Home
Mission &
Principles
Statement
Bylaws
Meet the
Steering
Committee
Get Involved!
Links to
Progressive
Sites
Contact Us!
Point of View By Barb Olsen
“Duluth’s Green Landscape of Memory For Sale”
Printed in the Duluth News Tribune
We’ve all admired it—that green ribbon of land that rings Duluth and creates a panorama most U.S. cities U.S. can only dream of. But if you, like many of us, thought this green belt was a protected and permanent fixture of the city, think again.
Much of this land is held by the city of Duluth and St. Louis County, and increasingly it’s being sold off to help make financial ends meet. We are not alone in this trend. According to a new U.S. Forest Service report, America is losing 6,000 acres of open space each and every day.
Are we mortgaging our city’s future and quality of life by selling these public tax-forfeit lands? Today, that’s a possibility we need to begin paying attention to, while there’s still time to preserve the forested parts of our city that have long been treasured by residents and tourists alike.
In 1975, Duluth had an estimated 9,000 acres of tax-forfeit land, forming a necklace of green around Skyline Parkway and throughout our neighborhoods. These are the special places where many of us, as kids, climbed trees, built tree houses, and fished. The places where we soaked up the sounds of a rushing brook and took in the smell of pine trees and decaying leaves.
This landscape of memory is what many of us treasure about Duluth, the spectacular landscape that continues to exert a powerful draw. It’s also part of what cleanses our surface water, sustains wildlife, prevents flooding, and provides opportunities for recreation. It’s not simply fallow land waiting to become “productive.” It’s highly productive already—both environmentally and economically.
These forests and public lands have been disappearing piece-by-piece for years, however, so that today that 9,000-acre-figure has been reduced to about 7,000 acres. Even more alarming, the steady sale of public lands has recently changed to a veritable hemorrhage. Increasingly, tax-forfeit land is being treated as an asset to be liquidated to improve budgets reeling from skyrocketing health care costs and decimated by state cuts to local governments.
Just in recent days, this trend has become even more clear as St. Louis County forwarded to the Duluth Planning Commission a list of nearly 120 parcels of public tax-forfeit lands in Duluth that they propose be reclassified from conservation to non-conservation so they can be sold. With virtually no public input, the Planning Commission approved most of the reclassifications. That decision now goes to the Duluth City Council for approval.
It appears the City and the County are operating in near darkness, with no citywide plan for how much land would be sold and no information about how these changes would impact watersheds, stream water quality and quantity, access to wildlife, and recreation. No Environmental Impact Statement has been undertaken. And no consideration seems to have been given to the effect of dumping large quantities of new property onto the local real estate market.
One can understand why this approach is tempting. We need to take a hard look at the situation, however, and ask ourselves and our city leaders, “Are we selling the natural capital that sets Duluth apart?”
A large proportion of Duluth’s revenue comes from taxes generated by tourists. And what do tourists come to see? Not the cookie cutter-subdivisions, franchised fast food restaurants, polluted water, and denuded hillsides they can see in all too many American cities. Tourists come to see our forests, streams, beaches, and unparalleled views and vistas. Too often, however, these natural assets are taken for granted as unconnected to our economic prosperity, as unrelated to the taxes paid by tourists. But they play a central role in our area’s economic prosperity, including those tourism taxes that support our public services. They can continue to do so, though, only if we ensure they are not sold out from under us.
It is not solely the right of St. Louis County or City of Duluth officials to determine whether these lands are preserved or sold. These lands belong to all of us
It’s crucial we demand that the County and City honor our wishes. Raise your voice on this matter. Get in touch with the St. Louis County Land Department, St. Louis County’s Commissioners, Duluth’s City Councilors, and the City of Duluth to tell them this land must not be sold without careful consideration of the impacts. Because even though we could sell the land with ease, it’s unlikely we would ever again be able to reclaim it once it was gone.
Barb Olsen is a member of the Steering Committee of Progressive Action
JOIN US!
Members enjoy lively debate and discussion on our email list.
Click
here
for more info
[Get Involved]
[Become a member!] [Progressive
Links]