bridge—a letter, perhaps?—he needs to offer more proof than his own wishful thinking and hearsay.

Wilhelmi continues with his fantasies.

“There is no way to build any new bridge without an exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The National Park Service has concluded that the Act does not allow them to grant a permit for any new construction in any Wild and Scenic River that would have a ‘direct, adverse’ impact on the river’s ‘scenic values’,” he states.

That’s not what the NPS concluded at all. It concluded that “the St. Croix River Crossing Project (emphasis added) would have a direct and adverse impact to the river and that those impacts cannot be mitigated.” It said nothing about bridge designs other than the Coalition’s monstrosity it had before it.

Wilhelmi’s contention that “there is no way to build any bridge without an exemption to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act” is equally phony. In fact, two bridges have been built across the St. Croix River since it fell under protection of the Act and neither required an exemption by Congress: the replacement bridge at Osceola, WI, in 1980, WI, and the lift bridge at Prescott, WI, in 1990. It’s just that there’s no way to build his bridge without an exemption to the Act.

Wilhelmi claims that "the law specifically allows Congress to provide an exemption for worthy projects. Therefore, exempting the St. Croix River Crossing from the provision in the WSRA is 'within the law.'  However, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act has never granted an exemption for a bridge. The Coalition once promoted that myth as well until Ripple in Stillwater debunked it too. The only two exemptions that have been granted under the Act in its entire history have been for fisheries habitat improvement projects.

Wilhelmi concludes by playing the victim card and accuses opponents of the Coalition’s Boondoggle Bridge of trying to “attack and smear” them. Maybe he’s just upset that he’s got a gaping $80,000 hole in his Coalition’s budget thanks to the diligence of those opponents.

Following after the Coalition for the St. Croix Crossing’s press releases is getting to be a bit like the guy with the broom and shovel trailing the elephants in the circus parade. It’s a distasteful job, but someone’s got to clean up the mess they leave behind.

Obama Administration supports Boondoggle Bridge? Not really

This is the $700 million monstrosity proposed to be built just 6 miles north of the eight-lane I-94 bridge at Lakeland-Hudson.

By Karl Bremer

The way the lobbyists for the bridge across the St. Croix River are portraying recent comments from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, you’d think President Obama has given his personal stamp of approval to the $700 million Bachmann-Klobuchar-Dayton Boondoggle Bridge.

Not so fast.

“St. Croix River Crossing is a priority for President Obama,” trumpets the headline on a press release from the Coalition for the St. Croix Bridge Crossing, a lobbying group for the Boondoggle Bridge. The press release continues:

“Oak Park Heights City Councilmember Mary McComber spoke with LaHood and White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley about the St. Croix River Crossing during a briefing for city and municipal leaders held at the White House on Thursday, October 27. McComber was invited in her capacity as incoming chair of the Regional Development Committee of the National League of Cities.

“In response to a question from McComber during his presentation to the group, LaHood said that President Obama and his administration are well aware of the St. Croix River Crossing and are committed to getting it done. 

“Secretary LaHood said, ‘I know about your project. I know what the problem is. I am committed to getting it done. The President is committed to getting it done,’” McComber stated.”

So is that project that he’s committed to getting done the Coalition’s $700 million, 65-mph, four-lane freeway version of the bridge? Not necessarily.

Ripple in Stillwater contacted McComber and asked her to clarify her statement—specifically, whether LaHood was referring to the Coalition’s bridge proposal.

“What Ray LaHood said was that the Obama Administration is committed to getting this project solved, but totally legally—and he kept referring back to this—within the law,” McComber said.

LaHood did not say he or Obama supported an exemption from the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act to get the bridge built, and did not express support for any specific bridge proposal, McComber said. There was some discussion about the need to streamline federal approval processes for infrastructure projects when multiple agencies are involved, said McComber, but there was no talk about including an exemption from the Act in a  “streamlining” of the process to get the St. Croix bridge problem resolved.

