Dennis Neitzke
U.S. Forest Service Superior National Forest Gunflint District Ranger Dennis Neitzke is leaving the position he has held since August 2001 for a new job in the Dakota National Grasslands near Bismarck, North Dakota. The Cook County News- Herald talked to Neitzke this week about his 10-plus years in the Gunflint District and about his new job.
New business for Neitzke
Neitzke said he would be assuming the Forest Supervisor position at Dakota National Grasslands on August 27. He applied for the job back in February 2012 and interviewed in April but had not heard anything and thought someone else had been given the job. He received a call at the end of June, offering the job, which is a promotion.
He said it would be very interesting because it will be quite different. There is no logging in the approximately 1.4 million acre grassland. Issues there are cattle and grazing issues and oil and natural gas drilling. The Bakken Oil Shale Field is near the Grasslands National Park and drilling is being conducted near— and on—Forest Service land. Neitzke will be moving to a boomtown—the small community near the oil fields has grown from a population of 600 to 6,000, said Neitzke.
Old business – the Veggies
Neitzke has overseen or been involved with a number of controversial issues during his tenure as Gunflint District Ranger. The News- Herald asked about some of them, starting with perhaps one of the most divisive, the designation of an area of the Superior National Forest as a semi-primitive non-motorized area (SPNM). The SPNM included several popular fishing lakes named after vegetables, part of a chain of lakes with names such as Cucumber, Carrot, Bean and so on. The SPNM designation was part of the Forest Plan Revision completed in 2004 and it took some Cook County residents and visitors by surprise. Some felt the designation had not been adequately explained in the reams of documents surrounding the forest plan revision. Unhappy with plans for the change, a grassroots group created “Dump Dennis – Save the Veggies” bumper stickers
However, groups such as the Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness and the Sierra Club North Star chapter applauded the decision and argued that there needed to be more SPNMs in the forest.
The News-Herald asked Neitzke if the Vegetable Lakes were still SPNM and how that was working eight years later. Neitzke said, “The area is still closed to motorized use. We haven’t closed the road that goes in there, but people can’t snowmobile to Cucumber Lake. But people walk in.
“It is surprising—the number of folks that wanted to walk in there was equal to those who wanted to snowmobile in,” said Neitzke.
South Fowl snowmobile trail still pending
Neitzke said the snowmobile trail access between McFarland and South Fowl lakes in Hovland is “one thing I do have hanging.”
In 2003, Neitzke announced plans to shut down the approximately 2-mile trail that had been used since before the Boundary Waters Act of 1978 because it was found to enter the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for about 400 feet at one point. To replace the trail that had been used since the 1960s, Neitzke developed an alternative route— something that took from 2004 to 2006 and set off round after round of appeals within the Forest Service and in the courts. In October 2007, Judge John Tunheim directed the Forest Service to conduct an environmental impact study (EIS) on the impact of sound in the BWCAW from the snowmobile trail. That study included public comment periods and more opportunities for appeals, including the latest filed by the Sierra Club Northstar Chapter, Wilderness Watch, and Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness in 2011. The groups claimed the Forest Service’s evaluation of the impact to the BWCAW by snowmobiles adjacent to the wilderness boundary was not adequate.
In February 2012, the sound analysis was turned over to the National Park Service, which had completed a similar study at Yellowstone National Park. As he prepares to leave, Neitzke said the study is nearly complete. “Once the sound EIS is done, we have to figure out the legal side,” said Neitzke, noting that he has also been working with the U.S. Attorney’s office to determine the next steps.
Neitzke said that staff in the Superior National Forest headquarters in Duluth would carry the snowmobile access project forward.
Travel Management Plan moving ahead
Neitzke said another project, the Travel Management Plan (TMP), is being implemented now. (See related article on the left.) The TMP, which determines the disposition of roads in the Superior National Forest, was completed in 2010 but was delayed because of appeals by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), the Sierra Club and Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness. The groups claimed that implementing the travel management plan and allowing off-highway vehicles in the Superior National Forest would degrade the wilderness character of the BWCAW.
