{"id":169,"date":"2009-02-26T20:48:01","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T20:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minnesotahistory.net\/mhnetfix?p=169"},"modified":"2009-02-26T21:12:42","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T21:12:42","slug":"bdotemdote-minisota-a-public-eis-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/?p=169","title":{"rendered":"Bdote\/ Mdote Minisota: A Public EIS continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, early in Department of Interior’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to determine the fate of the Bureau of Mines-Twin Cities Campus property<\/a>, I called for a parallel public EIS, stating: \u00a0<\/p>\n

A truthful, open,\u00a0and ongoing environmental review process, carried out by the public for the public, is\u00a0needed to examine, document,\u00a0and review\u00a0all actions planned or undertaken by\u00a0public agencies and private entities\u00a0within the area of\u00a0Mdote Minisota [the area around the mouth of the Minnesota River, a sacred place for Dakota people]. Without such a process in place, this sacred and historic space may\u00a0continue to be destroyed,\u00a0bit by bit, historic property by historic property. . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the Department of Interior’s EIS process has dragged on now for almost four years and nothing much has happened in public view until recent months, it is good to look back to how we got to where we are now. In the summer of 2006 the Park Service released the draft EIS on the BOM property, including a denial of the finding by its own expert<\/a>\u00a0who stated that Coldwater Spring was a “traditional cultural property,” that is, a place of cultural importance for Dakota people.<\/p>\n

The Park Service also questioned the statements of Dakota people that Coldwater Spring is a sacred place for the Dakota.<\/a> After the comment period closed for the EIS in November 2006, little happened until the fall of 2008, when it was announced that the Department of Interior that it had chosen as the preferred option<\/a> for the Bureau of Mines property that it remain in the hands of the Park Service. According to this option the property will be treated as open space following a rehabilitation of the land, including the removal of the buildings.<\/p>\n

On February 16, 2009, an open house was held by the Park Service to receive input on the rehabilitation of the property, but not on the decision about the ownership of the property. The constraints of the open house spurred contentious opposition, including public statements by Waziyatawin, Sheldon Wolfchild, and Leonard Prescott, and many other Dakota people who insist that the property should be given to the Dakota. Details of this meeting, including links to videos taken there will be placed on this site soon.<\/p>\n

There is a lot to talk about. To launch that discussion I am going to reprint what I wrote four years ago, a reminder of how we got to where we are now and a challenge for the future. Some of the questions raised below have been answered already. Others are ongoing and the answers will not be easy.<\/p>\n

A Trip through the Center of the World<\/h3>\n

Bdote or Mdote\u00a0Minisota\u00a0is a large area surrounding the mouth of the Minnesota River, including parts of\u00a0Minneapolis, St. Paul, and several Twin Cities suburbs. Bdote\u00a0Minisota is for Dakota people a cultural, historic, and sacred\u00a0center, the place where the world began. It is also the center of\u00a0Minnesota\u2019s European-American history, the place where\u00a0European-Americans first began to leave their mark on the Minnesota\u00a0landscape. And now it is the center of development pressure that can\u00a0only get more intense in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

To visit Bdote, drive east (actually south) along the new Highway 55 from downtown Minneapolis. As you pass over Lake Street you travel through a\u00a0corridor lined with ornate street lamps, an imitation of a boulevard\u00a0in a European town, though one with little use for pedestrians. At\u00a0Minnehaha Creek, just above the mythic Minnehaha Falls<\/a>, you pass\u00a0through an odd tunnel just before the bridge crossing\u00a0the creek. Then you see a tree-filled parkland to the left just beyond the freeway wall, at least what is\u00a0left of the trees after the highway was built.<\/a><\/p>\n

Just beyond 54th Street the VA Medical Center<\/a>\u00a0complex is up a hill on the right, a hill known as Taku Wakan Tipi<\/a>,\u00a0the dwelling place of the gods. On the left is the old Bureau of\u00a0Mines site with its sacred Coldwater Spring<\/a>. The road\u00a0now joins Highway 62 and, in one of the most complex\u00a0intersections in the state, passes over highways linking St. Paul and Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport<\/a>. Just beyond the airport is the\u00a0former site of the Lincoln Mounds, <\/a>destroyed in 2004 to build two new\u00a0high-rise buildings called <\/a>Reflections\u00a0at Bloomington Central Station<\/a>. Beyond that looming in the distance is the Mall\u00a0of America.<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/span>
\nWhen your car shoots out onto the\u00a0Mendota Bridge, Historic Fort Snelling<\/a> \u00a0is just to the left. Directly below the bridge is the location of the tragic place where 1,600 Dakota men, women, and children were interned during the winter of\u00a01862-63.<\/a>\u00a0Nearby the Minnesota River flows into the Mississippi around\u00a0Pike Island, in Fort Snelling State Park<\/a>, where the Treaty of 1805\u00a0was signed.<\/a>\u00a0At the end of the bridge is the 150-year-old St. Peter\u2019s Catholic Church a<\/a>nd on the right is <\/a>Pilot Knob or Oheyawahi,<\/a>a sacred hill. Down the road on the left is the Sibley House Historic Site<\/a>, the home of Minnesota’s first elected\u00a0governor. The highway\u00a0now rises as you head into the suburbs.<\/p>\n

