Spirit Mt. and the nature of change Terry Brown DPPA Sec. Point of View - Duluth News Tribune - Apr. 2001 Across America, communities are building on the hard environmental and economic lessons of the past and searching for ways they can use what remains of their environmental treasures to create jobs and other economic benefits - without destroying the environmental treasures themselves. It's with an eye toward just such "smart-growth" that Duluth City Councilor Greg Gilbert has proposed three resolutions that help rethink decisions made 25 years ago about the best use for the Spirit Mountain recreation area. These resolutions ask for hard data from the developer of the proposed Spirit Mountain golf course before any permits will be granted, for a critical assessment of the project's continued viability, and for information from the Spirit Mountain Authority regarding whether it's legal to lease the land to a private developer when in the past federal funds have been dedicated to it for public recreation. At 7 pm on Monday, April 2, the City Council will hear from experts on these issues, and as always, the meeting is open to the public (3rd floor, City Hall). In Duluth, we're lucky. Not only do we have the kind of natural treasure in Spirit Mountain that many cities can only dream of, but we have a second chance to protect it and use it well. But to take advantage of this second chance, we have to be willing to accept change - from the economic and environmental direction of nearly three decades ago to a new direction today. A golf course was included in the Spirit Mountain plan in the early 1970s. In 1976, the first proposal for an 18-hole course and a 220-room hotel at Spirit Mountain was greeted with enthusiasm, but the developers were unable to secure funding, and the proposal collapsed. Twenty years later - in 1996 - developers again approached the Spirit Mountain Authority with a proposal for a golf course and hotel. If the Authority had considered the changes of the last 25 years before releasing hundreds of acres of public forest land to private developers, we would not be faced with this current conflict. Since the early 1970s, we've learned some lessons. We've learned that it's crucial to protect the quality of our water. When Spirit Mountain's downhill runs were built in 1973, the St. Louis River was described as "not much better than a sewer," according to a Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD) report. The WLSSD was brand-new then, and the sewage treatment plant didn't start operating until 1978. Today the river is in better shape, and we've realized that we can't be careless about letting chemicals - like the pesticides used on golf courses - run into the river. Not if we want to have clean drinking water. Not if we want to eat the fish that we catch. And not if we want to use promises of a clean environment to draw new families to the area and keep the population we've got. We've learned as well that it's important to protect wetlands, like those at Spirit Mountain, for both environmental and economic reasons. It wasn't until 1991 that the state legislature - led by Representative Willard Munger - passed the Wetland Conservation Act. By that time, we had discovered the hard way that if we fill in wetlands, increased storm water runoff leads to flooding and expensive property damage. We've also learned that if we continue cutting down mature forests, we lose the habitat that supports many increasingly rare songbirds and other forest creatures. So, it's not surprising that as we've lost more of our forest over the past 25 years, we've learned to place higher value on what remains. The Spirit Mountain Authority has held to the 25-year-old golf course idea, even when other economic possibilities have tried to land in our laps. In 1998, for example, while waiting for the golf course to materialize, the Authority turned down a proposal from the U.S. Biathlon Association to develop a world-class facility at Spirit Mountain. This facility would have attracted competitions and training camps at the regional, national, and international level and brought significant economic benefits, while leaving the forest largely intact. We're working on a new comprehensive plan for Duluth; now is not the time to destroy one of our best urban forests. By pulling the Spirit Mountain Recreation Area into our comprehensive plan process - using that forum to look for new ideas and creative approaches - we could develop recreation at Spirit Mountain that generates income while maintaining the existing old-growth forest ecosystem for the benefit of residents, visitors, and future generations. Terry Brown is Secretary-Treasurer of the Duluth Public-Policy Alliance, an organization of volunteers who work on issues of open government and wise city planning in Duluth. These articles are retained on the web for historical interest and do not necessarily reflect the views or goals of DPPA today.

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