7846

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7846
• Author: American River Management Society
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1994
• Copyright Material: NO

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· How people have used the river, both today and over time, and how their use of the river modified the
river -- removal of vegetation, changes in topography, dams of water flow, diversion of water,
erosion of shoreline;

· How the river looks; the aesthetics of the river can be a testament to people's stewardship of it and a
way of communicating what is special and unique about a particular location. I can talk all day
about what I find special about the Mississippi Headwaters; you will understand me better if I
show you a picture of a landscape that is meaningful to me. We may find that we have something
in common about the landscape;

· How the river conuibutes to human knowledge; the river is a place that supports our human and
natural life; it also provides opportunities to understand biology, botany, hydrology, history,
culture, sociology and economics; and fmally,

· How the river conuibutes to human pleasures; the river is a place to enjoy. Your leisure activities
may be purposeful -- you are hunting a deer you will be eating over the winter; or gathering wild
rice, or fishing for dinner, or you are seeking a special plant or the chance to see an eagle. Your
activities may be without purpose -- a chance to float the river, to use the river as a snowmobile
trail. The river provides the location: you provide the recreation.

By reviewing and identifying the five elements of river values, moves the MHB, as a river manager, beyond the
limitations of natural resource management by land use regulation and become more than biologists,
archaeologists, recreationists, scientists, landscape architects, or sanitarians. We are on the way to becoming
what Doug Carter, Michigan's river manager, calls "riverologist."

The MHB was created in the following way. First, the U.S. Congress determined that the Mississippi River
should be protected above the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and it directed the National Park Service
to write a plan evaluating the river's potential to be included in the National Wild and Scenic River System. The
Park Service found the river to be eligible, at certain locations, for inclusion. Their environmental review was a
comprehensive document that is still useful to the MHB.

Expansion of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area within the Superior National Forest in the late 1970s and
establishment of Voyageurs National Park at the same time contributed to an atmosphere of anti-federal
government sentiment in rural Minnesota about the time the Park Service was evaluating the desirability of
National Wild and Scenic River designation on the Mississippi. Minnesota had its own shoreland zoning
program in place and its own state wild and scenic rivers program in place. Four rivers had been placed in the
state program. Three rivers had been recommended for inclusion, but dropped due to public opposition. The
impetus to organize a local initiative to protect the Mississippi River was spawned as a result of these twin
issues: opposition to expanding federally-managed public lands and opposition to the state control of wild and
scenic rivers. A state legislator brought together the first eight counties on the Mississippi River and guided the
development of an alternate plan for river management. The plan of the eight counties was successful: the Park
Service but its recommendations on the shelf, once the eight counties added certain elements, such as long term
funding, standing in state statute and participation of tribal government.

The MHB was empowered, by its founders and then by the State of Minnesota to protect the natural, cultural,
scenic, scientific and recreational values of the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River and then to partially
achieve this mission by limiting land use in the river corridor and to set standards for permitted building in the
river corridor. Thus, the MHB was empowered and directed to look at the river in two ways. Very specifically,
by applying fixed rules to people's use of the shorelands, allowing agricultural, forestry, recreational and
residential uses according to the limits of the plan, and very broadly, to find a way to think about the river as a
resource that is part of a system of which human use is a small part. Natural resources managers are experienced
at mitigating, or compensating, for uses. An eagle's nest is protected by drawing a line around it and limiting
access to the area within that circle. If a wetland is broached, it is replaced. A river, and the associated values,
can't be measured so discretely.

Specific obligations given to the MHB under Minnesota statute are:

I. Develop a management plan that favors public land ownership in the corridor, and is intended to
guide management of public lands.

American River Management Society