FOND DU LAC BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA

Search continues for Fond du Lac Band member last seen on March 8

Macklin Caruso — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 21:00:18 GMT

BROOKSTON, Minn. — Law enforcement is still searching for Peter Michael Martin, a Fond du Lac Band member who has not been seen since March 8.

“Where the hell is my cousin?" said Colleen Thompson, Martin’s cousin. “You know what I mean? Every day that goes by, it’s grimmer and grimmer."

The Fond du Lac Police Department, the lead agency on the search, has held numerous search-and-rescue efforts throughout the Fond du Lac Reservation, but they have yet to yield any substantive results. Efforts have since expanded to include support from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the tribal nation mobilizing all of its internal agencies to lend any available resources to aid in the search.

Martin, 31, was last seen at his home in the Mahnomen neighborhood of the Fond du Lac Reservation, near the Brookston Community Center. He is Native American, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighs 185 pounds and has dark-brown eyes. He has a small scar on his forehead and several tattoos across both arms, shoulders and chest.

Given the circumstances around his disappearance, authorities believe Martin may be in danger and in need of assistance, according to search warrants. Martin had two active warrants for domestic assault and violation of supervised release and because of this is considered a fugitive from justice. According to search warrants, police received additional tips from the public that indicate possible foul play.

On March 9, police responded to a welfare check requested by Martin’s ex-girlfriend, who is the mother of his child, after she went to Martin’s house for a child custody exchange and found it in disarray, according to search warrants. Police reported that a television was smashed and there were holes in the walls.

Police found Peter’s Minnesota driver’s license and tribal ID lying on the kitchen floor. In the woods nearby, police found a black jacket hanging from a tree with Peter’s phone in the pocket.

Peter’s ex-girlfriend told police that Martin had been depressed and that he had been suicidal in the past. When she last saw him, on March 3, she reported using methamphetamine with Martin and that he was acting paranoid. She told law enforcement he was seeing and hearing things that were not there and that he threatened her with a box cutter.

On March 8, she briefly texted Martin, which would be the last time she heard from him.

At 3 a.m. that same day, Martin borrowed $40 from an acquaintance, exchanged an iPhone as a security deposit and promised that he would pay her back by noon the same day.

Shortly before the money was due, the woman followed up with Martin to ask if he was going to return the money he borrowed, to which Martin responded he would but was waiting for a ride to town to cash a check.

That was the last time she heard from Peter. An uncashed check from the state of Minnesota addressed to Martin for $500 was found at his residence.

That same day, Martin changed his Facebook profile picture to a photo of rapper Tupac Shakur.

In late March, the investigation was expanded to include the support of the BCA, providing additional forensic technologies and methods for crime scene processing not possessed by the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office or Fond du Lac Police Department.

Jessica Gidagaakoons Smith, a Bois Forte Band member and legal advocate for missing, murdered and Indigenous people, applauded the decision to involve the BCA in the search.

“Now that the BCA is involved, it makes a big difference,” she said. “Because I think, for accountability reasons.”

In March, Smith led a protest in front of the Federal Building in Duluth criticizing the Fond du Lac Police Department’s handling of the investigation, and its perceived unwillingness to bring in the BCA and federal authorities to assist. The protest included friends and family of Martin and supportive community members.

Unknown to protestors at the time, the BCA joined the investigation four days before the protest.

Smith said there may be local people who could have information but do not trust local police. Now that the BCA is involved, she hopes people will be more comfortable sharing information regarding Martin.

In addition to the official search, Smith established a $10,000 reward fund on GoFundMe for information that leads to the location of Martin.

The Fond du lac Police Department did not respond to several requests for comment by the Pine Journal.

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Minnesota moose population up a tick, but remains 'at risk'

John Myers — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 13:00:00 GMT

DULUTH — Northeastern Minnesota's moose herd continues to hang on, up a tick over last year but still just a fraction of the modern high population of 20 years ago.

That was the report issued Monday by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources after the agency’s annual winter moose aerial survey.

The survey estimated 3,470 moose across the core range — essentially Lake, Cook and northern St. Louis counties — which is up 5% from 3,290 in 2023 but still down from 4,700 in 2022.

Each January, wildlife biologists from the DNR and tribal resource agencies fly over parts of the state's moose range in helicopters to count moose in specific zones. They then extrapolate their findings over the entire moose range to get the overall estimate.

Surveyors faced an unusual problem this year of not having enough snow on the ground. The survey usually waits until there is at least 8 inches of snow cover to make the dark moose show up better against a white backdrop, but less than a fourth of the area surveyed had that much snow this year, the DNR reported. Still, researchers said there was enough snow to make the survey comparable to other years.

Northeastern Minnesota's moose numbers crashed rapidly 15 years ago, from a modern high of 8,840 moose estimated in 2006 to just 2,700 by 2013. Their numbers have remained low but fairly stable, with annual fluctuations but no major trend, for the past decade.

“While estimates suggest continued stability in the population and reproductive success ... Minnesota moose remain at risk given the long-term trends,’’ the agency noted in releasing the report.

The agency cautions that the high variability of the study and changing conditions means the report should be used to monitor long-term trends with less focus on annual ups and downs. This year’s estimate of 3,470 is a mid-range between the low range of 2,570 and the possible high range of 4,940 in the survey estimate.

It's never been entirely clear why Northeastern Minnesota's moose numbers crashed so fast and hard. It followed the nearly complete elimination of northwestern Minnesota's moose herd in the 1990s. Scientists believe myriad factors, including a warming climate, are involved. Warmer winters with less snow allow more deer to move north, bringing along a brainworm parasite fatal to moose.

It's possible a recent string of snowy winters in Northeastern Minnesota, six of the last 10, have helped push deer numbers back down and allowed moose to thrive, although this winter has been historically mild, which should allow deer to begin a rebound. Moose also aren't suited to handle warmer summer temperatures.

Habitat is also an issue, with moose continuing to thrive in areas where major wildfires burned in recent years, where younger forests have sprouted, but not as much in areas where forests have matured.

Efforts are underway using a major federal grant to develop large-scale logging and/or intentional fires in prime moose areas of the Arrowhead, turning over tens of thousands of acres of older forest into the younger forests that moose need to thrive. County, state and Forest Service forests are involved along with wildlife biologists from the DNR and tribes and several conservation organizations.

