I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
May 29, 1997
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
The Leech Lake Reservation is trying to clean up and bag those who illegally dump garbage in north-central Minnesota.
On Friday, the Leech Lake Department of Resource Management will submit a grant proposal to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which would fund an experimental, three-year program establishing a united strategy among area government agencies and private individuals to clean up illegal dump sites.
Individual corrective and enforcement efforts by the Leech Lake Reservation, the U.S. Forest Service and local governments have had little success in reducing the proliferation of illegal dump sites, according to John Steward, coordinator of the Walker-based Tri-County Leech Lake Watershed Project -- a supporting agency of the program. Therefore, the reservation is hoping the united strategy would combine the resources of each of the future stakeholders to confront and solve the problem.
The reservation aims to involve the state of Minnesota, U.S. Forest Service, the Mississippi Headwaters Board, Army Corp of Engineers, private individuals, groups such as lake associations, and several counties including, Cass, Beltrami, Itasca and Hubbard in the program. The reservation would serve as coordinating agency for the task force, and hopes to streamline and eliminate duplication of efforts among agencies.
According to Shirley Nordrum of Leech Lake's Resource Management Department, several local agencies submitted letters of support to be sent along with the grant request, and that the agencies seem excited about the proposal.
"We're hoping to get as many agencies as we can to cooperate, but we also want to work with private individuals," Nordrum said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "It's kind of like the neighborhood watch idea. If you see somebody dumping a 'trunkload' of garbage, try to take down the license number."
Although the grant hasn't been approved yet, Nodrum said the program's goals would be to address the fiscal needs of the agencies involved, to clean up existing illegal dump sites, to create education and outreach programs concerning illegal dumping and to enhance enforcement of illegal dumping.
Should the grant be accepted, personnel from each of the agencies and private citizens will be invited to participate in drafting a mission statement and an outline of operation for the project. The draft would also propose specific resource contributions of each of the stakeholders and suggest areas of overlapping responsibility. Once the draft is completed, a joint powers agreement would be sought from each of the entities involved before the project is formalized.
"It's going to take cooperation among the agencies and individual people to curb the problem," Nordrum said. "I've been told there are at least 200 illegal dump in the Chippewa National Forest alone, but I don't know for sure what constitutes a dump."
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