Monthly Archives: February 2010

“I didn’t do it!”–Explanations for MNRRA’s incompetent Coldwater history

Bdote: A Public EIS

John Anfinson, historian with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area or MNRRA, the branch of the National Park Service that recently completed the Environmental Impact Statement for the Bureau of Mines Twin Cities Campus property in Hennepin County, Minnesota, wants to make sure you understand that he did not write the historical sections of the EIS.

If a historian familiar with the history of the Minnesota region had written this portion of the EIS or the historical study included with the EIS, perhaps he or she would have done it more competently. In 2005 Anfinson had thought he might be involved with writing the historical portions of the EIS, but, in an email to me, he wrote:

Thanks for your thorough comments for the scoping process. I wanted to get back to you on something. I had told you that I would be writing the Affected Environment and Environmental Effects sections of the EIS. I talked to Kim [Berns] about this, and she let me know that the EIS contractor will be doing this. I told her that I wanted significant input to how these sections were handled and would be reviewing them carefully. I will be meeting with the historian who is going to write them and will let him know what I expect.

Shortly after that Anfinson gave me the name of Chris Baker as the particular historian with the government contractor E2M whom he had been informed would be writing those sections of the report. Baker is currently said to be an expert in land use and management and Pueblo and Southwestern U.S. history. While he is listed in the final EIS as one of its preparers and contributers, he is only one of many names listed in a one-and-a-half page list that also includes the name of John Anfinson (See FEIS, vol 1, pages 325-26).

In September 2006, after the release of the draft EIS for the property, Anfinson, in a conversation with me, defended the historical portions of the EIS, not because they were good or complete or accurate, but because whatever they lacked was unnecessary. He admitted that they were not very good, but asked the rhetorical question: “If they were any better would it make any difference?”

Subsequently, MNRRA fended off all changes to the historical portions of the EIS. The agency or a contractor working for it, responded to criticisms of the adequacy of historical information contained in the EIS, stating, for example on page 377 of the FEIS: “The information gathered for the EIS and Section 106 process is substantive enough.” The statement echoed that of Anfinson in 2006, which suggests that Anfinson himself may have been involved in the crafting of these responses, if not of the flawed historical narrative in the report.

Since the completion of the final EIS and the announcement of the decision by the National Park Service that the Bureau of Mines property will remain under the management of MNRRA, Anfinson has declined to respond to many requests for comment on the adequacy of the EIS. In December and January when I asked for explanations about how little the historical sections of the EIS had changed in the final EIS, despite many comments submitted in 2006, Anfinson declined the opportunity to respond at all.

Anfinson has indicated that he will answer the questions of some people, just not those of other historians. Recently he did respond to an email from an Coldwater supporter: “There has been much written on the web about us and this process that is simply untrue and misleading.  If you would like to talk about any of it, please call.” More recently, in an in-person  conversation with Anfinson, a member of a Coldwater preservation group reported to other members that the MNRRA historian said he did not write the history section of the final EIS “and thinks it’s inadequate. But he said that particular narrative is not necessary for the NPS to take care of the area. The NPS recognizes the importance of Coldwater and will treat it accordingly.”

This report is consistent with those made by Anfinson in the past. And the statement again raises questions about what purposes the historical sections of an EIS serve. An EIS is designed to provide a basis for decision-making. It is intended to show that the decisions reached by an agency are based on an adequate factual record of information.

In what sense can an inadequate record of historical information be said to be substantive enough for the decision the agency reaches? In the case of the Bureau of Mines property, the decision the agency was seeking to gather information about, had to do, in part, with the proper treatment of the historical and cultural resources present there. A key point that had been raised about those resources had to do with their historical and cultural importance to Native people, particularly the Dakota. The EIS said very little about the Native history of the site and rejected the conclusion of the Park Service’s own contractor that the site was a TCP or traditional cultural property for the Dakota or anyone else.

In what sense could this historical record be said to be “substantive enough” for decision-making by the Park Service? The fact that the Bureau of Mines site is important historically and culturally to the Dakota–as the site of creation for the people–is an important aspect of the site. Acknowledging and documenting this nature of the site is an important first step to dealing with the cultural and environmental nature of the Bureau of Mines property. Yet the agency that refuses to recognize the Dakota importance of the site has now been given the property. And agency officials believe that this refusal to recognize the Dakota importance of the site will have no effect on their management of the property.  In January Steven P. Johnson, another MNRRA official  stated

However, there are no environmental effects associated with the actual ownership; the eventual owner would have to agree to manage the property in terms of the selected alternative, especially if the government will go to some expense to prepare the property for that transfer.