A thriving wolf population also plays a role in the moose decline, especially after moose numbers initially crashed, with wolves focusing on the calves that are needed to rebuild the moose population annually. Because wolves thrive most on deer, northern Minnesota has among the highest wolf densities anywhere the big canines roam in North America, which is not good news for newborn moose calves. It remains unclear if or when the state will regain control of wolves, which are now protected by federal law.

This year’s survey found that 17% of cows had calves with them. That number has ranged from just 12% in the lowest years to as high as 19%.

Both the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the 1854 Treaty Authority contributed funding and personnel for the 2024 annual survey. The survey is available on the Minnesota DNR’s moose management webpage at mndnr.gov/moose.

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Another try to recover St. Louis River 'dinosaur fish'

John Myers — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:00:00 GMT

ALONG THE ST. LOUIS RIVER — The goal for the past 40 years has been to recover a self-sustaining population of Lake Superior run sturgeon that call the river here home, but, despite years of stocking, that still hasn't happened.

This week biologists from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stocked 375, 6-inch sturgeon fry into the estuary at Duluth’s Chamber’s Grove Park — the river’s first sturgeon stocking since 2000 — in hopes they will grow big and help boost the population.

Another 375 sturgeon are going to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa to stock in the upper St. Louis River.

The prehistoric fish, which had been part of the Lake Superior ecosystem for thousands of years, can live for 100 years and grow to 100 pounds. Once cherished by native people here, sturgeon were wiped out by dams, pollution, over-harvest and habitat destruction on the rivers where they spawn and spend their early years — not just in the Twin Ports but in most rivers around the Great Lakes and Minnesota. They were gone, extirpated, by the early 1900s.

More than 145,000 sturgeon were stocked in the estuary here over 13 years between 1983 and 2000, and many of those fish are thriving, slowly getting big and fat. Some are over 60 inches long. But they are not yet reproducing well; they are not creating enough young sturgeon to push the population to the self-sustaining level.

"The guide book now is that we will probably need 25 years of stocking to bring the sturgeon back around Lake Superior, and we were only at 13 years, so the idea is to do more stocking over the next several years," said Dan Wilfond, Minnesota DNR fisheries biologist who is heading the effort.

Because sturgeon don’t reproduce every year, even when they reach maturity, it will take many more adult fish to make sure every year’s offspring, called a year class, is big enough to sustain the population.

“We just need more of them out there to make this work,” Wilfond said. Fisheries biologists call it better recruitment.

All 375 of the little sturgeon stocked here — taken from the Sturgeon River in Michigan's Upper Peninsula — have been fitted with tiny internal tags that, if they are recaptured, will allow biologists to wave a scanner over the fish and find out not only when they were stocked but also if they are male or female. Officials hope to install a device in the river that will allow them to track the fish without having to capture them each year.

Over the next few years thousands of additional sturgeon will come from the Sturgeon River where a remnant population has always held on and is now doing very well.

“I think the Sturgeon River was just remote enough to avoid a lot of the problems other rivers saw,” said Ed Baker, biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “It’s got a really healthy sturgeon population and there are more than enough to allow us to share them.”

Fish using the Sturgeon River have more than 45 miles of river to spawn in before reaching a dam, Baker noted, and they have a big estuary in Portage Lake that's warmer and more fertile than Lake Superior.

Crews cast nets in the Sturgeon River in May and caught tiny sturgeon that had recently hatched, then raised them over the summer in tanks. Some of those fish also are going to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa for stocking in the upper St. Louis River, above the hydroelectric dams, and to the U.P.'s Ontonagon River.

In coming years crews plan to take spawning sturgeon out of the Michigan river and milk them to get thousands more fry, then raise them in hatcheries over the summer with up to 2,000 stocked in the St. Louis River Estuary each fall.

Colder lake, slower maturity

For years it was believed that lake sturgeon would start reproducing here at age 25 for females and age 15 for males, as they do in many other river systems. But many of the St. Louis River Estuary sturgeon are well past that age now and still not reproducing well. Biologists now say many of the sturgeon are taking many more years before they start to lay eggs.

In 2017, for example, of 138 sturgeon captured near the Fond du Lac Dam by DNR officials, just three were females. Some research has shown that female sturgeon spawn only once every five to seven years even after they mature.

“We are dealing with just about the coldest, least fertile lake in the world, so it may be that they take longer for the females to get to full reproductive maturity,” Wilfond said. “We are getting some natural reproduction. It just isn’t enough.”

That’s frustrating for Lake Superior sturgeon advocates as they watch sturgeon at warmer, more fertile places around the region — like the Rainy River, Red River of the North and Big Stone Lake in Minnesota and the Wolf River system in Wisconsin — all get bigger faster and reproduce at younger ages.

Wilfond also noted that the early sturgeon stocking in the 1980s occurred while the St. Louis River was still pretty polluted, before cleanup efforts fully took hold, especially the effort to better treat industrial and residential sewage.

“It was still a pretty troubled river when those first sturgeon were stocked, and that may have worked against those first few years,” Wilfond noted.

The good news is that an extensive study of sturgeon tissue by scientists found little or no issues with legacy contamination that still lingers in the river’s sediment, things like PCBs and mercury or other chemicals that might be thwarting reproduction.

“Those legacy contaminants are not the issue, which is good news,” Wilfond noted.

Sturgeon spawn in April just below the Fond du Lac Dam on the river. Some live in the river much of the year, while others migrate down to Lake Superior and disperse along the South Shore as far away as Chequamegon Bay.

Although anglers have been inadvertently catching and releasing St. Louis River sturgeon for many years, it became legal to target the species starting in 2015. All sturgeon caught by anglers on the river must be released. Anglers have caught sturgeon up to at least 60 inches, and Wilfond has netted them up to 67 inches long.

The renewed stocking effort was set to resume in 2019 but has been hamstrung by several factors, from floods along rivers to bureaucratic bungling to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it looks like the effort is ready to take off again.

“We’ll know they are reproducing well when we start netting more of the (naturally spawned fish) than our stocked fish,” Wilfond said. “We’re looking forward to that. But, with sturgeon, it’s a long game. We’re in this for the long haul.”

Fond du Lac Band stocking upper river

The Fond du lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has been stocking sturgeon in the upper St. Louis River, above the series of dams, for 25 years. Biologists with the band are hoping the river’s relatively warmer water will allow those fish to spawn at a younger age than those that call Lake Superior home.

