By John Weiss, Hiawatha TU member

Would you like to help the environment and do it by taking only a second or two?

You can and here’s how: vote yes on the amendment on this November’s ballot asking Minnesotans to reauthorize dedicating at least 40 percent of revenues from the state-operated lottery for the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund through Dec. 31, 2050. Here’s a crucial part – if you ignore the question and don’t vote, it will count as a no.

So vote yes.

The fund began with a vote in 1988 but didn’t have a dedicated revenue source. In 1990, voters approved at least 40 percent going to the trust fund.

Money in the fund can be appropriated “for the public purpose of protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state’s air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.” Since 1991, the fund has provided approximately $700 million to over 1,700 projects statewide. Historically, the Department of Natural Resources and the University of Minnesota have received the largest appropriations from the ENRTF.

A group called Minnesotans for Our Great Outdoors has formed with about 125 groups backing in to support the yes vote. Minnesota Trout Unlimited is one of them but interestingly, some of the groups aren’t ones you’d normally consider environmental or natural resource backers such as League of Women Voters, the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities and Fairmont Economic Development Authority.

I saw the fund in action a few weeks ago in two places in the new Choice Wildlife Management Area between Rushford and Spring Grove. The Nature Conservancy got money to try something different for restoring a stream, in this case Vesta Creek that has brook trout but also high, steep banks from problems with land use over the past century or more. The project will try to reshape more of the stream bank back and let the stream meander as it should, said Chris Lenhart, a U of M research professor in the Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Department who helped design the project and is also monitoring it to see how well it works.

Money for the work itself came from the Minnesota Legacy fund that was voter approved to add a bit to the state sales tax. But money for designing and monitoring it comes from the trust fund. They work together, one focusing on the work on the ground, the other on testing and monitoring. Lenhart also shared that the goal is to get the stream to take care of itself for many decades, allowing floodwaters to spread out and also let Vesta meander as streams should. It has no instream things such as boulders, logs or lunker structures.

Interestingly, a goat prairie overlooking Vesta is also getting trust fund money to restore the prairie that has been overgrown. Goats are being used because they love to eat the leaves off unwanted plants such as buckthorn. When they do it enough, the plants die. One part that had a goat workover was brown and looked kind of desolate, but that’s what the designers want.

So remember – vote to reauthorize the trust fund.

Read more here about the Amendment and how our Trout in the Classroom has benefited from lottery funding.