What Johnson and other MNRRA officials fail to understand is that their own ownership of the property is the issue. Their ownership has the potential to have profound environmental effects.  Given that the agency has refused to accept the historic and cultural character of the property for Dakota people, how can MNRRA’s ownership–or the ownership of any other agency that does not accept the character of the site for the Dakota–be said to be a neutral effect on the property?

Although there were proposals for the property by specific Dakota tribal groups, it appears from the public record assembled by MNRRA, this was not an option the agency explored. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that because Dakota ownership of the property was not explored by MNRRA, the decision was made by the agency not to include the information about the importance of the site to the Dakota.

In his recent conversation with a Coldwater preservation supporter, Anfinson appears to have discussed the topic of Dakota ownership of the property. According to the report I received from the preservation group, Anfinson noted that the decision of the Park Service about who should get the BOM property was affected by the fact that the JoAnn Kyral, superintendent of MNRRA until 2006 did not want MNRRA to receive the property, while the current superintendent Paul Labovitz did. According to the report of the conversation with Anfinson this week:

Interestingly he also mentioned that the former superintendant didn’t want Coldwater, but the current one does. It makes sense to me as to why nothing happened for a long time in this process.the old superintendent didn’t want Coldwater in the NPS, and they didn’t know which tribe would take it without pissing off the other tribes, it left the Dept of the interior in an odd position.

The explanation appears to be an accurate interpretation of the change in approach of MNRRA toward the property. Coldwater supporters remember clearly that until 2006 the agency stated that it did not and, could not, manage the property for the long term. But the account also gives self-serving explanation for what occurred in the EIS process in relation to Dakota ownership of the property. It appears disingenuous to claim that the rejection of Dakota proposals for the property was based purely on the conclusion that giving the property to one Dakota group would “piss off” the others Dakota communities. Labovitz’s desire for the property appears to be the more significant factor in the decision-making and in giving the Dakota history and culture short shrift in the EIS.

Now, however, after the announcement of the decision to keep the property under MNRRA, John Anfinson would like people to know that the agency does know the history of the site and will “treat it accordingly.” The degree of confidence one has in MNRRA on this point will depend on how much one is willing to trust an agency which has refused to record or acknowledge in public the Native history and cultural meaning of the site. Second-hand reports of vaguely reassuring off-hand comments in private meetings are no real basis for confidence.

Respecting what we hold sacred

Bdote: A Public EIS, Reclaiming Mini Sota Makoce

“In our creation story of where we first began as people on this earth, that place was sacred long before anybody from Europe arrived and saw the place. . . . We hold our lands sacred, but these lands are more sacred because of the history, because of the myth and what we are pleading for is some understanding. . . . This is more than an argument over a plot of land. It is a debate of two cultures and the understanding of the sacredness and what is sacred.” Eleven years ago on February 26, 1999, Dakota spiritual leader and Episcopal minister Rev. Gary Cavender spoke these words in a moving speech at a press conference relating to opposition to the construction of Highway 55 through the Coldwater Spring area near Fort Snelling in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Despite the clarity of his words, the knowledge they contain has been questioned time and time again by those seeking to undermine Dakota claims to the area. Rev. Cavender died in April 2009. His words are worth hearing again.

Text of Rev Gary Cavender’s Speech at Representative Karen Clark’s Press Conference February 26, 1999 -Camp Coldwater

We are coming here to talk about sacred land, and especially the sacredness of that place. In our creation story of where we first began as people on this earth, that place was sacred long before anybody from Europe arrived and saw the place. Because of the topography of the land and because of the coming together of two great rivers (Minnesota and Mississippi) it is called “Md ote” or the throat of the waters, and they named a town after it–Mendota–although it is pronounced altogether different.

In our Creation myth we the Dakota, the Seven Fires of the Dakota, came from the belt of Orion–the seven planets of the belt of Orion, the seven stars–and arrived at the convolution of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, and so in some respects it is our Eden, and the land around there is sacred as well. There is that sacred spring that is in negotiation, that sacred spring is the dwelling place of Unktehi, the God of the Waters, and in that spring there is an underground river that goes into the big river, and that is his passageway to get out into the world. To block the sacred passageway would be courting with drought and things of that nature that have to do with water, because after all, this is the God of the water. So when you hear a thunderstorm and it starts to rain, that is the underwater God having battle with the Sky God and the reason for that battle is so that the rain may come down and replenish the earth, and the Sky God is fighting–throwing down thunderbolts to fertilize the land. That is a scientific fact, and so it is not without reason that this land should be sacred to us, and so the Underwater God lives there. We came there as human beings and so that is our Eden, and the irony of it all is that in 1862-1863 that was almost the end of us as people, because that was the Ft. Snelling concentration camp. It may have been a full circle for us–the beginning and the ending, which is sacred in and of itself, but the land is sacred. The high bluffs where we went to track provisions, the throat of convolution of the 2 rivers where we got our start and almost where we got our ending. There are bodies there, there is a sacred cemetery there. Maybe all of it is gone but it is still sacred.