“We’re getting excited about it, we’re thinking we should be seeing some reproduction pretty soon,” said Eric Torvinen, fisheries biologist with the band’s natural resources department.

Crews have already seen sturgeon 44 inches long as they swim between the dams downstream of Cloquet and as far upstream as the Island Lake dam on the Cloquet River and as far as Floodwood on the St. Louis River.

“They are moving around and doing pretty well. They are using lots of different habitat,” Torvinen said.

Band members who catch sturgeon while fishing for other species have been cooperating with biologists to report the location and size of the fish after it is released, Torvinen noted. As with the estuary sturgeon in both Minnesota and Wisconsin waters, it is illegal to keep any sturgeon on the St. Louis River system.

Band biologists have placed a scanning device in the river that will record whenever a tagged sturgeon crosses over, offering data on how old and what sex each sturgeon is. That will help biologists track how well and where the sturgeon are surviving.

“Sturgeon are a culturally important traditional food source for the Fond du Lac people and are important for ceremonial harvest,” Torvinen said. “So this is a pretty big deal to bring these fish back.”

About the dinosaur fish

Lake sturgeon are a primitive fish with a cartilaginous skeleton, according to the Minnesota DNR. It has five rows of prominent bony plates, called scutes, on its body. Lake sturgeon have a flattened snout bearing large, whisker-like sensory organs called barbels. The soft mouth of the fish is located on the bottom of the head.

Sturgeon feed by lightly dragging their barbels along the bottom in search of prey. Their diet includes insect larvae and other invertebrates, snails, leeches, small mussels and small fish.

Lake sturgeon, sometimes called the living dinosaur of the fish world, are a remnant of an ancient and primitive group of fish that almost disappeared from Minnesota in the early 1900s. During the 1800s sturgeon were considered a nuisance fish because they easily broke through commercial fishing nets. They were taken out of the rivers and lakes they inhabited and stacked on the shorelines like logs; sturgeon were also used to power steam boats because their meat has a high oil content.

In the late 1800s, sturgeon eggs were recognized as a dining delicacy. They were harvested by the thousands for their caviar until the population crashed in the early 1900s. This dramatic harvest along with significant habitat changes around the sturgeon's spawning areas nearly drove the entire population in the United States to extinction.

Lake sturgeon are listed as a Species of Special Concern in Minnesota and have strict regulations for harvest.

This story was updated at 12:20 p.m. Sept. 20 to correct that female sturgeon may take up to seven years between spawning runs and that the annual stocking allocation is up to 2,000 fish. It was originally published at 6 a.m. Sept. 16. The News Tribune regrets the errors.

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Fond du Lac Band sues 3M and other companies over PFAS pollution

Dan Kraker / MPR News — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 01:22:58 GMT

The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has filed a lawsuit against 3M and 23 other companies over contamination of its water and fish with PFAS, so-called “forever chemicals.”

The complaint was filed last week in federal district court in South Carolina, where hundreds of PFAS cases have been consolidated. The Band alleges manufacturers and distributors of the chemicals, which were used to make firefighting foam that was used for decades near the Fond du Lac reservation, have threatened “the health, welfare and rights of the Band.”

The lawsuit follows hundreds of similar cases already filed against 3M and other companies by states and cities and other entities over contamination of public water systems by PFAS and related compounds, which don’t break down in the environment. Some have been linked to serious health issues, including cancers and other diseases.

But it’s one of only a few suits known to have been filed by Native American tribes. The Kalispel Tribe in Washington filed a similar suit in 2020, and the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed suit last year, said attorney Roe Frazer, who’s representing both the Red Cliff and Fond du Lac Bands. He said he expects other tribes to follow suit.

“They are for a better environment for all, not just them,” said Frazer, of the Nashville-based law firm Frazer PLC. “They know that by taking action, not only can they help just the tribes, they can help those surrounding communities as well.”

Firefighting foam

The Band’s lawsuit focuses on the use of PFAS in foam used to fight oil fires, especially at airports and military bases.

But for decades prior it was used routinely during fire training exercises and to fight fires and perform testing at the Duluth Air National Guard Base, located about 15 miles east of the St. Louis River, which forms the border of the Fond du Lac reservation.

As a result, the Band alleges that PFAS seeped into groundwater and a “flow zone” adjacent to the base, “contaminating both Lake Superior and the water wells on the Band’s reservation lands.”

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has also detected elevated levels of PFAS in a tributary of the St. Louis River estuary. An investigation determined the PFAS pollution originated from foam used at a Lake Superior College aircraft firefighter training facility in west Duluth.

All the contaminated areas are located within the 1854 Treaty area, where the Fond du Lac Band retains rights to hunt, fish and gather wild rice and other important cultural food sources.

Minnesota and Wisconsin have also placed fish advisory limits on smelt harvesting on Lake Superior. “By being asked to lower its fish consumption, the Band is losing meals, and it is also losing its historical practices and cultural life associated with fishing,” the complaint states.

The Band is seeking financial damages to pay for the remediation of PFAS chemicals in its ground and surface water, to treat drinking water contaminated with PFAS, to remediate soil, restore fisheries, and to monitor tribal members for potential health impacts of PFAS exposure.

‘Huge issue’

The Band did not make anyone available for an interview. But Frazer, who has represented tribes throughout the Upper Midwest on environmental issues, said PFAS pollution is a “huge issue to them,” particularly to tribes like the Fond du Lac Band whose culture is tied so intimately to the land and water — “not only for food, but for cultural transference over time.”

“Tribes don’t frivolously file lawsuits,” said Angelique EagleWoman, director of the Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute at Mitchell Hamline �� of Law in St. Paul.

“They only dedicate resources to litigation when there is something that they feel is imminent, causing harm to their reservation and their people.”

And without stronger enforcement from federal regulators, Eagle Woman said, “it does force tribes to expend resources to make sure they have clean water and subsistence materials and treaty resources.”

In a statement, 3M said it will continue to address PFAS litigation by defending itself in court or through negotiated settlements.

“As the science and technology of PFAS, societal and regulatory expectations, and our expectations of ourselves have evolved, so has how we manage PFAS. We have and will continue to deliver on our commitments — including remediating PFAS, investing in water treatment, and collaborating with communities.”