The Administration’s support was “more just to get it off people’s plate,” McComber noted.

The Obama Administration on November 1 released a list of 14 infrastructure projects that it said “will be expedited through permitting and environmental review processes” in order to move them “as quickly as possible from the drawing board to completion” and create jobs.

There are two bridge projects on that list, but the St. Croix bridge is not one of them.

Once again, the Boondoggle Bridge Coalition appears to be playing loose with the facts, and their strategy worked with some in the media..

Stillwater loses battle over $80,000

TIF donation to bridge lobbyists

Meanwhile, in other Boondoggle Bridge news, the City of Stillwater decided to cut their losses and return to Washington County the $80,000 in tax-increment finance (TIF) funds the state auditor ruled they had illegally donated to the Coalition. The city stands to lose half of those funds because of their misappropriation of them to the bridge lobbying group, which Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki co-chairs.

The state auditor's ruling was in response to complaints filed by myself and Stillwater historian Don Empson.

Stillwater City Attorney Dave Magnuson

refuses to admit he was wrong.

Not content with having his dubious legal opinions repeatedly called into question by the Office of State Auditor in its reports on the matter, Stillwater City Attorney Dave Magnuson accused the auditor’s office of playing politics with its decision. He was joined by City Council member Jim Roush, who the Star-Tribune reported opined in an Oct. 31 council meeting on the matter: “I think their office is out of control and has exceeded their authority.”

Said council member Micky Cook, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “I think we just need to suck it up, unless we want to get slapped around some more.”

Roush told the Star-Tribune’s Kevin Giles after the meeting that the auditor’s ruling was “politically motivated” but Roush declined to elaborate.

State Auditor Rebecca Otto responded that Roush’s comments were “a little bit like blaming the dentist for a cavity in your mouth.”

Bachmann Boondoggle Bridge legislation up for markup in House committee October 5

The markup on Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s bill to do an end-run around the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act in order to build her Boondoggle Bridge across the St. Croix River is Wednesday, October 5, in the House Natural Resources Committee.

Bachmann’s bill, H.R. 850, is one of about 20 bills the committee is expected to deal with at Wednesday’s meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. CST. It will be streaming live online at the committee’s website.

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar has introduced a Senate version of Bachmann's bill, S.1134, that was heard in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks July 28.

You can use this form to send the committee your comments on Bachmann’s legislation. For some ideas on where else in Minnesota we could spend $360 million on bridge repair and replacement rather than this Bridge to Nowhere, you can start with this recent report. To discuss the issue of the precedent this bridge would set for other rivers protected under the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, check out this past article. For background on one no-cost option the city of Stillwater and Minnesota department of transportation have so far ignored--reducing the frequency of the bridge's lift--read this. Jim Erkel of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy gave an excellent presentation at a recent forum on the proposed Stillwater bridge. You can view it here. For details on a more sensible bridge proposal that costs hundreds of millions of dollars less and significantly less in environmental impact, go here.

Please send your comments to members of the House Natural Resources Committee before Wednesday. Tell them this bridge is an environmental and economic disaster that will result in a horrible precedent for the development of other protected rivers nationwide. Tell them there are far more sensible bridge solutions to crossing a protected scenic riverway than with a $680 million, 65-mph freeway bridge just 6 miles from an existing eight-lane freeway bridge. Tell them this is the wrong bridge at the wrong time.

Boondoggle bridge lobby group says it will return illegal $80,000 donation to City of Stillwater

Mayor Ken Harycki vows to find money elsewhere to give to coalition he co-chairs

By Karl Bremer

Michael Wilhelmi

The Coalition for the St. Croix River Crossing will be sending back the City of Stillwater’s illegal $80,000 donation to the lobbying group following a determination by the Office of State Auditor (OSA) that the donation was an “unauthorized expenditure” and that the City “attempt to recover the money donated to the Coalition.”

The OSA’s opinion was in response to complaints filed by myself and Stillwater historian Don Empson with the OSA regarding the legality of the donation.

