Lawbreakers. Plain and simple.
This post is about Lutsen Mountains ski resort and a recent story run by Minnesota Public Radio about Lutsen’s violation of water pumping in the Poplar River. Basically, the famous ski resort along the North Shore of Lake Superior has for years been illegally pumping more water out of the Poplar River than its permit allows.
Cute as a button, right?
What is particular troubling about this is that Poplar River is a designated trout stream, which means that water isn’t supposed to be pumped out of it at all under a 1977 law. However, Lutsen Mountains was grandfathered in under this law and was allowed to take an already hefty 12.6 million gallons of water a year from the Poplar River. The owners thumbed their noses at these restrictions, pumping as much as 100 million gallons (8 times as much as they were allowed for those of you keeping track at home) out of the river last year to run their snow machines.
On the right side of the law.
The fact that the water is taken out during the wintertime is even more destructive to the stream’s habitat. In fact, the Minnesota Audubon Society issued this report on Lutsen Mountains’ illegal water pumping, which documents why winter pumping is so damaging to the environment and it also specifically notes: “LMC’s (Lutsen Mountains) excessive water withdrawals from the Poplar River since 2001 were outside the permit and illegal. LMC should not be rewarded for this bad conduct. … Legislation permitting LMC to take more water from the Poplar River to facilitate expansion would remove any incentive for it to find a sustainable long-term solution to its water use needs.”
Yet, this is exactly what has happened. When MPR’s Stephanie Hemphill questioned Lutsen Mountain’s Co-owner Charles Skinner about taking water from a more sustainable location like Lake Superior, he bristled at the idea saying: the $3 to $4 million that would cost “would be better spent on other infrastructure up here, such as a new lift or other infrastructure, that skiers would appreciate and that would hopefully bring more visitors and help support the economy,” and if forced to do so would ask taxpayers to pay for it.
Translation: “we’d rather spend the money on something that is going to make us more money than spend the money on something that is for the public good.”
It is really no laughing matter.
So, what happens if you ignore the law for over 10 years, illegally pumping out literally TONS more water than you are allowed to, thus jeopardizing the ecosystem of an entire river? They’ll shut your operation down, right? Maybe a hefty fine? Well, apparently here in Minnesota when you so flagrantly break the law you can just get a law passed allowing you to take more than one and a half times the amount of water (150 million gallons) you had been illegally taking anyway! This even AFTER the Audubon society specifically warned lawmakers that doing so would essentially REWARD this kind of illegal activity.
I wonder if he knows that he is skiing right over the river's ecosystem?
And what about the Minnesota DNR? Where were they this entire time? They were the ones who were supposed to be enforcing the laws, yet rather than cite Lutsen Mountains for the violation, they spent 10 years “negotiating” and trying to get them to stop breaking the law. I guess I always thought that when you break the law, there were consequences…apparently not if you run a popular ski resort.
