There was much talk about a law that stipulates that if Wetland A is "non-incidental" (not manmade), then they have to create more new wetland. That is true. Instead of a ration of 1:1 in replacing the wetland they destroy, they have to create new wetland at a ratio of 2:1.
 
The purview of MCWD is very narrow, as mandated by law. I found the whole meeting extremely frustrating. First, the obtuseness of some of the members who were making the determination was annoying. It caused me to wonder if they had ever even been to Coldwater. And it was clear that they had spent very little time there if they had been there at all, not being able to see in the progression of seasons how a lot of water the water seeped out under the Building 4 and flowed north. Or how much water flowed into the reservoir from the south/southwest and flowed north, indicating a significant flow, not just some drainage.
 
Most of all, two things bothered me. The first was their assumption that what NPS was creating was an improvement of the springs and of the land surrounding the springs that is Coldwater, not only in creating the new wetland by rerouting the flow, but also by creating a McPark. While the full plan was not under discussion, it was mentioned by at least two of the members as being an "improvement" and could be assumed to inform the argument of those who voted to approve the permit that would support the NPS plan. 
 
The NPS plan is destructive. It does not "preserve" it destroys. It destroys an urban wilderness and turns it into just another manicured lawn. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of "urban wilderness" I refer you to Thomas Urquhart, who wrote For the Beauty of the Earth, and who talks about urban wilderness and the need to preserve it.
 
He describes exactly and beautifully the struggle taking place over Coldwater. This struggle may have come down to whether or not Wetland A is incidental or not, but that is only the manifestation of a much greater struggle:
 
Finding  balance (it will not do to say the "right" balance,  because everyone's is likely to be different) between artifact and nature is an age-old conflict inherited from the first cave-dweller who decided to build his own hut and inadvertently replaced the gods of the land with the gods of the hearth. It is a Promethean struggle that reaches down to the very core of our being: between the reverence for nature and the need to conquer it, between the gratitude for its blessings and an insatiable appetite for more, between a wish to protect and a desire to exploit. Our connection to the land may start with what it offers us materially...its potential to meet our basic needs of food and shelter... but its capacity to nurture soon transforms itself into an emotional and spiritual relationship. (p. 95)
 
Urquhart says: "The fields in which humans and nature have played together over a long period of time are the landscapes that set our souls to singing."  (p. 95)  Coldwater is such a place. That "singing" may manifest itself as religion for some, for others a spiritual journey. Again and again as over the years I have taken people to Coldwater, they immediately recognize this quality. I have taken people of many faiths (or no particular faith) there, and they recognize that quality as a very special place, a place to "set our souls to singing."  
 
In my view (I have no religion, so this is not a religious view) a place that sets my soul to singing is a sacred place. And because it has that quality of "setting our souls to singing," is exactly why there is so much controversy over Coldwater. 
 
NPS has a vision for Coldwater, one that others do not agree with in total. Everyone appears to agree that the buildings must come down. Beyond that, there does not appear to be much agreement. Some support the NPS plan. Others do not. I cannot speak here for the many viewpoints.
 
Viewpoints include honoring Coldwater as a Traditional Cultural Property, a sacred site for the native people and others, which NPS has refused to do, despite professional recommendations to the contrary and the feelings and tradition of native peoples of Minnesota. Others want Coldwater turned over totally to the native people. And between the NPS plan and the idea of turning the land back to the native people are many other possible scenarios.
 
Urquhart goes on to quote Rachel Carson:
Almost fifty years ago, Rachel Carson was searching for "an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the source of  our strength."  (p. 298)
Urquhart continues:
As a larger and larger proportion of the population grows up in a city, and as the cities themselves overwhelm the open space around them, landscape that could nurture a sense of wonder is diminishing and slipping ever further over the horizon. Not only are we losing ready access to the woods and rivers and fields, but what is left is also being compromised, even the special places [underline mine]. (p. 298)
 
So certain things the NPS is doing are a violation of the land and water, such as routing the water through a pipe, such as the roads that surround the land, such as taking all the trees down (this is already done!) instead of allowing for a natural transition to oak savanna, and the overall plan that turns Coldwater into a well-manicured McPark that has no cultural or historical meaning beyond a few white-culture artifacts. Yet this is a field, a place, where “humans and nature have played together over a long period of time.” 
 
