Battling Invasive Carp / Governor Henry Hastings Sibley / Touring the BCA

capitol report is a production of senate media services this week a proposal to stop invasive carp from taking over minnesota's waterways gets a hearing in the senate and a key lawmaker offers his views plus governor walls tours the bca and touts law enforcement efforts to solve violent crime stay tuned for this and more on this week's capitol report [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to this week's program i'm shannon loehrke the mississippi river the wild and scenic saint croix river the minnesota river not to mention habitat ecology tourism and the economy would all be impacted if invasive carp are able to gain a foothold in minnesota the senate environment committee held an informational hearing this week to review the state's options from my perspective today's question is really very simple does the state of minnesota want to step up and do something and stop these carp or not we're at the point where there's no plan b there is a plan a i'll talk about it today it's not perfect it's feasible it's possible it has a great chance of succeeding to not act is a choice in and of itself because if they do start reproducing which could happen almost at any time given the numbers in minnesota waters there are no options to control them accept removal and this is what's happening in the illinois river right now at the cost of a couple million dollars a year and it's not controlling them it's just keeping the status quo this is the only plan on the table and once they get past lock into m5 i don't know of what options you have i no one has any options anywhere other than to hire commercial fishermen for a few million dollars to remove fish and that and make fertilizer out of them at great cost so we have folks that have never experienced the riverway coming out and really enjoying our national treasure all that will stop if the cop if the carp actually get here so i i really implore you to to heed the warning that the others have have laid out on the table and protect our our nation's first wild and scenic national park minnesota dnr is absolutely committed to invasive carp prevention and management and we are very supportive of finding new solutions to manage invasive carp and we're really grateful for our robust partnerships we have with folks in the room today and we want to continue to review potential solutions with all these partners including lock and dam number five because i think we all just want to find the best solution for minnesota joining me now in the studio is the chair of the senate environment and natural resources finance committee senator bill ingebrigtsen thanks for joining me thank you so much for having me what prompted you to convene a hearing on invasive carp well i just read another article in the uh and i forget what article was it was in the tribune or someplace that that there was a another carp found getting closer and closer to the state of minnesota and and uh the groups uh are uh becoming more concerned and and being part of this this process back in 2011 when governor dayton first had a actual carp summit uh it was very clear that at that time people were concerned about these flying carp coming up and getting into our lakes and waters in minnesota and what kind of devastation that they would do and then it seemed to kind of go off to the side nobody's been paying a whole lot of attention to it the dnr has been monitoring it doing this and that we expended i think five million dollars from the legacy committee to to have dr peter sorenson uh as a fish specialist to do the research as to how to how to prevent them from coming to minnesota instead of just managing them when they get here and that has finally now come to an end there can be no more science at least that's what's been said and we need to move forward speaking of dr peter sorenson he said minnesota is almost a bubble in that surrounding states do have the carp investing their water weight or infesting their waterways but not quite minnesota if it were to gain a foothold in minnesota what would be the impact well i think it would be terrible it would be a financial impact on on the recreation obviously the testifiers the more scientists even said than peter sorensen himself said the fisheries would be affected i mean these are these are huge things for minnesota where minnesota is known as a jewel when it comes to lakes waters and streams recreation fishing and if these flying carp who can actually come out of the water six to nine feet uh when agitated uh it becomes not only not only does it hurt the uh the ecology of the of the river it's a it's a public safety issue we have the most boats in the country and and people that will be boating will will uh you know in the worst case scenario have to wear helmets my goodness we can do something about this and we need to do it now you mentioned that the department of natural resources has been monitoring carp since about 2012. they've contracted with commercial fishers to to help manage them to capture some of them in your view have the dnr's efforts thus far been adequate no i don't think they have i i think i think you know if it's been a funding situation then then i guess we need to do we need to address that they need to come to the legislature with a with a little more of a serious face if you will this year's governor's budget did not include this so i'm not sure that the dnr's conveying to the administration what what this could potentially turn into if we don't deal with it and now with it with a surplus that we do have uh it seems like it's certainly the time to go ahead and do this uh the cost of it is you know fairly expensive but at the same time when you start talking about property damage uh property going down and devaluating through counties along the river and getting into our lakes and streams it's pennies compared to what we can lose so we need we need to move we need to move quick testifiers at today's hearing said that minnesota faces a choice we can stop them now and there's a proposal we'll talk about in a moment or we can spend lots of dollars managing them in the future pointing out that once the fish becomes established it cannot be eradicated is the situation this dire i think it is and if and if you think back of the uh the invasive species that we are now monitoring trying to control whether the zebra mussel curly leaf pond weed milfoil and now the there's another terrible one coming it's called a starry stone wart by not dealing with it