The Maplewood, Minnesota, based company has said it plans to stop making PFAS chemicals by the end of 2025.

PFAS settlements

Last month 3M agreed to a $10.3 billion resolution to resolve lawsuits over drinking water contaminated by “forever chemicals.”

The settlement, which still needs court approval, would resolve current and future drinking water claims and according to the company would provide funding for PFAS treatment technologies without the need for further litigation.

Tribal water systems are not included in that settlement, Frazer said.

Twenty-three attorneys general from across the U.S. this week, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, urged the federal court to reject the deal, saying it would force nearly all public water providers nationwide to participate unless they withdraw individually, even those that haven’t filed suits or tested for PFAS.

The attorneys general did not take a position on a separate $1.18 billion settlement to resolve PFAS complaints against DuPont de Nemours Inc. and spinoffs Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc.

Those chemical companies are also named as defendants in the Fond du Lac Band’s lawsuit.

With some estimates of the total cleanup of PFAS chemicals nationwide in the hundreds of billions of dollars, that has some questioning whether 3M may at some point file for bankruptcy.

“That’s many times the market capitalization of 3M,” said David Larson, law professor at Mitchell Hamline �� of Law. “The actual cleanup costs may so far exceed the assets of 3M that it could be the end of that company.”

For the Fond du lac Band and other tribes, they are seeking to protect their ability to hunt and fish in a clean environment — treaty rights negotiated by their ancestors generations ago to remain in perpetuity.

In this case, those “forever rights,” as EagleWoman called them, are pitted against “forever chemicals.”

“So we see tribal values playing out in protecting the land and the resources, and wanting to do the same things that ancestors did, provide a way forward for our culture, lifeways and survival for future generations.”

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Massive natural resource bill advances at Minnesota Capitol

John Myers — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:14:02 GMT

ST. PAUL — A key Minnesota House committee has advanced sweeping legislation dealing with outdoors and natural resources, providing millions of dollars for programs and projects and changing several state laws dealing with hunting, fishing and much more.

The omnibus natural resources bill passed the House Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee by a narrow 9-7 vote last week and now goes to the House Ways and Means Committee for action.

A similar omnibus, or all-encompassing outdoor bill (a conglomeration of separate bills), has advanced in the Senate. But both bills still face scrutiny, controversy and likely changes when they get to the House and Senate floors and then in a combined conference committee.

It’s been a whirlwind. It’s been a pace (of outdoor legislative action) that I’ve never seen before.

The House bill, sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL- South St. Paul, has nearly $1 billion for programs and projects in the Pollution Control Agency, Department of Natural Resources, Board of Water and Soil Resources and other agencies dealing with issues like climate change; protecting pollinators like bees and butterflies; fighting aquatic invasive species; managing the spread of emerald ash borer; guarding against chronic wasting disease; restricting deer farms; and working on ways to get cancer-causing PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals," out of the environment.

Hansen called the House bill the largest one-time natural resource investment in Minnesota history. The bill includes funding for the Department of Natural Resources ($472.84 million), Pollution Control Agency ($233 million) and Board of Water and Soil Resources ($98.66 million).

“It’s been a whirlwind. It’s been a pace (of outdoor legislative action) that I’ve never seen before,” said Bob Meier, longtime assistant DNR commissioner who deals with government affairs and legislation.

The DNR’s share of new funding, much of it from the state’s budget surplus, would include $157.46 million for forest management; $100 million for parks and trails; $51.67 million for ecological and water resources; and $24.5 million for fish and wildlife.

Fishing license, park fees increased

Nearly all fishing license fees would go up under the House plan, following Gov. Tim Walz's and the DNR’s original budget request, with resident fishing licenses increasing from $25 to $30 and nonresident licenses from $46 to $62. Trout stamps will jump from $10 to $12. The Senate version does not have a fishing license fee increase included.

“We haven’t raised them in more than a decade and, after we get past this budget surplus, we need a stable source of revenue going forward,” Meier said.

The bill would also increase fees for state park permits and various licenses. An annual state park permit fee would rise from $35 to $45, and a one-day permit from $7 to $10.

Boat license fees also increase, with three-year motorboat stickers — for boats up to 19 feet long — jumping from $27 to $59 with another $20 invasive species surcharge tacked on.

“Our boat landings are going to be as bad as St. Paul streets if we don’t keep them up better, and we need staff and money going forward to do that,” Meier said.

Among the many policy provisions included in the House bill are those that would:

Give $4 million in state funds for the transplant of northwestern Minnesota elk to Carlton and southern St. Louis counties for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s efforts to reestablish an eastern Minnesota elk herd. Move responsibility for deer and elk farms from the state Board of Animal Health to the DNR, and also require live animal testing of captive deer and elk as well as other stricter regulations on cervid farms, including a ban on any new farms and restrictions against importing any animals from areas with any history of chronic wasting disease. Provide $15 million over the next two years for the state’s natural resource agreement with several Ojibwe bands covered by the 1854 Treaty. The longstanding agreement essentially pays the bands to not exercise their full tribal hunting and fishing rights in parts of Northeastern Minnesota. Require hunters use nontoxic shotgun shells in state wildlife management areas in the farmland regions of the state. Bans the use of felt-soled waders in lakes and rivers statewide in an effort to reduce the spread of an invasive algae called didymo, or rock snot. Allows the DNR to establish swan protection zones that could include banning lead fishing sinkers on Twin Cities lakes and rivers where trumpeter swans tend to congregate. A broader, statewide ban on small lead tackle was not approved. Transfer ownership of the Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls to the Upper Sioux tribal community. Provide $600,000 for grants to develop local shooting sports facilities statewide. Changes in how fish kills are reported in the state for faster action by state agencies. Orders a study on the status of so-called "rough fish" in Minnesota to determine which need more protections. Awards $1.4 million for the Voyageur Country and Prospector ATV trails in northern Minnesota. Award $10 million to the University of Minnesota for aquatic invasive species research. Reestablish an PCA Citizens Board with authority to weigh in on the permitting process. Allow municipalities to prohibit the use of pesticides that harm pollinators, and another provision that bans neonicotinoid chemicals on state-managed lands. Tightens requirements for bags and food packaging marked “biodegradable.” Establish a “Lowland Conifer Carbon Reserve” program within some state forests that could include timber and peat harvesting restrictions. Allow fines up to $100 for leaving trash on frozen lakes. Regulate the use of PFAS — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals — called "forever chemicals" because they don’t break down and may affect human health. Provisions could require disclosures and ban their intentional use in many products such as ski wax, children's products and firefighting foam. Require boater safety education courses for adults as well as teens, phasing in restrictions over several years.

