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The Cook County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors has written a letter of support to the U.S. Forest Service for Lutsen Mountains Corps to expand its ski hill operation on 495 acres of public land.
The Forest Service extended the public comment period on the application for special use permit filed by Lutsen Mountains until December 9, 2021.
Lutsen Mountain has proposed doubling its current 90 runs, adding seven chairlifts, a new mountain top chalet, two new base snow-making facilities, and 1260 additional parking spaces to its existing 200 parking spaces. The Superior Hiking Trail would also have to be re-routed under this plan.
In its letter to Constance Cummins, Forest Supervisor, and Michael Jimenez, Superior National Forest supervisor, the Chamber stated, “For Lutsen Mountains, the imperative is to either grow or slowly die—as so many small ski resorts have died because they could not afford the technological upgrades, facilities improvements and ski terrain modifications that skiers demand and the industry giants—especially Vail and Alterra Mountain Co.—have the wherewithal to provide.”
The Chamber letter also points out, “It is clear that the Superior Forest staff prefers Alternative 3, which it designed, over Alternative 2, developed by Lutsen Mountains. There appear to be two principal reasons for that preference: protection of a growth of northern white cedar on the western slope of Moose Mountain and eliminating the need to move a short portion of the Superior Hiking Trail.
“As the EIS (environmental impact statement) for this project reports, the Northern White Cedar is an important tree to the Ojibwe people, and the acreage under question falls within the boundaries of the 1854 Ceded Territory. But as the EIS also reports, the 66 acres of northern white cedar affected by Lutsen Mountains’ proposal equals just 17 hundredths of 1 percent (.0017) of the 38,348 acres of northern white cedar within the 1854 Ceded Territory.
“Were the Ojibwe people and Lutsen Mountains both seeking use of these 66 acres of cedar, certainly the rights of the Ojibwe people under the 1854 treaty would require deference. But there is no evidence that the Ojibwe people have ever used or ever plan to use this specific growth of northern white cedar in any way. We respectfully suggest it is unreasonable to prohibit inclusion of this small cedar acreage in the ski-area expansion— on land the Forest Service has designated for recreational use—because of a remote chance it might at some undefined future date become a focus of Ojibwe gathering.”
But the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa countered the Chamber’s endorsement with this, “The Cook County Chamber of Commerce letter supporting the proposed expansion of Lutsen Mountain Corporation onto 500 acres of US Forest Service (USFS) lands reveals a lack of understanding regarding the 1854 Treaty and fiduciary responsibility of the USFS to the signatory Tribes. As the largest employer in Cook County and signatory tribe to the 1854 Treaty, we find this disappointing. To assist the Board of Directors, we offer evidence of current and historic Tribal interests and usufructuary rights, USFS rules that govern issuance of Special Use Permits, and principles regarding the interpretation of the 1854 Treaty.”
What followed was long legal discourse laying out the 1854 treaty rights granted by the U.S. to the tribes, but the letter from Grand Portage further stated, “The Chamber’s assertion betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of retained treaty rights. Just as the owner of a parcel of land holds property rights to that land regardless of whether they have recently used or developed it, the retained usufructuary rights of a signatory tribe exist regardless of current on historic usage.”
The letter from Grand Portage also argues that clearing large forest areas to create permanent open alpine ski runs on the north and south side of Moose Mountain would “negatively impact a designated trout stream and two intermittent streams that flow into Lake Superior. Removal of forest and conifer cover in upstream watersheds is associated with elevated peak flows, bank erosion, sedimentation, loss of water clarity, and increased water temperature that degrade fisheries and other sensitive aquatic life. Fragmentation of already vulnerable mature sugar maples and cedar stands, decimation of tribally important historic rails and cultural sites, and disturbance of wetlands and other cultural resources within the expansion site likely constitute permanent losses of Treaty-reserved property rights and resources.”
The following day the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors admitted the mistake and announced to Chamber members they would resubmit their letter of support to the Forest Service after removing the following: Were the Ojibwe people and Lutsen Mountains both seeking use of this 66 acres of cedar, certainly the rights of the Ojibwe people under the 1854 treaty would require deference. But there is no evidence that the Ojibwe people have ever used or ever plan to use this specific growth of northern white cedar in any way. We respectfully suggest it is unreasonable to prohibit inclusion of this small cedar acreage in the ski-area expansion – on land the Forest Service has designated for recreational use – because of a remote chance it might at some undefined future date become a focus of Ojibwe gathering.
The letter from the Chamber was signed by Executive Director Jim Boyd who said, “I regret that my words caused offense. My focus, on behalf of the Chamber board, was on using the comment period to build the strongest possible case for the original Lutsen Mountains proposal over the alternative proposal offered by the U.S. Forest Service staff.
“In a larger sense, however, please understand that no matter what words we use to make our case, it was inevitable that the Chamber and the leaders of Ojibwe community would find themselves on opposite sides of this issue. Grand Portage opposes the entire Lutsen Mountains expansion as a violation of the terms of the 1854 Treaty. The view of the Chamber board, expressed in its letter of support, is that Lutsen Mountains must expand or die, that expansion is allowed under the terms of the 1854 treaty, and that Lutsen Mountains makes a compelling case for its original expansion design.
“Now it is up to the Superior National Forest supervisor to consider those competing arguments, and others, and come to a decision. I am hopeful we can all recognize that honorable differences of opinion are possible on this important question. The Chamber’s public comments will continue to be directed only to the U.S. Forest Service as part of its formal adjudicative permitting process.”
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