head on immediately right away we end up spending tons and tons of money millions of dollars lake associations cities counties on all this trying to maintain and trying to trying to hold it back we have an opportunity here to stop one of the most devastating invasive species we should step up and do it and do it right now so the proposal that that the committee heard today would modify lock and dam number five which is near lake pepin it was testified that this is an ideal location and it would also include the installation of a bio-acoustic fish fence to stop the invasive carp from being able to move any further north what are your thoughts on this approach i like it i like it the engineering has been been already accomplished with the dollars that have been expended uh the sound barrier the barrier actually has been has been now tested and working uh it works in i believe it's the state is kentucky right now they're just now starting to put together uh some statistics on how well it's working but nevertheless we don't have time the scientist has been working on this for years and he's a renowned fish scientist dr peter sorensen from the university of minnesota says there is no more science we have we don't have to do any more research that research is done something has to be done now or we will be we will be infested before long governor walls has said on more than one occasion that he is in favor of a special session maybe yet this year to do something with that nine billion dollar surplus that the state still has if there were to be a special session would you try to garner some funding for this proposal to to solidify lock and damn number five and prevent hopefully carp from getting any further north you know i would and and there's talk about well who's going to pay for it is it going to be minnesota is it going to be wisconsin is it going to be the federal government you know quite frankly i don't care who pays for it it all comes out of the same pocket at one time or another we need to get it done if we have to collect some money put the hand out afterwards to do that we'll go right ahead and do that i'm a little taken back that the governor hasn't taken this a little more serious and asked for it in his budget he did not ask for this particular uh situation you know to for funding in the budget but yes if it if it comes down to a special session and and we know this is my last one or this is my last year i will definitely ask in fact i'm going to follow up with the governor and the governor's office as well as the dnr commissioner and and get together and meet with these people and and get this moving forward you can't just okay we had another meeting now we're not going to do anything this has to be done well to that end senator scott dibble who sits on the committee and is a member of the dfl party was also in favor of this he he indicated that everybody should work together on this yeah he knows prevention and he's and i agree with him 100 prevention is better than than reacting after something has happened and then it's just controlling trying to control trying to control and these things aren't going to be controllable they're going to they're going to rot our whole system and we just don't want that now you mentioned that this is your last year and so i've got you in the hot seat and i get to ask you um just a retrospective you were elected to the minnesota senate in 2006 following a career in law enforcement that included your position as douglas county sheriff for i think 16 years you have devoted your adult life to service and so as you prepare for this next step when you look back on your senate career what will you be proud of what will you remember fondly well i think politically i will i will remember the the fact that being a republican that um the republican was the senate had been controlled by the uh by the democrats for over 40 years and then starting my second term in the senate we actually took control for the first time was 11 and 12. then we lost it again for four years and then we've had it back and forth so of the 16 years that i have been in the senate the republicans have been in control of the senate which is quite a trend quite a it's quite a change so i you know i can be part of that uh what i think is uh success when it comes to politics in minnesota especially but as far as what have i done and accomplished sometimes you think back of what are the things that i feel at least in my district that i have stopped from from happening whether it be you know a 10 million dollar amendment that made no sense whatsoever to me but being part of the process of stopping that or something as simple as uh this last last session when when i was able to do something for special needs people to actually get them to get the uh the vaccination quicker because i do have a 63 year old brother-in-law that lives with me that's down syndrome and it just seemed right that those folks should be concluded with the people that were at high risk because they are at high risk and to be able to move that along that kind of that kind of thing is very rewarding to me and then of course my public safety uh career uh uh being part of that and and uh being here to to advise like we do as a citizen legislature it's been just nothing but a nothing but a true honor senator bill ignorance and it has been an honor thank you so much thank you so much [Music] [Applause] [Applause] members of the capitol press corps were recently invited to tour saint paul's bureau of criminal apprehension facility for a demonstration of the forensic processes used on firearms retrieved from crime scenes following the tour the governor and law enforcement officials spoke about how the state is handling the uptick in violent crime and the need for increased funding we heard it time and time again at dozens of stops invest money in us and invest money in the bca and the researchers and the investigators and we will bring down these numbers and that is proving to be true so i have to tell you we we asked the legislature to invest 300 million dollars with great fungibility for local control we still need to do that we still need to make that case starting in 2019 we asked for an enhanced ability to be able to tie these crimes together through the fusion center we asked for an increase of approximately two dozen state patrol officers and we asked in the bonding bill for an extension of this office in a field office of the bca to take some of the pressure off that you're going to hear from commissioner harrington and