"This is a distraction," said Coalition Executive Director and registered lobbyist Michael Wilhelmi.

The Stillwater City Council will discuss the OSA’s recommendations and the City’s response to them at a special September 13 meeting. At the advice of City Attorney Dave Magnuson, the City Council held a closed-door meeting on a portion of the discussion involving the Tax Increment Financing source of the funds last week in a meeting that many citizens felt should have been held in the sunshine instead.

The City relied on the legal advice of Magnuson to support its contention that the donation to the bridge lobbying group was proper. The OSA strongly disagreed.

The OSA chastised the City for its sloppy contracting procedures with the Coalition and stated that “If the City decides to contract with the Coalition for services directly related to one of the City’s authorized functions, the City should use proper contract management procedures to protect public funds.”

The OSA also took issue with the contract between the City and The Conach Group, with whom the City has contracted for $1,500 a month for “legislative consulting” services. The OSA noted that “The Conach group’s attorney has admitted that the contract between the City and the consultant is “poorly drafted and significantly misrepresents the scope of what The Conach Group did and is doing for the City.” The OSA recommended that the City amend its contract with The Conach Group “to clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations of The Conach Group and City staff.”

The OSA found during its investigation that the City not only donated $80,000 to the Coalition without authorization, but it also paid—at Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki’s request—the Coalition’s $70 filing fee with the Secretary of State when it was formed. Harycki is co-chair of the Coalition. The OSA stated that the filing fee payment, along with any membership fees paid by the City to the Coalition, also were not authorized expenditures by the City.

The $80,000 the City donated to the Coalition was to come from a Tax Increment Financing fund for the downtown Stillwater district. The OSA stated that it “will handle any issues related to the use of tax increment for the $80,000 donation through the procedures required under the tax increment financing laws.”

Harycki appears determined to secure the $80,000 in city funds for the lobbying group he co-chairs one way or the other. Following the State Auditor’s initial report, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “Harycki said if the city attorney says using TIF money is a problem, he would simply take the $80,000 from another city source.” Then upon the announcement that the Coalition was giving the money back to the City, the Pioneer Press reported, “Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki said Friday that the contribution might come up again - as a payment to the same group, with a contract.”

City Council member Micky Cook, the lone dissenting vote against the original $80,000 donation and a critic of other less-than-transparent actions taken by Harycki and bridge supporters on the council, cautioned that the lack of a contract for the donation was only one of several legal questions raised in the OSA report.

“It's disturbing to me that the city of Stillwater would get an 11-page finding reprimanding us, basically slapping our hands,” Cook said, according to the Stillwater Gazette. “I think there's a lot more to this opinion than that we just need a contract.” Cook asked that Magnuson address all the legal issues raised in the auditor’s report.

The City Council will discuss its response to the auditor’s recommendations at a special meeting on Tuesday, September 13, at 4:30 p.m.

State Auditor: City of Stillwater's $80K donation to St. Croix bridge lobbyists 'unauthorized'

Rep. Michele Bachmann and Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki

Office of the State Auditor agrees with Ripple in Stillwater on legality of lobbying expenditures and recommends the city get its money back.

By Karl Bremer

The Minnesota Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has determined that the $80,000 the City of Stillwater donated to the lobbying group Coalition for the St. Croix River Crossing was an “unauthorized expenditure” and has recommended that the City “attempt to recover the money donated to the Coalition.”

The ruling was in response to a complaint filed by myself and other citizens with the OSA over improper use of taxpayer dollars to promote the proposed freeway bridge across the St. Croix River, aka the “Bachmann Boondoggle.”

The Office of State Auditor (OSA) chastised the City for its sloppy contracting procedures with the Coalition and stated that “If the City decides to contract with the Coalition for services directly related to one of the City’s authorized functions, the City should use proper contract management procedures to protect public funds,” which it did not in this case.

