LEWISTON, Minn. — Environmentalists organized by the Land Stewardship Project signed a petition asking Governor Tim Walz to light a fire under state agencies that have failed to identify the source of poisons that killed 2,500 fish in nearby Rush Creek. The petition was jump-started with 40 signatures at a rally at Farmers Park. The petition asserts that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and two other state agencies have failed, even four weeks after the Rush Creek disaster, to identify the source of contaminants. This kill was the third in recent years to have gone unsolved. A theme rally was was suspicions about sloppy farm practices with pesticide, fertilizers and manure. There were assertions that that the MCPA has a record of being soft on factory-scale agriculture. About 100 farms, some large, are in the upper Rush Creek drainage. Jeff Broberg, a geologist from Elba, had adifferentt tack. Broberg said he wasn’t interested in retribution. What’s needed, he said, is a system to alert farmers weather events that can cause run-off contamination. Broberg expressed disappointment that investigating state agencies have tried to target individual farmers for fish-kills. “This is a systems problem,” he said. We need of prevention, not retribution.”
Call for action. Land stewards say the state’s pollution, natural resources and agriculture agencies have been slow to get fish-kill answers. Image: Steve Lunde
Verbatim
Barb Nelson, Lewiston: “The poor fisherman who takes one over the limit, he pays for that doesn’t he? Who is going to pay for 2,500 trout? We’re expecting answers this time. We’re sick and tired of hearing everything is inconclusive.”
Verbatim
Melissa Haugen, of Altura: “Mass fish kills like this are becoming like clockwork. If we do nothing and nothing changes, we can almost guarantee it will happen again about the same time next year.”