superintendent evans about just the sheer backlog of things that happen and how that slows down you're also going to hear that in many cases the sense of urgency about finding and getting making sure that there's accountability for people who are committing these crimes but so many times these are tied to multiple crime scenes with one or two individuals that the sooner we're able to process them it's not just making an impact on a crime that's already been committed it's stopping those future crimes from being committed by getting those perpetrators off the streets reverend king once noted that it we are caught in that inescapable network of mutuality what affects one person individually affects us all and and literally that's how public safety in the state has worked whether it is state patrol going out doing heat and working on reducing speeding which was at an atrocious level more recent reports 125 and a 60 that's insane and the sudden stop when that happens we've seen the consequences in the the rise in fatal crashes the bca efforts to try and impact investigations through investigations and proactive policing to try and take guns off the streets the governor noted and i will take off script a little bit to say we have a need for speed because the speed with which we take a bad guy off the street the speed with which we take a gun off the street means that a payback shooting a revenge shooting a consequence of gang activity can't happen if the bad guy is already in custody and if his gun is already in lockdown we have to increase the speed with which we hold people accountable in order to keep people safe because they didn't in fact it is a prevention method that way [Applause] [Applause] a leading figure from minnesota's territory days through its early statehood is henry hastings sibley the state's first governor brian pease of the minnesota historical society tells us more [Music] henry sibley played a significant role in minnesota history he served as the territory's first representative in congress of the territory of minnesota he was minnesota's first governor he helped frame the state's constitution and he had a good relationship with the dakota people when he worked in fur trading how did henry sibley come to call minnesota home he started out as a young man coming to minnesota as a representative of the american fur company he was 23 years old when he was given the responsibility to be kind of the representative of the headquarters for that fur company in minnesota and so he you know built a house in the 1830s eventually across from historic fort snelling and really became an iconic figure for not only the people that were coming into visiting you know visit what would have been minnesota at that time and also had a strong relationship with a lot of the native people especially the dakota people that he was working with to get the furs back into his company henry sibley had a relationship with a native woman and that produced a daughter her name was helen um his work also with fur trading dealt with a lot of native american people how did those relationships influence his views well i think he was living in both worlds because you know the his customers were the dakota people or any anyone else that was bringing in the supplies and the goods that he wanted you know especially the fur and so um he would spend time with a lot of dakota people out hunting going on expeditions you know he's pretty well known for you know his relationship with the dakota people in fact his nickname was walker and the pines and so you know they accepted him as you know almost one of them but of course as more people move in and to you know colonize or take over the land you have to divide your loyalty to well i'm a white person so i want to talk about more about the influences i have with that population because the dakota people or other native people you know they're important but they're not by the 1840s and 50s the fur companies are kind of losing their popularity for companies are losing business and so it's like we kind of have to move on from that chapter into the next chapter of minnesota's history this part of the united states was undergoing great change what did the territory look like in 1851 about a decade after the failure of the american foreign company it was uh expanding rapidly you have the treaty of traversa sioux which henry sibley had a vested interest in a lot of the dakota by the time of those treaties in 1851 were in an incredible debt to the american fur companies and so as these treaties take place the traders are insisting that they get a payment of that treaty to pay off those existing debts and so that you know complicates some of the interactions he had with dakota leaders because they felt they were being cheated out of some of their money but in in the we have to look at this idea that people are progressing and so either you're progressing with us or you're part of the problem and so dakota people were in the way so we have to take that you know buy that land purchase that land and put them on reservations and then hopefully they become acculturate and become part of our civilization and that leads to a lot of resistance obviously because people are not always willing to bend to the will of a greater power or you know a group of people saying you have to be this way sibley was sworn in as governor in may of 1858 just days after the state officially became a state what were some of his accomplishments as governor not a lot in the sense of you know two years isn't a lot of time that was the standard until all the way up to the 1960s governors only served two-year terms and so um he was elected in october of 1857 so he didn't quite have two full years but he was one of those governors that um was faced with all kinds of economic hardships within the new territory and the new state of minnesota so he ended up that first year as a governor with a five million dollar loan debacle which was the constitutional creators decided in the constitution the state can only borrow 250 000 dollars so you can't lend out more than 250 000 well they wanted these railroads so so badly in minnesota to help the prosperity and the progress that they decided to change the constitution just months after it was adopted by this the citizen citizens of the new state of minnesota so they got the legislature to you know make that constitution amendment passed the public voted for it to pass and so they started trying to give out these certificates to these railroad companies which at the same time there was