We hold our lands sacred, but these lands are more sacred because of the history, because of the myth and what we are pleading for is some understanding. To understand our sense of sacredness of the land. To  use our image as the ultimate environmentalists–we may not be, but we have a connection to the land that perhaps you don’t understand and so this is more than an argument over a plot of land. It is a debate of two cultures and the understanding of the sacredness and what is sacred. We can’t say that the land has nothing on it and disregard the sacredness and go ahead and build on it. Wasicun seem to have the ability to prioritize, and when it comes to progress, spirituality or sacredness takes a back seat to progress. We don’t have that understanding, it is not in us, even though we’ve been in your culture for at least 200 years now and we’ve only been citizens of our own land since 1925. So how can we expect you to understand those things when you didn’t even recognize us as human beings until the 20th Century. But what we’re asking for is the beginning of understanding. Use this sacred place as a neutral ground to start a journey of understanding each other and leave it alone. Our people’s beginning spirits are there and our people’s ending spirits are there. All of the Gods are there. The Wakan Tanka is there. The Wakan Tanka is everywhere and so for us it’s only a ltittle patch of land we’re asking for. The economy isn’t going to collapse. There is an alternative way to solve the problem, but for us it is a great, great sacrifice and we’ve sacrificed so much for so long. All we’re asking for is a little understanding and perhaps respecting what we hold sacred!

Getting at the truth in history

Bdote: A Public EIS, Historical Projects

Henry Ford, or maybe it was Harry Truman, said that the trouble with history was that it was “one damn thing after another.” Other people say that historians are god-like because they can make history in their own image. George Santayana said “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sergeant Joe Friday, on the show Dragnet said: “All we want are the facts.” Patricia Hampl wrote at the beginning of her poem Resort: “The point of this place: don’t ask for much, ask/ for everything. Get: details as everywhere.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that everyone was entitled to his or her own opinion but no one was entitled to his or her own set of facts.

All of these thoughts are worth considering when thinking about the process of gathering information to figure out what happened in the past. Let’s suppose you are doing research on the history of bathtub use by early European-Americans in Minnesota.  Suppose that one of the drawbacks or, perhaps, attractions to writing about this subject is that there are many people with very decided opinions about the topic.

For example, some people may say that in the 1840s and 1850s, when white settlement began in Minnesota, taking baths was not a common practice anywhere in the United States. They say that people just didn’t have a real hangup about bathing. They say that for people then cleanliness was not next to godliness, nor was it all that important. They say that the first European-Americans in Minnesota never bathed. On the other hand there are other people who claim that cleanliness was sweeping the country. They say that bathing was all the rage, especially in places like Minnesota where there was plenty of water to spare, except in the winter when all the water was frozen. And even then they would melt the ice and bathe in it, or cut holes in the ice on lakes and jump in for a brisk soak.

So if you plan to do research and write about the topic of bathtubs in the first years of European-American settlement of Minnesota, you have to be aware of this controversy and you have to expect that at some point you are going to have to express an opinion on this controversy. But, regardless, in doing research on the subject you are going to want to look at all the available documents about the subject, oral history, letters, newspaper articles, books, even works of fiction, to figure out not only whether people in Minnesota in those days had bathtubs, but also how they used them.

You will want to be very thorough abut this, to get all the facts and all the details. And even though there is this widespread controversy on “Cleanliness in 19th-century America,” you can’t just set out to prove that Americans in the 19th century did or did not care about being clean. You can have a theory about that, but you have to keep an open mind. You have to look at all the facts that you find and then draw some firmer conclusions. Otherwise your work will be a real stretch. If you decide beforehand, before you’ve looked at all the information, you will look like an idiot, someone just picking an choosing from among the facts to prove your point.

If you write about the topic and ignore or leave out some of the information and it turns out that that information contradicts what you’ve written then you are going to look pretty silly, unless you are willing to incorporate the new information and show, somehow how it either proves your point or how you have changed your theory to mesh with the facts. Suppose you write: “There were no bathtubs in early Minnesota,” and then someone finds half a dozen letters describing bathtubs on farms and in towns like Chatfield, Red Wing, Dawson, and Alexandria how will you be able to explain that your statement was accurate? One way to justify your description of the lack of bathtubs is to attack the messenger, saying, for example, that the person who provided the information was an idiot, an adulterer, a vivisectionist, or an opponent of highway construction and should therefore not be believed. Or you could even pretend that the contrary evidence proving your theory wrong simply did not exist.

