Star Tribune
Minnesota, U.S. are losing valuable wetlands at increasing rate
Until the 1970s the vast majority of that loss was agricultural, from farmers draining land for crops. The country is still losing wetlands to agriculture, but it’s also seeing them flooded away, lost to sea-level rise and logging, converted to artificial lakes and ponds and drained for suburban development, the report found.
“Over time our wetland policies at a national level have become less stringent,” Lang said. “And now we’re kind of burning the candle at both ends — we’re still losing wetlands to people ditching and filling them, but we’re also losing them to these more complicated factors.”
The report shows that one of the major ways the Upper Midwest has been losing vegetated wetlands — swamps, bogs and marshes covered with shrubs, cattails or trees — is by converting them into open-water ponds. That can happen when a housing developer drains an intact marsh to build a subdivision and then digs a larger shallow pond that supports little or no wildlife in the middle of that subdivision. And it happens when loggers clear cut the trees out of a swamp, and saplings fail to regenerate.
Ponds and tree-less swamps are still wetlands, but they don’t come close to producing the same levels of wildlife, water quality or carbon storage as before. As vegetated wetlands have declined, the number of ponds and non-vegetated wetlands have risen in Minnesota and across the country, which can obscure the magnitude of the loss, the Fish and Wildlife Service warned.
Efforts are needed to protect the old wetlands and not simply replace them with less valuable ponds, the report said. The first step would be to create a dataset that maps out the location, type and abundance of the nation’s wetlands and to model the functions and services the landscapes provide. That would help regulators better protect the most valuable wetlands and make sure that any that are lost to development are replaced by those of the same quality.
(Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
In Minnesota, the biggest losses have been to the state’s forested wetlands — the swamps and floodplains with heavy tree cover. Of the 140,000 acres of forested wetlands in the state that were lost between 2006 and 2020, about 20% were expected to return, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Much of the rest was degraded into open water or “emergent” wetlands with little tree cover.
Mahtomedi’s volleyball team started the 2023 season 3-7. But still, the Zephyrs peaked at the right time and made it to state for a second year in a row.
This go-around, undefeated Mahtomedi (10-0) hasn’t taken long at all to start clicking.
On Tuesday night, 14 kills each from senior outside hitter Kaili Malvey and senior middle blocker Silvie Graetzer helped the Zephyrs sweep visiting South St. Paul 25-17, 25-18, 25-10.
After the program’s first trip to state in 2022, then returning in 2023, the team is thriving. With seven seniors and five juniors on the roster and all its starters returning, Mahtomedi “started at such a higher point this season,” Graetzer said. “And now our end goal is so much higher. We’re not there to get to state. We’re there to do damage at state.”
Against South St. Paul (14-4), the Zephyrs dealt with injuries to two sidelined starters heading into the match and faced the Packers’ high-swinging outside hitter, senior Alaina Panagiotopoulos.
“[Our injured players, Sahar Ramaley and Katie Hergenrader] pushed us to play for each other, and I think we really executed,” Malvey said.
Nine digs and 14 service receptions by junior libero Claire Crothers, plus six blocks by Graetzer, helped numb the swinging sting of Panagiotopoulos’ eight kills. They prepped for her in practice, focusing on eye work in blocking drills and taking up space on the court.
Another offseason key for the Zephyrs took place 10 minutes down the road in Lake Elmo. While not all of last year’s starters played club, all of them participated in club training this year, with a big Zephyrs contingent at Kokoro Volleyball. Even if the Zephyrs weren’t on the same team at Kokoro, they saw each other in the weight room, learned similar schemes.
St. Paul is among the cities that have tried sending money to very low-income residents, studying the results. When Springboard launched its project in 2021, it was one of the nation’s first guaranteed income programs aimed at artists.
“It’s not because we think artists are more deserving or more worthy than anyone else,” said Laura Zabel, Springboard’s executive director. Creative work is one form of labor that, like caregiving, “our economy doesn’t value” but that communities need — now more than ever, she said.
“I love thinking about guaranteed income as a way of honoring that we all have contributions to make to our community, and we need a little bit of time and space and breathing room to make those contributions,” Zabel said.
A similar experiment also started in 2021 in San Francisco, run by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, has ended. In 2022, the Creatives Rebuild New York program began providing some 2,400 artists in New York with $1,000 per month for 18 months. That same year, Ireland’s government began providing 2,000 artists about $350 a week, or about $18,200 a year, as part of a three-year pilot program.
Every 18 months, Springboard has extended its program’s funding. Now, it’s guaranteeing artists five years of income. The first 25 participants, who have received income since 2021, will see that money continue for two more years. Those who started receiving it 18 months ago, including 25 artists in Otter Tail County, will continue. And the 25 new recipients there will begin the program knowing they’ll get money for five years.
“So, from a research perspective, that’s very exciting — to be able to research and understand some of the difference between folks who know from the beginning the longer time horizon,” Zabel said, “and what that allows them to do in terms of planning and commitment to their community.”
DULUTH — A Duluth man who said he doesn’t remember killing his girlfriend pleaded guilty to second-degree murder without intent Tuesday in St. Louis County court — a plea deal that could land him in prison longer than sentencing guidelines would dictate.
Dale John Howard, 25, told Judge Theresa Neo that he doesn’t remember it but believes he caused the death of his girlfriend, Allisa Marie Vollan, 27, on March 22. Vollan, described on a fundraising site as a “bright young lady” with “an abundance of friends,” had a no-contact order against Howard at the time of her death. Howard could be sentenced to 20 years in prison — more than seven years longer than Minnesota’s presumptive guideline for the murder. According to the county attorney’s office, the longer sentence is legal because of the active domestic abuse no-contact order against him.
Howard’s sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 14.
According to court documents, officers responded to a morning call at Howard’s Central Hillside apartment and found him beneath a blanket with Vollan, who was dead. He told officers that he had hung out with Vollan late the previous night, then left to meet friends at a bar, and Vollan went to sleep in a guest room. When he tried to move her into his bedroom the next morning, she wasn’t breathing. He called his father, who was at the apartment when Duluth police arrived.
Neighbors in the upper level of the duplex told officers that, in the time before Howard would have left for the bar, they heard a woman crying and an angry male voice. They heard muffled moaning, thuds and the sound of something being dragged. They recorded it.
A preliminary autopsy by the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office found that Vollan had likely been smothered.
Earlier the same month, Howard had been arrested after neighbors saw him repeatedly slam Vollan’s head into a door. The no-contact was issued by a St. Louis County judge.