Meier said the DNR can live with overseeing deer farms in the state, but has serious issues with the lowland conifer reserve program, noting it would lock out the timber industry from more timberland and is possibly unconstitutional in how it would compensate the state’s school trust for lost timber revenue.

"We want to protect those sensitive areas, too, and we already are in many cases. But there are just some major concerns with how that bill is worded right now. ... The key now is to find a solution that gets everyone where they need to be on this,” Meier said.

Meir also said the DNR would support the led shotgun shell ban on farmland wildlife management area if hunters are given three years to make the change before the non toxic requirement went into effect.

The bill’s funding is in addition to money for DNR and other outdoor projects included in the state bonding/construction legislation and is in addition to both the state’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust funding speeding and the state heritage sales tax spending.

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Indigenous remains found during Twin Ports Interchange construction

Jimmy Lovrien — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 01:23:32 GMT

DULUTH — Human remains, determined to be Indigenous, were found during construction of the Twin Ports Interchange, pausing work in one area of the project.

The Duluth Police Department responded Feb. 14 to the report of a "possible human bone” in a construction area of the Lincoln Park neighborhood where U.S. Highway 53 is being rebuilt, Duluth Police Department spokesperson Mattie Hjelseth said in an email to the News Tribune.

“An archaeologist was on scene when officers arrived and the archaeologist stated the bone is a partial jaw bone. The medical examiner's office was consulted. The Fond du Lac Band was advised and collected the bone,” Hjelseth said, citing the incident report.

Officials from the Minnesota Department of Transportation and other state agencies interviewed by the News Tribune on Thursday were intentionally vague about what was found and where it was found, citing state and federal laws.

“As a result of a MnDOT-related project, culturally sensitive material has been found,” said Dylan Goetsch, the field investigator for the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, a state agency, adding that the find triggered Minnesota’s Private Cemeteries Act and the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Goetsch said this is the only such find during the massive, multi-year project on Interstate 35, U.S. Highway 53 and Interstate 535 at the interchange formerly nicknamed the “Can of Worms." Construction work began in 2020 and ramped up in 2021.

Additionally, nothing was found during the highway’s original construction, dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.

“To our knowledge, there hasn’t been any sort of records that anyone has been able to find that previous construction work identified any burials or disturbed any burials in this area,” Goetsch said.

Duane Hill, district engineer for the MnDOT, said the discovery triggered the project’s “Unanticipated Discovery Plan,” which was developed ahead of construction with consultation of Ojibwe and Dakota nations. “So when the sensitive cultural material was discovered, we implemented that plan,” Hill said.

Under the plan, work in that area stops to avoid additional burial disturbances, security is bolstered and the proper agencies and tribal nations are informed of the find.

Hill said crews working at that specific site have moved to other locations in the sprawling Twin Ports Interchange project.

It is not yet known if the discovery will change the project timeline or design.

“We don’t know how this is going to impact our project schedule,” Hill said.

Work on I-35 and the Garfield Interchange will finish this fall while the Highway 53 bridge is scheduled, as of now, for completion in fall 2024. Reconstruction of nearby local streets will wrap up in 2025.

Goetsch said whenever human remains are found, the first thing to do is to work with law enforcement to determine whether it's a crime scene. He said his office is brought in if it’s determined not to be a crime scene and it’s clear that it is “a settler or American Indian.”

Studying the layer of soil the remains are found in and any surrounding artifacts will help narrow things further.

“At this point, it’s clear that the burial is American Indian,” Goetsch said. “And so when that happens, my office then kind of jointly takes the lead.”

Additional archaeological work may be completed to determine if there are other burial sites or artifacts nearby.

In doing so, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council will work alongside MnDOT, State Archaeologist Amanda Gronhovd’s office and tribal nations, like the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, or other tribal nations in Minnesota.

“We’re working with a number of tribal communities to see who can help facilitate this work to make sure it’s done appropriately and whatnot,” Goetsch said.

A spokesperson for the Fond du Lac Band did not respond to News Tribune inquiries.

Any artifacts or human remains will be repatriated to “their appropriate tribal community or nation,” Goetsch said.

Human remains have been found at several recent road construction sites in Duluth.

A burial ground was disturbed by crews after MnDOT failed to consult with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior prior to the start of the Minnesota Highway 23 bridge replacement project over Mission Creek in the Fond du Lac neighborhood.

And in 2018, several empty, lidless wood coffins and possible human bones were found along Arlington Avenue during a planned archaeological exploratory ahead of a St. Louis County road project in the area.

The items are assumed to be remnants left behind during a 1960s grave relocation project involving nearby Greenwood Cemetery, where about 5,000 people from the St. Louis County Poor Farm were buried from 1891-1947.

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Will Minnesota's moose ever thrive again?

John Myers — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 13:00:00 GMT

DULUTH — Northern Minnesota’s moose have been hanging on for the past decade, reproducing and surviving at a rate barely able to keep up with an onslaught by wolves, bears, ticks and brainworm from deer.

First it was northwestern Minnesota's moose that disappeared, in the 1990s, from thousands to virtually none over just one decade.

Then, northeastern moose numbers crashed by 70% from a modern high of 8,840 moose estimated in 2006 to just 2,700 by 2013.

The only good news since then is that their numbers haven’t dropped any more, hanging near the lower number with glimmers of hope that they might bounce back.

Now, an effort is underway to bring multiple groups together to bolster moose habitat and maybe work on other threats so moose can thrive — to build back to the moose numbers of 30 years ago.

“Our goal is not to have our moose population always hanging by a thread,” said Kelly Straka, wildlife section manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “Our goal is to see them thrive. … Moose are iconic in Minnesota. They are critical to our ecosystem in the north. And people want to see them.”

To that end, Minnesota’s moose just received a big Christmas gift from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation, a federally funded grant of $443,600 to form a new moose collaborative that will lead to large-scale habitat projects in core moose range. It was one of 55 projects selected out of 500 applicants for the America the Beautiful Grants. The Minnesota DNR and tribal natural resource agencies are adding another $43,000.

