The St. Louis River is the second largest tributary to Lake Superior. In 1987, the estuary at the river’s mouth – including the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior – was designated the St. Louis River Area of Concern (SLRAOC) by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement due to its sedimentary contamination.
Throughout its 90 plus year history, the Lake Superior Zoo has educated and entertained thousands of Minnesotans; in the last year alone, the Zoo had more than 87,000 visitors. But one of its favorite attractions, the Polar Shores exhibit, has been vacant for close to four years.
For thousands of years, the area around Historic Fort Snelling has evoked both pride and pain for people of many backgrounds. It is also a place of great beauty, located at the confluence of the mighty Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Currently, Fort Snelling is unable to fully share its integral part of Minnesota history due to serious structural issues and limited space.
For anyone who’s familiar with traveling on Hanson Boulevard in Coon Rapids – you know that delays due to trains are a common occurrence. These delays have grown more frequent over the years leading to this segment being designed the ‘busiest rail line in the state.
As the start of the Legislative Session is quickly approaching I am excited to have the opportunity to advocate for $5 million in bonding funds to complete an elevated walkway at Cedar and 147th transit station in Apple Valley. The pedestrian sky bridge walkway will connect the two transit stations over a busy intersection on Cedar Avenue and County Road 42. The new walkway, once completed, is expected to spur significant economic development along the Cedar Avenue/ Highway 77 transit corridor – which has already been designed as a “Jobs and Activity Center.”
When Governor Dayton unveiled his $1.4 billion bonding proposal last week, he wisely focused on jobs and investing in Minnesota’s infrastructure – both maintaining what we have, as well as investing strategically in projects to strengthen our state in the future. This plan will create close to 40,000 jobs in the short term, and it will lead to strong economic development and jobs in the future.
The school is asking for $4.4 million in bonding to build a new, energy efficient facility to protect these special plants, and to provide hands-on learning opportunities for Minnesota’s future plant geneticists, growers, and agriculture and environmental scientists. As a farmer, and someone who works with the land, I like to come visit places like this that help explain how studying even the tiniest plant has a lot of importance to our greater environment.
After spending 17 days together this fall – and traveling well over 2,500 miles across the state – Capital Investment Committee members have seen a lot of disrepair to state-owned buildings across Minnesota. One thing we don’t get to see a lot of though, is how money we’ve invested in past bonding bills has been spent in order to better local communities. That changed this morning once we arrived at Camp Ripley – a 53,000 acre Minnesota National Guard training facility north of St. Cloud.