The OSA also took issue with the contract between the City and The Conach Group, with whom the City has contracted for $1,500 a month for “legislative consulting” services. The OSA noted that “The Conach Group’s attorney has admitted that the contract between the City and the consultant is “poorly drafted and significantly misrepresents the scope of what The Conach Group did and is doing for the City.” The OSA recommended that the City amend its contract with The Conach Group “to clearly define the roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations of The Conach Group and City staff.”

The OSA found during its investigation that the City not only donated $80,000 to the Coalition without authorization, but it also paid—at Stillwater Mayor Ken Harycki’s request—the Coalition’s $70 filing fee with the Secretary of State when it was formed. Harycki is co-chair of the Coalition. The OSA stated that the filing fee payment, along with any membership fees paid by the City to the Coalition, also were not authorized expenditures by the City under state law.

The $80,000 the City donated to the Coalition was to come from a Tax Increment Financing fund for the downtown Stillwater district. The OSA stated that it “will handle any issues related to the use of tax increment for the $80,000 donation through the procedures required under the tax increment financing laws.”

When the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last month dismissed my complaint regarding the registration of The Conach Group’s “legislative consultant” as a lobbyist, Harycki sniffed that it was “much ado about nothing.” Perhaps Harycki and his legal advisors will listen to the OSA instead.

More to come on this story as it develops. You can read the entire Office of the State Auditor’s letter to Harycki here.

Campaign cash and army of lobbyists keep 'clean coal' boondoggle afloat for a decade

By Karl Bremer

The Duluth News-Tribune recently published an excellent two-part series by reporter Peter Passi on the Excelsior Energy “clean coal” pipedream that’s been vacuuming up millions in tax dollars from the federal government and State of Minnesota for the better part of the past decade with little to show for it except for a well-paid husband/wife ownership team.

What the newspaper neglected to examine was the role that over $325,000 in state and federal political campaign contributions and lobbying expenses have played in keeping this project on life support for so many years.

The Excelsior Energy boondoggle, according to the News-Tribune’s investigation, has hauled in more than $40 million in taxpayer dollars on the false promise of providing 2,000 MW of electricity. But it has yet to turn one spade of dirt on its proposed $2.1 billion power plant on the Iron Range or create one single job outside of the company’s battalion of lobbyists, consultants and lawyers.

Excelsior Energy is into the state Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board for $9.5 million. It got $10 million from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission Renewable  Development Fund. And the U.S. Department of Energy shoveled in another $22 million. Yet the owners of Excelsior Energy have put up a miniscule $60,000 for their project and at the same time have reaped combined annual salaries that now are estimated to be $600,000.

The News-Tribune series documented the scandalous political history of Excelsior’s proposed project and the unwavering support it’s received from most of the state’s Iron Range legislators—including the 2008 legislature’s action to shield many of the company’s financial records from public scrutiny. Its owners have quit predicting when the plant will ever be built. And the newspaper rightfully is asking what happened to all the money, and why haven’t our elected officials throwing tens of millions of dollars in public funds at this private enterprise demanded more accountability?

Part of the answer lies in the political influence Excelsior Energy’s co-owners Tom Micheletti and Julie Jorgensen appear to have bought over the past decade through at least $123,775 in political contributions and more than $200,000 in lobbying expenses. It’s a scenario we’ve seen before: A private company forms to promote a dubious enterprise, hires politically connected lobbyists, sucks up millions in government grants, hands out boatloads of campaign cash to politicians who keep the government money flowing to enrich a handful of lobbyists and consultants—and then the cycle repeats itself over and over.

The Excelsior Energy money has gone to Republicans and Democrats alike: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Norm Coleman, Amy Klobuchar, Lori Swanson, the Democratic Congressional campaign Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Minnesota House DFL Caucus, the Minnesota House Republican Campaign Committee.