The goal is to restore massive tracts of moose habitat over the next decade — at least three areas of 10,000-50,000 contiguous acres, 15-75 square miles each — considered huge parcels even in the vast wilds of Northeastern Minnesota.

The patchwork of tribal, federal, state, county and private land in Northeastern Minnesota makes large-scale habitat restoration particularly challenging. The grant isn’t buying any land or paying for any actual work on the ground.

Instead, it’s aimed at hiring a coordinator and bringing multiple parties together: the U.S. Forest Service, tribal resource agencies, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, county forestry departments, conservation groups like the Ruffed Grouse Society and Nature Conservancy as well as many private landowners.

The grant will pay for workshops through 2023 and into 2024 to see if the participants can get past the social, political and practical barriers and agree where it's possible to conduct massive habitat work — either intentional fires or logging or both.

“The goal is to have a plan, to get all their parties at the table and come up with a plan to see where it makes the most sense for moose, and where it's possible for us, to create some really large-scale habitat blocks,” Straka said. “It’s not that forest management hasn’t been occurring. It just hasn’t been big enough to really help moose.”

More logging, more fires, more moose

Mike Schrage, wildlife biologist for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, watched moose numbers decline from his seat in a helicopter as part of a team of biologists who count moose each January in an annual aerial survey coordinated by the Minnesota DNR. What he saw most winters was depressing for anyone who enjoys moose.

Part of the problem is that large areas of Northeastern Minnesota, especially in the core Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and other blocks of the Superior National Forest, have trees that are too old for moose to thrive. Efforts to snuff most wildfires, a prohibition on logging in the BWCAW and a reduction in logging across the Superior National Forest and on private land has led to an older, mature forest that doesn’t offer great food for moose.

But Schrage noticed a few places where moose seemed to be doing better, namely wherever a large forest fire had occurred in recent years, like the 92,000-acre Pagami Creek fire inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in 2011 and the 75,000-acre Ham Lake fire along the end of the Gunflint Trail in 2007. Apparently, size matters when it comes to moose habitat, and these were the state's largest wildfires since the 1930s.

It didn’t take an expert in moose biology, Schrage noted, to see what was going on. It’s in those big burned areas, now lush with new growth, where the highest moose densities have been seen in the past decade. That gives Schrage and others hope that moose will respond quickly to any large-scale habitat work conducted as part of the new collaborative.

Not every tree was burned of course, pockets of older trees remained — good cover for moose to hide in — but enough trees were gone to open the forest floor to sunlight and a new crop of vegetation for miles on end.

“I think we can double, maybe even triple moose numbers in those (habitat project) areas, if they are large enough,” Schrage added. “In the areas of the big fires, when we fly now, we may see 10 or 20 moose per 13-square-mile unit, compared to one or two moose, or none at all, in some areas outside the fires.”

Moose are iconic in Minnesota. They are critical to our ecosystem in the north. And people want to see them.

Research crews for the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa now have about 30 moose wearing transmitter collars in and around the Grand Portage Reservation. In January, they will begin collaring another 25 moose in Minnesota and another 25 on Isle Royale as comparisons continue between the mainland and island moose herds.

Seth Moore, director of biology and environment for the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, is especially interested in how moose respond to the 26,000-acre Greenwood fire from 2021 in Lake County, near Isabella. While that fire forced evacuations and destroyed several cabins and homes, it also created prime moose habitat. Moore’s already seeing more moose in that area and he expects the ongoing aerial surveys to show a noticeable jump.

It’s unlikely that huge, intentional fires will be a major part of the moose habitat project — there’s simply too much opposition from home and cabin and owners now numerous across much of the moose range. But a series of smaller fires, or much larger-scale logging operations, or both, could mimic the same results as a single, larger fire.

“We have in our minds what the forest, what the northwoods, should look like. Big, old trees are usually in that picture,” Straka said. “But variety is important. Moose need variety. They need old trees for cover and they especially need young forest for food.”

Moore said social attitudes will need to change if efforts to truly restore the state’s moose population are going to succeed: attitudes about managing and killing some wolves, attitudes about large clear-cut swaths of forest and attitudes about wildfire.

Fire, Moore noted, is how nature created moose habitat for millennia.

“We're going to have to make some difficult decisions to keep moose on our landscape in northern Minnesota,” Moore said. "I’m not sure how we got to a point where people think clear cuts are all bad. … It's how we keep part of the forest young. And moose can’t make it without young trees to eat.”

Schrage agreed. While some people may bristle when miles of forest briefly appear blackened from fire, or void of big trees after a logging operation, Schrage says they will also be surprised at how fast the forest regenerates. And it’s that young growth that moose need most: shoots of aspen, paper birch, alder and balsam fir. Many species of tree and brush that moose favor regenerate on their own.

“I think people wouldn’t mind looking out over a clear cut if there was a moose in the middle of it,” Schrage said.

For Minnesota moose, many maladies

It seems at times as if humans and Mother Nature are ganging up on moose, throwing a bevy of problems at the big animals that they seem unable to overcome.

Perhaps foremost is the warming climate, with warmer summer temperatures taking a toll on the big, dark animals that tend to stop feeding when it gets too hot. Warmer winters allow white-tailed deer to thrive farther north and allow tick numbers to build.

So-called "winter ticks" have become a huge problem for moose, with sometimes thousands of them building up on a single animal. Moose, for whatever reason, don’t seem to notice the ticks until it’s too late, then begin to furiously scratch their thick hides on trees in an attempt to get rid of the parasites.

That causes moose to lose their insulating hair, and many of the tick-infested moose eventually have so much bare skin exposed that they die due to exposure to the elements.

Generally, warmer winters also have allowed deer to thrive farther north over the past 50 years. Whitetails were not native to the northern forest but moved in after the massive logging and fires of the early 1900s. Deer numbers peaked during a string of mild winters in the early 2000s, thriving far into moose territory and bringing along a parasitic brainworm, P. tenuis, that, while harmless to deer, is fatal to moose.

The brainworm’s unusual life cycle requires that it passes through a snail first, and then is picked up by moose as they forage. Moore’s research found that 25%-30% of moose mortality in Northeastern Minnesota was from brainworm, a larger percent of adult moose than are killed by predators.

Snowier winters, fewer deer may be helping

A string of deep-snow winters in the past decade has substantially reduced the region’s deer population, which is good news for moose. To curb the brainworm problem, Moore said, deer numbers should be kept to six or fewer per square mile in moose territory.

