Sale of Camp Coldwater to MAC
Date: September 19, 2000
Contact:
John Steinworth (651)295-1864 or (651) 653-7517
Tom Holtzleiter (612) 825-0460 or
campcoldwater@yahoo.com

Based on direct participation and evaluation of all information made public to date, the Preserve Camp Coldwater Coalition has concluded that ownership of Historic Camp Coldwater and Coldwater Spring should remain, at this time, under the current ownership, control and protection of the Federal Government and should not be sold to the Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC).

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is in the final process of selling the 28-acre former Bureau of Mines compound - which encompasses Historic Camp Coldwater and Coldwater Spring - to the MAC. While negotiations for this sale have been in process for years, it was not until recently that the National Park Service (NPS) working for the DOI invited all interested parties and stakeholders into the process to participate in writing the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), a covenant that would run with the land.

MAC had intended to use the Camp Coldwater area as an airport buffer zone for extension of the crosswinds runway but Northwest Airlines no longer plans to fly large jets between the Twin Cities and Hong Kong that would have required the longer runway and hence the buffer zone. It is important to understand at the outset that the impetus for this land transfer is gone.

The reason of record for MAC to pursue this sale is a 1998 contract between MAC and the City of Minneapolis allowing MAC to pave seven of the 28 acres of Historic Camp Coldwater for an airport employee parking lot, a most inappropriate use of historic public land. Testimony at a recent open meeting revealed that original MAC plans called for multi-story parking ramps throughout the entire 28 acres. The MOA, however, will not allow siting of parking facilities on the property bringing into further question why MAC would want to spend six million dollars for a property that will be an administrative nightmare and a potential money pit.

Transfer of this historic property from the federal government to a state agency will not only eliminate" its inherit federal protection, but entrusting its stewardship to the MAC with its poor environmental record would be leaving the fox to guard the henhouse. There are at least thirty known pollution sites on or near airport property. The MAC also has not considered the long-term, cumulative effect of its massive de-watering for current tunnel projects on the complex groundwater system that feeds nearby Coldwater Spring. Threatening entities should not be allowed to purchase and control the very resources they threaten.

Further, in rushing to meet a funding window that closes on September 30, 2000, the DOI and the other financially interested parties are not following the prescribed process for land transfer which includes a Traditional Cultural Properties Study and development of a management plan. If this transaction occurs prior to the end of the month, monies would remain in the State benefiting other historic agencies but at the sacrifice of the most significant cultural and historic site in Minnesota.

Located between Minnehaha Falls and the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, Coldwater Spring has been visited and used by Native Americans for thousands of years and remains sacred to the Dakota people. Coldwater is also the site of the first non-native settlement in this area and considered the birthplace of the political state of Minnesota.

While land transfer activities were initiated in the early 1980’s and an abbreviated and flawed archeological assessment was performed in 1984, had the correct investigations and studies been performed at any time prior to March 2000, we would not now find the highly contested Highway 55 reroute running over and through the foundations, graves and artifacts of Historic Camp Coldwater. It could be perceived, and argued, that MnDOT's determination to site this highway is precisely what put these investigations on hold until this summer.

The Coalition concludes there is no viable reason for this property to be transferred to MAC and that ownership of Historic Camp Coldwater and Coldwater Spring should remain under the current ownership, control and protection of the Federal Government. If the property stays in the National Park Service within the DOI all federal protections will still exist; transfer of the property more than weakens federal protection, it completely removes it.