In April 2012, Judge Susan Richard Nelson ruled in the Forest Service’s favor, but Neitzke and his counterpart, Tofte District Ranger John Wytanis, decided to wait 60 days to ensure the opposition groups would not appeal. TMP opponents did not appeal, and Neitzke said the TMP is now official. Maps of the plan have been posted to the U.S. Forest Service website. “You must follow the map,” said Neitzke. “If it says on the map you can go there, you can ride there. If not, you can’t.”
The plan primarily places off-highway vehicle traffic on roads currently being used by other motorized vehicles. A total of 154 miles of unclassified road will be “decommissioned,” which means they will be obliterated.
Forest and fires
Although Neitzke came to Superior National Forest in 2001, he gained familiarity with the Northland after he was assigned to the forest as part of the team overseeing the 1999 Blowdown Storm cleanup. Prescribed burns were part of that cleanup, he said, something that did stir some controversy. Prescribed burns continued after he became Gunflint Ranger but Neitzke said over time the opposition dwindled.
“It was apparent they were effective, especially in Canada,” he said, noting that the 2007 Ham Lake Fire would have been much worse if prescribed burns had not been conducted.
“Ham Lake snuck through the only unburned areas. We were able to keep it away from the South Gunflint because of the prescribed burns that had been done,” he said.
Although he wasn’t directly involved with last summer’s Pagami Creek wildfire—Ely’s Mark Van Every and Tofte’s John Wytanis were the leads on that fire—Neitzke said everyone learned from that fire. “A lot of people were working on predictions and it defied all of them,” he said.
“If you look at national forests, if you can break up large areas, you can avoid these large fires. In the Pagami Creek fire, there was just so much old forest it did not behave as predicted.”
Less logging controversy
Neitzke said there does seem to be less adversity to logging in the last years of his tenure on Superior National. For example, current treatment of 3,924 acres, the Lima Green project near the Lima Grade Road and Greenwood Lake area, received little attention. “I think it is partly because we’re not working close to the wilderness boundaries,” said Neitzke.
No changes to Chain of Lakes permits
Neitzke inherited the 1999 lawsuit over the number of entry permits that should be issued to homeowners on the lakes and rivers abutting the BWCAW such as Saganaga Lake, including Gull Lake and Seagull River, in Cook County. Homeowners and resort owners argued that the number estimated by the U.S. Forest Service for use of these lakes was too low. Groups seeking to preserve the BWCAW sued the Forest Service, arguing that the number was “arbitrary and capricious.” The court directed the Forest Service to base the number of permits to be issued on actual use during 1976 – 1978. However, no records were kept of actual use by homeowners, resort owners and outfitters during those years.
There was frustration, especially for homeowners who now had to submit their names along with all the others who want to use the BWCAW to travel the waterways connected to the lakes where they lived.
“I think this one is dead in the water,” said Neitzke. “The reason [former Forest Supervisor] Jim Sanders gave is that we exhausted all of our options. There was no way to comply with the judge’s order to determine the number of permits.”
Cell tower concerns?
Although the major controversy over cell phone towers has been in the Ely area with a lawsuit initiated by the Friends of the Boundary Waters attempting to stop construction of a cell phone tower that could be seen within the BWCAW, there have been concerns expressed about a cell phone tower in the mid-Gunflint Trail area.
Neitzke said Superior National Forest policy is to allow communication towers less than 200 feet, which do not require lighting. He said he did sign approval for the AT&T communication tower being constructed at mid-Gunflint. “We’ve given the permit for the new tower replacing an existing tower. It has a higher wind-resistance capacity and it is still under 200 feet,” he said.
Appreciative of the people
Would he do anything differently? Neitzke said he had learned that you can’t please everyone but that it is important to engage with businesses and community groups “early and often.”
He said during the Ham Lake wildfire especially, he was impressed by the community. “There is nothing like being under the danger of losing your home to fire. But people came together. And afterwards, instead of picking fights, the community pulled together and did things like the Gunflint Green Up. The Gunflint Trail has developed the Chik-Wauk Museum. They restored the Blueberry Trail there. They are planning how to manage the trees that have been planted, releasing them.”
When the News-Herald noted that he had his share of ups and downs in his time in the Superior National Forest, Neitzke agreed. “There have been good days and there have been better days. But overall, I’ve enjoyed working with the people here—the people of the Gunflint Trail, the county commissioners, the Gunflint Trail Fire Department and other departments, local law enforcement.”
He said, “A lot of lessons have been learned.”
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