Often, the money was handed out to both sides in the same year. For example, On January 22, 2002, Micheletti gave $2,500 to the House DFL Caucus. Three days later, he cut another $2,500 check to the Senate DFL Caucus. Then on January 28, 2002, he turned around and gave $2,250 to the House Republican Campaign Committee.

Last year, Micheletti gave $500 to DFLer Mark Dayton’s gubernatorial campaign on July 12 and $500 to Tom Emmer, Dayton’s GOP opponent, on July 16.

Similarly, the Excelsior Energy Inc. PAC in 2010 gave $250 each to Dayton and Emmer, $650 to the state DFL legislative caucuses and $550 to state GOP caucuses.

Norm Coleman was the big winner of the Excelsior Energy Campaign Cash Sweepstakes with a total haul of $14,600 from the Micheletti-Jorgensen household between 1998 and 2008. According to a November 2003 Public Citizen report, Coleman was key to Excelsior Energy securing federal loan guarantees:

“In September (2003), the two Republican congressmen in charge of the energy bill conference committee, New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici and Louisiana Representative W.J. “Billy” Tauzin, unilaterally inserted language into the energy bill at the behest of Minnesota’s GOP Senator Norm Coleman to provide $800 million in federal loan guarantees to one company, Excelsior Energy. The $800 million loan guarantee is apparently designed to help secure Senator Coleman’s vote in favor of the energy bill. The federal assistance to Excelsior Energy was included in neither the House nor Senate versions of the energy bill, adding to the growing list of provisions that a handful of Republican conferees have inserted to appease special interests.”

Despite Public Citizen's characterization of this as an exclusively Republican boondoggle, Democrats have had an equal hand in keeping the money flowing to Excelsior Energy.

Most individual state campaign contributions from Micheletti and Jorgensen were targeted toward DFL Iron Range legislators in districts where the proposed sites for the project are located. The exception is District 3A Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township), the only Iron Range lawmaker who has opposed the project. Anzelc has received no direct contributions from the couple.

Senator Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook), an Iron Range legislator who has long been the project’s biggest shill, made out the best among state lawmakers with a total of $3,750 in campaign contributions from Micheletti and Jorgensen from 2002-2008. The Excelsior Energy Inc. PAC kicked in another $500 to Bakk's 2009 gubernatorial campaign.

The Excelsior Energy co-CEO couple placed their biggest bets on legislative caucuses of both parties.

Between 2001-2010, Micheletti and Jorgensen together donated $9,850 to the House DFL Caucus, $7,700 to the House Republican Campaign Committee, $10,950 to the Senate DFL Caucus, and $8,500 to the GOP’s Senate Victory Fund.

Excelsior Energy’s efforts were aided by a cadre of lobbyists in the state, from four in 2005 to nine in 2010. The company currently has eight lobbyists registered with the state.

Besides Tom Micheletti, the longest-serving Excelsior Energy state lobbyist is former Iron Range State Senator Doug Johnson, who chaired the powerful Senate Tax Committee until he retired in 2003. Johnson ran for governor in 1998, and Micheletti donated $500 to his campaign. He has been lobbying for Excelsior Energy since 2005.

Excelsior Energy has had between three and five lobbyists registered with Congress between 2003 and 2009, including Norm Coleman’s former chief of staff Erich Mische in 2006-2007. The company currently has no federal lobbyists registered. In 2006 and 2007, Excelsior Energy’s federal lobbyists reported spending $120,000 and $80,000, respectively.

The News-Tribune investigation found that Excelsior Energy has already spent nearly $20 million in state funds and soon will deplete more than $22 million in federal tax dollars. It has only $1.9 million remaining in unobligated federal Department of Energy funds available, and may be on its last legs, the newspaper reported.

However, there should be no confusion about where at least some of the money has gone, or how Excelsior Energy’s well-compensated husband-and-wife CEO team curried so much political support for their phantom power plant. They did it the old fashioned way—with campaign cash, politically connected lobbyists and self-serving politicians.

It’s a formula that’s always worked.

