ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Armed with a white basket fastened around her waist and a pair of clippers in her left hand, Evanne Hunt waded through the restored Blueberry Hill tallgrass prairie south of Bayport.
“I’m looking for white prairie clover,” Hunt explained, clipping a seed head of the small white flower and dropping it into her basket. “It’s a cool plant. It starts to bloom from the bottom up. It looks like it has a little hat.”
Around her, other members of the St. Croix Valley chapter of The Prairie Enthusiasts worked to gather seed heads from anise hyssop and leadplant. For more than an hour, the volunteer seed-savers collected thousands of seeds for future local prairie restorations.
But the group’s passion for prairies extends beyond saving seeds. Their current mission is to save the Blueberry Hill prairie - named after the famous Fats Domino song - from development.
The native prairie remnant “dates back to the last Ice Age,” said Hunt, the group’s chairwoman. “It’s extremely rare. We’re very lucky to have an example of this ecosystem so close to enjoy,” she told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
The 13-acre prairie is owned by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. MnDOT officials purchased the land in the early 1970s, but plans to build a Minnesota 95 rest area on the site never materialized.
VOLUNTEERS STEP FORWARD
In 2003, The Prairie Enthusiasts reached out to MnDOT officials and arranged to manage the Blueberry Hill prairie, which is located on two parcels. The group has invested more than 1,300 volunteer hours removing non-native trees and brush from the prairie remnants, Hunt said.
In addition, the group has planted $8,000 worth of local prairie flowers and grass seeds and has conducted prescribed burns to rejuvenate the soil, flowers and grasses.
“Some people want to protect our birds; some want to protect our pollinators,” Hunt said. “Well, if you don’t give them habitat or food, you’re not going to have either of those. If you want your native birds and your native insects to live here, then you have to provide native plants.”
MnDOT officials kept the land in order to use it as a possible staging area for the recent Minnesota 95 construction project. The $7.7 million project, which includes pavement resurfacing, sidewalk improvements, drainage updates and utility repairs, is expected to be completed in late October.
Once the project is complete, MnDOT officials will determine whether the agency still needs the property. If there is no need, it can be declared to be surplus, said Joe Pignato, the director of MnDOT’s Office of Land Management. Under state statute, if the land is declared surplus, the land could be conveyed to another governmental agency for a “public purpose.”
ADVOCATES SEEK COUNTY’S HELP
Prairie enthusiasts are lobbying for Washington County to take up the prairie cause.
“I would like to see Washington County take it over and add it to their park system,” said Patrick Fleming, who lives in Lake Elmo. “It’s of value to the people who are around it, and that is Washington County.”
The prairie parcels include a 4.75-acre prairie remnant that MnDOT purchased from the Chicago and North Western Railway Co., and an 8-acre restored prairie that MnDOT purchased from Roy Olson using eminent domain.
Prairie land used to cover almost a third of Minnesota. Now, fewer than 180,000 acres - or less than 1 percent of the state - remains.
“The closer you get to a population area like Minneapolis or St. Paul, the less of that is there,” Fleming said. “It’s a place for people to see and experience a native-plant community where they don’t have to drive to Morris or Kansas or South Dakota.”
HABITAT FOR SONGBIRDS
The smaller prairie remnant is especially valuable, according to Fleming, because it has never been plowed or bulldozed. “There are more than 100 different plant species growing out there,” he said. “It could be as high as 200.”
The restoration of the prairie, which overlooks the St. Croix River, has created a songbird and pollinator habitat. It’s an excellent place to watch migratory birds as they return to their nesting grounds in the spring and leave again in the fall, said volunteer Wayne Huhnke. “You’ll see osprey go by with fish.”
The prairie parcels, located in West Lakeland Township, complement the nearby St. Croix Savanna Scientific and Natural Area in Bayport, said Huhnke, who owns Kinnickinnic Natives Plant Nursery in River Falls, Wis. “The plants and animals that are there also have an opportunity to use this site,” he said. “Having this protected here allows that gene flow to come through here.”
Washington County Commissioner Gary Kriesel said he supports efforts to preserve the Blueberry Hill prairie. “It’s one of those opportunities that can disappear,” he said.
PRESERVATION PROGRAM COULD HELP
One possible way to protect the prairie would be using funds from Washington County’s Land and Water Legacy program - a bond referendum passed by Washington County voters in 2006 authorizing up to $20 million in taxes to be raised and spent on parks, land preservation and water protection - to purchase the land from MnDOT. Projects along the St. Croix River are considered a high priority for protection in the county program, Kriesel said.
“The devil is in the details,” Kriesel said. “We would have to see if we can find a partner for the maintenance and the upkeep. The (program) works best when we partner with another agency.”
The Land and Water Legacy program has protected more than 900 acres in Washington County, and $12.6 million in funds have been expended, said June Mathiowetz, who administers the program for the county. Most recently, funds from the program have helped protect a property with a protected trout stream in Afton. A new conservation-area park with hiking trails will be developed on the site, a joint venture between the county, Afton, Belwin Conservancy and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
Pignato said it could take more than a year for MnDOT to determine whether the land is surplus. If the land is deemed to be surplus, the agency would begin the conveyance process.
MnDOT officials would most likely reach out to “the railroad and the private owner and offer it to them first, per (Minnesota) Statute 161.44,” Pignato said. “If they did not want to buy it, we would move to a sale by sealed bid.” Washington County could bid on the parcels through the sealed-bid process, he said.
Hunt, who lives in Hudson, Wisconsin, said she hopes Washington County residents step up and support the prairie-preservation effort.
“With all of these cities and counties and the state restoring pollinator habitat, it seems crazy to destroy a natural one,” she said. “If we don’t protect the remnants, we won’t have the seeds and the plants for the restoration. It makes no sense to plow this up and put houses in and then just down the road put in a pollinator habitat. That’s just crazy.”
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