an economic panic one of the great panics of american history where everything all the investments that were brought into minnesota got sucked out almost immediately so the bottom line was they they gave these companies these loans for five million dollars and only a few miles of railroad were ever built so that was a debt we had to pay off until the 1880s and so that really strapped sibley as a governor trying to kind of rectify that that horrible situation so what happened as a result of that is his political opponent's opponents kind of tried to paint him into a corner that he was in fault for all are at fault for all these kind of hindrances to pro minnesota's progress and he was actually against it and so he was even fighting you know releasing these bonds to these companies but the court overruled him and so so that's kind of his legacy as the five million dollar loan but you know you you can credit him we have our latoyah du norris our star of the north symbol and our state model that's something that he created with the idea that we can be a guiding light for other states to follow so so as for accomplishments there really was a lot he he was able to do in that two-year time period both henry sibley and alexander ramsey ran for governor for the first you know gubernatorial election henry sibley won how did that impact their relationship when alexander ramsey was the first territorial governor when he came to minnesota he had no place to stay so he henry sibley invited him to stay at his house until they could find a place for him to live in saint paul and so they were political you know antagonists for many many years in fact that first state election for governor sibley and ramsey were competing against each other and simply only won by 240 votes so it was a really close election and there's of course allegations of fraud and that type of stuff and probably was but it's one of those things where i thought you know they were political opponents but i think they had a relationship a friendship in fact when the u.s dakota war began alexander

ramsey came to henry sibley's house and said i need you to lead these troops because you're the you know most skilled at working with these dakota people because you had engaged and interacted them with them for decades and so we need you to help put down this this war that's taken place in minnesota eventually they were able to and the ward chief little crow at that time was pushed out and his followers left with him but um as part of that conversation of what do we do with the people who were considered peaceful or really didn't have a role in that they were put in at a camp at fort snelling basically a concentration camp and some people say in a tournament camp just because by virtue of that war taking place they were going to abrogate their treaty they're basically saying you did all these bad things now you can no longer live here so they were exiled from the state of minnesota eventually so he was a proponent of that he was a proponent when they did these military trials trials of hanging over 300 men that were part of those battles or alleged you know people who were killing people white people in particular and so you know he was i think you know part of the idea that justice has to be served and based on what i've heard these people are guilty even though historians have argued since those days that the trials that were conducted for the dakota people were not fair and it's pretty evident that that was the case but he was in that situation of people were asking for justice in minnesota we have 600 and you know at that time they thought it was a thousand people killed and it's like where's the justice somebody has to pay the the penalty for all these deaths and so that's kind of the emotion that was generated throughout the state of minnesota someone has to pay for that and so the dakota men that were found guilty were the the best choice for that up you know of opera that opportunity for frontier justice but the other part lincoln weighed in and said a lot of these guys were just participants in battles so why would i execute them there's no no reason to do that so that's where they from the 303 you know deemed um of capital crimes uh that was that list was paired down to 38. and so that's and unfortunately for minnesota that's the largest mass execution u.s history in our state and that was in 1862 so much of henry sibley's contributions were made outside of public office but are they still significant absolutely you know he was the first territorial delegate in 1851 for the minnesota territory he was an early founder of you know our state basically one of those guys who was part of the constitutional convention so you know he got his political experience in the 1850s up until you know after you know politically he was pretty much done after 1860 but he was a member of the community of saint paul he was the president of the saint paul gas company he was you know the part of the board of regents for the u of m so yeah he i think his legacy was part of it was he was one of those first people here first european american anglo-american people here so he kind of paved the road for the what would happen in minnesota in the future just because of his you know working with the dakota people being an important part of kind of the political atmosphere in the early early history and so i think that tends to be romanticized and you you always think of all these great accomplishments that he did have and we can't take that away from him he did have these accomplishments but like we've talked about you know there's always good and bads and so he's really a man of that time where he has to make decisions tough decisions you know how do i best operate my business and still treat people fairly and so you know the way i look at it he saw everything as either you know it's there's a there's a sense of justice and and uh and if something isn't you know the way it should be for justice sake there has to be something that remedies that and obviously that's where the trials and all those decisions were made about dakota people but it's one of those things where it's hard for him i think you know or even us today to look at and and we can see all the bad things but there was also a lot of accomplishments as well [Music] do [Music] join us again next week as we delve into more topics affecting minnesotans i'm shannon loehrke and on behalf of all of us at senate media services thanks for watching

2022-08-15 00:09

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