Michele Bachmann, bridge advocates play loose with the facts on the St. Croix River

Bachmann fear-mongers about 'radical environmentalists' while pro-development bridge coalition cites phony precedents.

By Karl Bremer

A river of misinformation and smears is flowing from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and other proponents of a massive new freeway bridge over the federally protected St. Croix River at Stillwater.

Bachmann charges that opposition to the new bridge is coming from “radical environmental groups.” She took time out from the Tea Party rubber-chicken circuit last month to breeze by the capitol and drop a bill in the hopper to exempt the St. Croix River from the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Meanwhile, the fledgling Coalition for St. Croix River Crossing, a pro-bridge consortium of St. Croix Valley government and business groups on both sides of the river, is touting two previous projects exempted from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act as being comparable to the proposed Stillwater bridge when, in fact, the exemptions weren’t even for bridges. They were for projects designed to preserve the fisheries of two protected rivers and had absolutely nothing to do with transportation.

But that hasn’t stopped the coalition from perpetuating this myth through the media, presenting it as precedent for exempting the Bachmann Boondoggle from the Act.

‘RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS’
Alarmed that “radical environmental groups” were in our midst, I decided to contact one of them: the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). The NPCA was established in 1919—three years after the National Park Service came into being—to serve as an advocate for the protection of America’s national parks. The NPCA Midwest Office oversees 48 National Park sites in 11 states, including the 93,000-acre St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.

“We aren’t an environmental group,” says NPCA Midwest Regional Director Lynn McClure. “We were established in 1919 by the director of the Park Service as an independent organization fulfilling the function of advocate/watchdog for the parks. We did some educational outreach for the Park Service originally. But today, we’re the only dedicated national group that is the voice of the National Parks in Washington.”

Just how radical are they?

“I’d wager we have more Republicans on our board than Democrats,” McClure says. “It’s pretty darn close. We have a lot of fiscally conservative Republicans on our board. But they understand the preservation side of things and they will stand with the parks. They’re not banging the radical environmental drum.”

The NPCA was one of 26 state and national organizations that sent a letter to Governor Mark Dayton last month urging him to “shelve plans for a new bridge that would cost over $640 million, damage the Riverway’s scenic and natural resources, and accelerate sprawl into rural western Wisconsin. Instead,” the groups asked, “we urge you to quickly seize this opportunity to identify, with leadership from the Minnesota Department of Transportation and in collaboration with stakeholders, an alternative proposal for a new, modestly-scaled bridge – one that would dramatically reduce the impact on the Lower St. Croix, while serving the needs of Minnesota and Wisconsin residents and saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. At the same time, we urge you to oppose efforts to move the current unworkable proposal forward.”

Dayton responded that “all possibilities have been reopened for consideration” with regard to bridge options.

“Our first instincts are to find the best solutions that both protect the national parks and bring a local community together around it,” says McClure. “We understand the role national parks can play in economic development. But sometimes, you have to say you need to weigh in on this picture.”

The St. Croix River long has been considered one of the more unique rivers in the Wild and Scenic Rivers system because of its close proximity to a major metropolitan area.

“That’s primarily the reason we got involved in the bridge issue,” McClure explains. “The St. Croix is an extreme point of pride for the National Park Service.” When she’s in Washington, McClure says, the St. Croix is often mentioned in the same breath as Yellowstone or Glacier national parks. “The director understands the critical nature of this bridge if it were to go in.”

The Wild and Scenic Rivers system, created in 1968, protects more than 11,000 miles of 166 rivers in 38 states and Puerto Rico—barely more than one-quarter of 1 percent of the nation's rivers. The Upper St. Croix, from its source to Taylor’s Falls, was among the first rivers designated under the Act; the Lower St. Croix, from Taylor’s Falls to Prescott, WI, was added to the system in 1972.

“You don’t grant exemptions to the Act lightly,” McClure stresses.