Urquhart quotes Edward Wolf:  “Conservation must be “’carried like music in the heart of the people.... The challenge is much more visceral than rational.’” (p.292)
 
He also quotes the then president of the Massachusetts Audubon, Jerry Bertrand:  “Effective conservation action must first be an affair of the head, but when it becomes an affair of the heart—that’s when things really get moving.”  (p. 292)
 
I know with certainty that Friends of Coldwater comes from the heart. And tries to use the head as well. I do not feel in recent interactions with NPS that much heart is involved, only head on their part, with rationalizations for the reason their plan is superior, although it denies for the most part the heart and soul of Coldwater. 
 
NPS refuses to recognize what Urquhart calls “the story of a people, written upon the land: a long dialogue between people and place.”  Or rather they recognize only a very small part of it, refusing to acknowledge in full the connection between a natural and cultural history that precedes the history of white people coming to Coldwater, accepting only what follows that invasion.  In the process of their McPlan they deny the significance of the core--the springs--and wish to change the flow. 
 
Perhaps there were worse alternatives than the McPark. For example, a parking lot for the airport (911 changed that plan). Or a private developer building huge condo complexes: the property in a cold calculation of that order is worth millions. Or rumors of a casino. 
 
But as NPS, you would think they would see the value of an emotionally nurturing landscape and try to preserve that value. After all, nationally NPS manages beautiful parks all over the country where people go expressly for that emotional nurturance. These are by no stretch of the imagination, city or citified parks. Yet Coldwater, an urban wilderness that includes not just the manmade mapped boundaries of what is called by NPS the Camp Coldwater unit, but as Coldwater Creek flows to the Mississippi, can be said to include all the area to the river. 
 
But NPS in their plans are clearly making it a McPark and destroying the natural connection that Rachel Carson calls "the source of our strength."  Coldwater should not be a city park. That is not at all what it is about. To do so is to degrade and destroy its natural and spiritual beauty.
 
So back to the MCWD and the decision they need to make regarding Wetland A and approval of NPS plans to reroute the springs and create a manmade wetland to replace Wetland A.
 
I have not mentioned the part (the second item I found upsetting) where MCWD appears to be running scared of NPS and are worried that they are so puny that NPS can intimidate them and take away all their power in regard to Coldwater, but that is exactly what has happened. I am as usual disgusted with such views when a moral imperative is so clear and politics and lack of backbone interfere.
 
Ultimately, MCWD decided to talk to the NPS. NPS should have  been present at the meetings. And I must agree that is the most civilized thing to do, to talk. What that meeting will bring is unclear at this point; I want to be optimistic, even as I am thoroughly discouraged and defeated. 
 
I feel sad for the willow, and the loss of its incredible beauty, and for the other beautiful trees that have been taken down., for the rape of the land and of the springs that is taking place even as I write this.
 
NPS has refused to let Friends of Coldwater or the native people have sigificant input into their plans. They have refused to hear anything that we, who have been the real stewards of Coldwater, have to say. They have hidden their plans from us; they have lied by saying that such plans did not exist. And if plans did not exist at that time, when they finally did exist, they would not share them with us. They are the bullies here. They have bullied their way to what they want, ignoring the voices of the people, not just Friends of Coldwater, but other voices as well. That is not how democracy is supposed to work.
 
For Coldwater,
Sue Ann Martinson
The book is For the Beauty of the Earth by Thomas Urquhart. (Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington D.C., 2004).
 
*Minnehaha Creek Watershed District Board of Managers
A seven-member Board of Managers appointed by the Hennepin and Carver County Board of Commissioners oversees District activities. They develop regulations, policies and programs to protect water quality and prevent flooding.