“We thought 10 (deer per square mile) would be low enough. But in areas where we had that many deer we still had a lot of brainworm,” Moore said.

The number of moose infected with brainworm seems to be dropping some as deer numbers have dropped in recent years, Moore added. But when deer numbers rebound from the tough winters, as they always have in past decades, Moore wants the Minnesota DNR to encourage more hunters to kill more deer in the state’s moose range by offering more doe permits and longer hunting seasons.

The DNR already has designated much of eastern St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties as primary moose habitat. But intentionally keeping deer numbers very low is likely not something many deer hunters in the region would support.

“The deer will come back after a few mild winters. And we need some sort of ongoing effort to keep their numbers down,” Moore said.

Wolves, bear taking most calves

Moose have lived alongside wolves for millennia. But, in northern Minnesota, wolves have grown to higher densities thanks to white-tailed deer - some of the highest densities of wolves anywhere in the world. Wolves are most numerous in areas where deer are more numerous because it's far easier for wolves to kill a deer than kill a moose or elk.

But now that deer numbers have declined in the northeast, wolves either move out, starve or turn to other prey. And, for several weeks each summer, wolves and black bears are feasting on moose calves too small to escape. The number of calves surviving their first year, and getting old enough to reproduce on their own, is extremely low, barely enough to keep moose numbers stable. Until more calves make it, Minnesota’s moose population can’t grow.

“The primary cause of calf mortality is predation,” Moore said. Of the calves researchers have collared, 80% are killed in their first two weeks by wolves and bears.

Wolves in Minnesota are considered an officially “threatened” species, with slightly less protection than endangered status. That’s allowed an ongoing federal program to trap and kill wolves near farms where livestock have been killed. Moore thinks that would be a good idea in prime moose range, too, if public hunting and trapping moose remains off the table.

“Moose are the primary subsistence species of the Ojibwe people, that's their livelihood, their crop, so to speak. And you wonder why we can have a management program for farmers to protect cattle but not a wolf management program to protect moose,” Moore noted.

Moore added, however, that several tribal officials across northern Minnesota remain opposed to any wolf killing efforts.

“It’s a difficult topic. … I realize some tribal people are opposed to killing any wolves. But we have to realize what’s at stake here? Do we want to lose moose in Minnesota?” Moore added.

Good news, then bad news, but still hope

Last winter, the annual state survey of moose in Northeastern Minnesota showed an increase to about 4,700 moose after their numbers appeared stuck around 3,500 for several years. Crews will be back out next week to start the 2023 survey, with results released in spring.

The 2022 aerial survey found calves comprised an estimated 19% of the population with an estimated 45 calves per 100 cows. That’s the highest both indicators have been since 2005, when the population was near its peak and considered healthy. Both factors are indicators of potential improvement in reproductive success, critical to increase overall moose numbers.

In 2005, when the moose population was healthy, 52% of all cow moose surveyed had a calf still alive in January. That number dropped as low as 32% in the worst years recently but rebounded to 45% in 2022, the 2022 survey found.

But the 2022 survey was conducted in January, still early in a winter that became so severe that even long-legged moose struggled to survive, Moore noted. Some areas of moose range had nearly three feet of snow on the ground well into spring.

“We lost most of our collared deer due to winter severity last winter. But we also lost probably 25% of our collared moose. They started going in April and were still dropping even into July … they just got so weak during winter they couldn’t recover and died,” Moore said. “I have a feeling that the (2023) moose survey is going to be back down again after seeing so much mortality after last winter.”

Moore wants to see a cooperative effort eventually agree to a Minnesota moose recovery zone — an experimental area where extra efforts would be tried to see if moose numbers can be increased. That would mean not only large-scale swaths of fires and logging, but also an ongoing effort to keep deer numbers very low as well as some sort of focused wolf management, at least short term, to give moose calves a fighting chance at growing up.

Moore said he believes the effort can work if obstacles are overcome.

“I have some hope. I think it’s possible to keep moose on our landscape, but we have to act soon,” Moore said. “The good news is that the (Minnesota) DNR seems to be reinvesting some time, energy and thought into moose again, and that hasn’t really happened for a while. We need the DNR, and the Forest Service, fully engaged to really make this work.”

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Fond du Lac Band members mourn death of elder, healer, politician

Peter Passi — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 13:46:24 GMT

DULUTH — A fire has been burning for the past few days in memory of Ray “Skip” Sandman, 68, a Fond du Lac Band tribal elder, also respected as a healer, or nananbawewinini, the Ojibwe word for "one who doctors."

Sandman made a name for himself in the political realm, as well, twice running for Congress, once as a Green Party candidate and again as an Independence Party candidate.

His wife, Babette, said her husband’s political ambitions were inspired by a dream he had after an afternoon spent watching children swimming in the Lester River. He revisited the scene in a dream that night, and the children asked him: What are you going to leave us?

“It was like a bolt of lightning hit him. He said, ‘I’ve got to protect the water. These are our little kids.’ And he thought the best way to do that was to run for Congress,” Sandman said, recalling his staunch opposition to the development of copper-sulfide mining.

“I told him, ‘Skip, we don’t really do that.’ And he said, ‘What do you mean?’ Because I was raised on welfare and I had poverty thinking. ’You were raised on a reservation, and like, we don’t do that, Skip.’ And he asked, ‘Why not us?’ Then he told me his name and that he had to protect the water. And I just shut right up and said, ‘All right, let’s go for it. Holy smokes.’”

Babette Sandman said her husband’s bold decision to seek office has inspired others to step up, as well, including one of his seven children, Alicia Kozlowski, who is running for a District 8B seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

“For a lot of us young folks, what he did was create elbow space for everybody," Kozlowski said. "But also, he respected his gift so much as a spiritual adviser that he used that gift to help us step into the fullness of who we are, and that might include new workplaces, education, political spaces. For me, he played a humongous role in me being able to step into the fullness of who I am as a queer person, as an Indigenous person, and he actually made the first $100 donation to my campaign."

Shawn Carr, a military veteran, said Sandman was proud to have served his country in the Vietnam War. “I think he felt it was his obligation to his people and his country,” Carr said. “In fact, his whole life revolved around service to the people.