FISHERIES PROJECTS AREN’T BRIDGES
Which brings us to the exemptions hailed by the Coalition for St. Croix River Crossing as precedents for granting an exemption to the Act for the proposed four-lane, 65-mph freeway bridge at Stillwater.

William Rubin is executive director of the St. Croix Economic Development Corporation (EDC) in Hudson and a member of the Coalition for St. Croix River Crossing. The Coalition was incorporated in Minnesota in December 2010 and lists the Stillwater City Hall as its address.

The St. Croix EDC website features a news release detailing the pro-bridge coalition’s goals and notes that two previous exemptions have been granted from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Other news reports about the Coalition state that the two exempted projects were “similar” to the proposed Stillwater bridge, or that they actually were for bridges.

When I asked Rubin for specifics about the previous two exemptions from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act that his group cited, he didn’t have a clue as to what they were.

“Maybe you should ask the Department of Transportation,” he replied.

When reminded that the reference to the exemptions was information put out by his group, and not the Department of Transportation, Rubin became irritated.

“We deal in economic development here. Maybe our journalistic skills aren’t all that they should be,” Rubin says.

There’s a good reason why Rubin wouldn’t want to talk about the exemptions: because they don’t even remotely resemble the proposed Stillwater bridge project, and couldn’t under any reasonable circumstances be compared to it.

According to Dan Haas, U.S. Fish & Wildlife planner who sits on the federal Interagency Wild and Scenic River Coordinating Council, “There have been only two exemptions to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act after the fact.” Neither of them were bridges, nor were they even transportation-related.

One exemption was for a sea lamprey barrier on the Pere Marquette River in Michigan. This electric fish barrier features bottom-mounted electrodes on a wooden deck. It works in conjunction with a fish bypass channel and lamprey trap to block upstream migration of Atlantic sea lamprey into trout spawning habitat on the river. The lamprey are diverted, trapped and electrocuted, eliminating the need for chemicals to rid the river of them.

The other exemption was for a temperature control tower built upstream from Cougar Dam on the South Fork of the McKenzie River in Oregon. The tower takes in warmer waters from the surface of Cougar Reservoir above the dam to maintain consistent temperatures downstream from the dam. This allowed for the return and revitalization of Chinook salmon populations on the South Fork of the McKenzie, which had stopped migrating up the river due to cold waters flowing out from the bottom of the reservoir following construction of the dam in 1963. The reservoir was drained for the tower’s construction but once it was refilled, the tower was submerged.

The only bridges that have been built over designated Wild and Scenic Rivers have been built in the same corridor as the old bridge, and then the old bridge was torn down upon completion of the new one.

BACHMANN NEEDS A HISTORY LESSON
Rubin and the Coalition for St. Croix River Crossing aren’t the only bridge proponents misrepresenting the facts. Not surprisingly, Bachmann is playing fast and loose with them as well.

Besides painting opponents of her billion-dollar boondoggle as “radical environmentalists,” Bachmann also claims her critics are lying about what her bill would do.

“It has also been claimed that my bill exempts the Lower St. Croix from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act,” says Bachmann. “This is wrong. My bill points to the 2005 National Park Service decision stating the proposed four-lane bridge construction is consistent with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act … These groups and I may never agree on what the river crossing should look like, but I am calling on them to stop lying about my legislation.”

Evidently, Bachmann’s pals in the Coalition to Support St. Croix Crossing didn’t get her memo. In its news release, it states that the group “will work with federal legislators from Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to exempt the river crossing from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.”

While Bachmann would prefer that the history of the National Park Service and the Stillwater bridge began in 2005, the fact is, the NPS opposed the bridge in 1996 before it supported it in 2005. It’s no coincidence that the NPS reversed itself during the Bush Administration, yet Bachmann was silent on that flip-flop.

In a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled in March 2010 that the NPS 2005 policy reversal ignored its 1996 decision against a similar bridge and must be revisited. Upon review of the 2005 decision, the NPS announced last fall that it had determined that the bridge as proposed could not be built without causing “direct and adverse effects that cannot be avoided or eliminated,” a violation of Section 7(a) of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

So Bachmann not only is seeking to exempt the bridge from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act by declaring its most recent application null and void, she apparently is trying to exempt the project from judicial review as well.