But these strategies have dangers because at some point people are going to ask you why you are ignoring the facts. They will repeat Moynihan’s statement that you are entitled to your own opinions but not to your own set of facts and they will say that if you are going to do history you have to deal with all the facts, not just some of them. One strategy to get around this is by suggesting that not all pieces of information are really “facts.”

What are “the facts” anyway? Some people who do history intentionally stack the deck by deciding that some information is factual and other information is not. For example, they may claim that oral history is not reliable but that information written down or printed is likely to be very reliable. So, if you find an oral history with someone who recalled, years after coming to Minnesota in 1853: “We carved our tub from the trunk of a red oak tree and when we were done we filled it with water from the spring behind the barn, in which we bathed after thanking the Lord for our bounty,” you might question its accuracy, especially if there were no discussion of bathtubs or bathing in issues of the St. Paul Democrat or St. Paul Pioneer from the 1850s. And to prove your point you might add that this description says that the people “bathed” but that it was an ambiguous statement suggesting that the people bathed in the tub, the spring, or even the barn and that if they bathed in the barn they may have been bathing the animals and not themselves. You could even point out that the tub in question was homemade and therefore not really a bathtub in the proper sense of the word. Who’s to say, you would ask, whether or not this particular settler was an odd duck who happened to like bathing in water, unlike the vast majority of his fellow settlers?

The success of any one of these strategies depends in part upon your status and the status of the person or persons who presents the contrary evidence. If you are working for a well-known agency or institution and the person offering evidence to the contrary happens to a blogger of uncertain reputation then it is likely that you are not going to be asked any hard questions about your theory that “there were no bathtubs in early Minnesota.” Newspaper reporters or editors in particular are not going to want to give attention to information supplied through websites. In fact it is likely that you will not get questions at all on the issue of bathtubs in early Minnesota because, someone might say, who really cares one way or another about this antiquarian issue? What difference does it make whether settlers bathed or had bathtubs anyway? This is a helpful attitude, because it it is always better for well-known institutions if their employees do not have to answer for any mistakes they may have made.

But the blogger who maintains that there were really bathtubs in early Minnesota might be a persistent person. He or she might keep posting stories like “Why is the well-known institution lying about bathtubs?” or “The truth about bathing that the well-known institution has chosen to ignore.” After a few of these stories, people, even newspapers, might start to ask you hard questions. You will try to simply ignore the blogger and other disgruntled people but it will start to make you feel really testy. It will be harder and harder not to respond. Even when people send you emails to ask you simple unrelated questions you might end up itching to throw in a few odd thoughts about bathtubs to defend yourself, at the end of the email such as: “You may be seeing a lot of untrue or unreliable information about bathtubs on the web. Let me know if you have any questions.”

That’s when you know know that the obligation of the historian to deal with the facts, all the facts, is really getting to you, in spite of your plan to stack the deck in favor of your own theory.  One of these nights you are going to wake up screaming: “Yes, I know there were bathtubs in Red Wing and Chatfield! Leave me alone!” Your family is going to wonder about you, but it is a good start. As Fran Lebowitz, Harvey Fierstein, or Harry Carey once said, “Denial is not just a pool of water in Egypt.”

FIRE TALKS!

Bdote: A Public EIS

By George Spears

Fire represents power, strength, life, and sustainability. First Nation people have used this life source in their ceremonies as a way of connecting us to the creator. Our ancestors gathered around fires and discussed many important issues that effected their tribe, community, and family. This connection to fire still remains for the First Nation people of Turtle Island. First Nations United would like to invite you to participate in FIRE TALKS! This is a bi-weekly intertribal gathering to develop a dialog about reclaiming the sacred site known as “Coldwater Spring.” Bring your ideas, history, and knowledge of this sacred site. We all share a common bond as First Nation people to the land of our ancestors, and to the future generation. Let this bond unite us to reclaim this scared site for the Dakota Nation.

Location/Logistics: Coldwater Spring is south of Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. From Hwy 55/Hiawatha, turn east (toward the Mississippi River) at 54th Street, take an immediate right (south) & follow the frontage road for a half mile past the pay parking meters, through the fence gates, & past the aqua brick building where you can park. This gathering is outside so please dress appropriate for the elements. A fire will be provided and some refreshments.

When: 1st & 3rd Sunday of every month starting February 7th 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Contact: George spears Chi-Noodin (612) 269 -5083

Gary Spears Migizi (952) 974-3257