“A lot of people sought him out for spiritual healing. His most recent employment was as cultural adviser for Fond du Lac, and he did a lot of healings and ceremonies there. So, everything with Skip was about the people,” Carr said. “He was so many things to so many people.”

Sandman’s death has left community members in a state of shock, according to Carr.

Sandman had appeared to be on the mend from a recent heart attack and was expected to begin rehab in a matter of days, but he unexpectedly took a turn for the worse, passing away Sunday night.

Babette Sandman said his service to the Creator was of paramount importance to her husband.

“He was given his gift by the Creator, and the only way you can get that gift is through the dreamworld. That’s how he became a traditional healer,” she said. “So, it wasn’t his gift. It was a gift he carried for the people who came to him for healing.”

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Enbridge to pay $11 million for aquifer breaches during Line 3 construction

Jimmy Lovrien — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 20:43:48 GMT

DULUTH — Enbridge Energy will pay $11 million to the state and an Indigenous band after a series of aquifer breaches during the construction of its Line 3 oil pipeline across northern Minnesota last year.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Department of Natural Resources on Monday said the money would be spent on penalties, ongoing monitoring, environmental projects and financial assurances for three aquifer breaches near Enbridge's Clearbrook Terminal, LaSalle Creek in Hubbard County and just west of the Fond du Lac Reservation.

The MPCA also found Enbridge "violated a series of regulations and requirements including discharging construction stormwater into wetlands and inadvertently releasing drilling mud into surface waters at 12 locations between June 8, 2021, and August 5, 2021."

Additionally, the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Monday, Oct. 17, announced Enbridge admitted to the January 2021 breach in Clearwater County and that the company "further admitted that it understood or should have understood that the aquifer breach resulted from its construction activity, and that it delayed notifying the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources about the breach as required."

Repairs have stopped uncontrolled groundwater flow at the Fond du Lac Reservation breach while work has slowed the uncontrolled flow at the Clearbook breach to 20 gallons per minute and the LaSalle Creek to less than 1 gallon per minute, the MPCA and DNR said.

Of the $11 million, $1.45 million will go to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

"Today we assert our sovereignty through this enforcement action and demonstrate that the FDL Band will hold accountable any actors that violate our strong environmental standards," Fond du Lac Band Chairperson Kevin Dupuis said in a news release.

In a separate release, DNR commissioner Sarah Strommen said agency appreciated working with Fond du Lac in the aquifer breach investigation.

"In entering into these comprehensive enforcement actions, the DNR is holding Enbridge fully accountable and ensuring that the DNR has the resources needed to address the aquifer breaches," Strommen said.

MPCA's investigation requires Enbridge pay $2.4 million to the state and $2.6 million to fund environmental projects in affected watersheds along Line 3.

“At the start of this project, the MPCA issued our most stringent water quality certification to date and permits that were strong, enforceable, and protective — and this enforcement action holds Enbridge accountable for the violations that occurred during construction,” MPCA Commissioner Katrina Kessler said in the release.

In a statement, Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said: "We appreciate that we were able to come to agreement with the agencies and are committed to making this right."

Ellison filed a misdemeanor count against Enbridge in State District Court in Bagley for appropriating state waters without a permit through construction.

Kellner said the charge would be dismissed if it complies with state water rules for a year.

Ellison's office and Enbridge have entered into a diversion agreement that would dismiss the charge because Enbridge admitted to facts of the aquifer breach and will pay the maximum $1,000 fine. Enbridge has also agreed to fund up to $60,000 in wetland restoration in Marshall and Polk counties.

"The facts that Enbridge admits today about its breach of the aquifer constitute in the State’s view a criminal violation of the law," Ellison said in the release. "Corporations rarely admit facts that constitute a violation of criminal law."

Line 3 supporters, who touted the project as a boon for jobs, called the Monday's announcements "heavy handed."

"It's clear these fines — which are coming less than a month before the election and 12 months after the project was completed — are politically motivated by the demands of far-left Democrat environmentalists,” state Rep. Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, and state Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Grand Rapids, said in a joint statement.

The 340-mile-long Minnesota segment of Line 3 came online last year and was the last segment in the 1,000-mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Enbridge's Superior terminal. It faced stiff opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous bands who said the pipeline is unneeded, at risk of an oil spill, worsens climate change and violates Indigenous and treaty rights.

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Chippewa Tribe members vote to eliminate blood quantum

Dan Kraker / MPR News — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 17:07:09 GMT

DULUTH -- Members of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe have voted in a historic advisory referendum to eliminate a requirement that enrolled members must have 25% tribal blood.

Out of nearly 7,800 ballots cast, 64% of voters said the “blood quantum” requirement should be removed from the tribe's constitution, which was adopted under pressure from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in the early 1960s.

In a second referendum question, 57% said individual bands or reservations should be able to determine their own membership requirements. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is made up of six Ojibwe or Chippewa bands in northern Minnesota, the Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs and White Earth reservations.Red Lake Nation is not part of the MCT.

The advisory vote does not change the tribe’s constitution, but it does provide guidance to the Tribe’s executive committee as it decides how to proceed.

“The main issue is they (tribal members) want something done. It’s just a matter of where do we go from here,” said Bois Forte Tribal Chairwoman Cathy Chavers, who’s also the current President of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

The tribe has been debating the blood quantum issue for years. Since it was adopted in the 1960s the tribe's population has dwindled as tribal members marry non-members. Many parents who are members have children who don't qualify, even though they often grow up learning and participating in the culture.

“What (blood quantum reform) does for us is it strengthens our families and our communities,” said Cheryl Edwards, a Fond du Lac Band member who is one of the band’s delegates on the Chippewa Tribe's constitution reform committee.

“By removing blood quantum, it's allowing our traditions and our culture to be passed on to our children to keep it alive.”

But some argue that expanding membership would stretch already scarce resources for housing and other services. Others are concerned that regular payments from casino revenues that some bands distribute to members, known as per capita payments, could be reduced if membership grows.

Edwards argues the vote results direct the tribal executive committee to hold an election to amend the tribe’s constitution to eliminate the blood quantum requirement.

Chavers said the tribe’s constitution reform committee will present a report on the vote to the tribe’s executive committee at its next meeting in October. That group, which is made up of 12 elected leaders from the six Bands, will decide what steps to take next.

“For many years enrollment has been on the table. And nothing’s really been done,” Chavers said. “I think we’re on the right track.”

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