Last year Bachmann sent a letter to House Natural Resources Committee Chair Nick Rahall sounding the alarm about “the growing trend of radical environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club abusing the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to pursue their ideological ends” and suggesting “possible revisions to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to ensure it is not misused.”

Bachmann’s legislative end-run on the courts, the NPS and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act is only the latest salvo in this long-running battle to preserve the St. Croix River and the integrity of the Act itself. Bachmann introduced essentially the same bill last year and attracted no co-sponsors. This year, Wisconsin Republican Sean Duffy and Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind have signed on.

Bridge opponents can take heart in the fact that despite her high visibility as self-appointed Congressional leader of the Tea Party caucus, the ineffective Bachmann has not passed one piece of legislation in her entire congressional career; her tenure in the Minnesota State Senate was equally nonproductive.

There’s also the niggling little detail of the bridge’s $700 million-and-climbing price tag, which flies in the face of Bachmann’s alleged fiscal conservatism. The federal government is hardly flush with cash these days, and neither Minnesota nor Wisconsin has a few hundred million lying around for anything, let alone a bridge whose need is dubious.

Ironically, a little over a year ago, Bachmann wrote in an op/ed article: “When will the President and Democrat (sic) leadership learn that spending money we don’t have isn’t always the remedy to fix whatever problem confronts us?”

And while Bachmann now claims that the new bridge is needed to create jobs, in that same op/ed piece, she railed against President Obama for making the same claim:

“A federal spending surge of more than $20 billion for roads and bridges in President Obama's first stimulus has had NO EFFECT on local unemployment rates, raising questions about his argument for billions more to address an ‘urgent need to accelerate job growth,’" Bachmann wrote.

If the latest pronouncements from disingenuous pro-bridge forces are any indication, the arguments for building the Bachmann Boondoggle are likely to get even more specious.

"I don't see Michele and that group backing down," says the NPCA’s McClure. But she remains optimistic given the latest turn of events.

“I think it would behoove everyone to take a step back and look at the transportation issues,” says McClure.

She points to alternatives like the replacement bridges that were built over other Wild and Scenic Rivers—called “low and slow” bridges because they cross at river level rather than bluff level, and are built for slower traffic speeds to minimize their impact on the river.

“I do think there’s a solution out there,” she concludes.

TOP PHOTO: Visualization of proposed four-lane freeway bridge over the St. Croix River as seen from a Wisconsin aerial view. Image by Minnesota DOT.

MIDDLE PHOTO: Sea lamprey barrier on the Wild & Scenic Pere Marquette River in Michigan.

BOTTOM PHOTO: Cougar Dam Temperature Control Tower on Cougar Reservoir on the Wild & Scenic South Fork of the McKenzie River in Oregon.

HERE ARE YOUR 'RADICAL ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS'

The following organizations signed the Minnesota Environmental Partnership letter to Gov. Dayton urging him to oppose the Stillwater bridge as proposed and seek less intrusive alternatives. Judge for yourself how "radical" they are:

1000 Friends of Minnesota

Alliance for Metropolitan Stability

Alliance for Sustainability

Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center

Conservation Minnesota

Duluth Audubon Society

Environmental Law and Policy Center

Fresh Energy

Friends of the Mississippi River

League of Women Voters Minnesota

Mankato Area Environmentalists

Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

Minnesota Food Association

Minnesota Ornithologists Union

National Parks Conservation Association

Parks and Trails Council of Minnesota

River Alliance of Wisconsin

St. Croix River Association

St. Croix Scenic Coalition

St. Paul Audubon Society

Sierra Club John Muir Chapter

Sierra Club North Star Chapter

Smart Growth America

Take Action-Conserve Our Scandia

Transit for Liveable Communities