The place you have just passed through\u00a0is the center of the earth. This is the way the Eastern Dakota viewed and still view the junction of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. It is also a good way to view the importance of this\u00a0place in Minnesota history and culture, its importance for all\u00a0Minnesotans not just Dakota people. It was here that the modern state\u00a0of Minnesota began.\u00a0This is a battered landscape, but in the trees, along the\u00a0highways, and in between the modern buildings, are the remnants of\u00a0that beginning, the sacred places of the\u00a0people\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

This landscape is the way it\u00a0is in part because Bdote Minisota is under the\u00a0control\u00a0of a dozen different state, federal, and local\u00a0agencies,\u00a0each with different priorities and different understandings of the\u00a0wholeness and significance of this sacred and historic place. Over the years the various cultural\u00a0resources located within Bdote Minisota have been the subject of some\u00a0very specific and localized environmental reviews and impact\u00a0statements. As it happens, one such EIS has been undertaken by the\u00a0National Park Service for the site of the former Bureau of Mines,\u00a0Twin Cities Campus,<\/a>\u00a0a 27.32-acre site that includes the historic and\u00a0sacred Coldwater Spring. <\/a>A draft EIS is now being written. [The EIS was completed in the summer of 2006.<\/a>]<\/p>\n

It is too early to evaluate fully how\u00a0well the NPS-Bureau of Mines process is working. [That is what I said in 2006. It is clear now that as many feared the process has been problematic on many issues.] However public\u00a0experience of the various environmental reviews in the past have\u00a0provided some important warnings about the need for early and\u00a0continuing public involvement in commenting on these projects and in\u00a0contributing to and reviewing these environmental reviews.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, the Minnesota Highway\u00a0Department put together a plan to build a new bridge and highway across the\u00a0Mississippi River between St. Paul and Fort Snelling. If carried out\u00a0as originally planned this would have destroyed the remains of Historic\u00a0Fort Snelling dating back to 1820. Only as a result of public\u00a0pressure led by the Minnesota Historical Society<\/a> was this destruction\u00a0prevented. Shortly after that, however, much of the site of the\u00a0Indian Agency [including possibly the site of the American Indian burial ground located there] and other nearby historic properties were taken out by\u00a0highway construction.<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s an environmental\u00a0impact statement was done relating to the reroute of Highway 55, a\u00a0highway connecting Minneapolis to the southern suburbs. Although a\u00a0few military sites were mentioned in the analysis of affected areas,\u00a0the impact\u00a0of the highway on the area of the early Coldwater settlement and\u00a0on places of importance to Dakota people such as the spring, was\u00a0not discussed. It was only when the highway began to be built in the\u00a0late 1990s that\u00a0public interest in these areas was expressed.\u00a0Despite public objections the highway was built, but in the process\u00a0public groups were able to obtain <\/a>new protection for Coldwater Spring\u00a0under state law<\/a>. This protection would never have happened without\u00a0the actions of those conscientious citizens sometimes called\u00a0\u201cprotestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from a lesson about public\u00a0knowledge and participation in reviewing the environmental reviews,\u00a0these experiences also demonstrated some important lessons about the\u00a0scope of such studies. Environmental studies done under the mandate\u00a0of federal and state law tend to look at narrow historic resources\u00a0and narrow effects, without any understanding of the wider significance of distinctive places. For example, the fact that Highway 55 would\u00a0interrupt the flow of water to a sacred spring was not initially\u00a0considered significant because the highway was not going to be built\u00a0on top of the place where the spring came out of the ground. The\u00a0effect of the highway on the integrity of Bdote and the Fort\u00a0Snelling landscape were given short shrift.<\/p>\n

Government agencies often prefer to\u00a0deal with the question of whether there are human remains, historic\u00a0structures, or identifiable objects on a particular square inch of\u00a0ground, rather than the wider question of the effect that a\u00a0particular action has on a sacred area, a historic landscape, or the\u00a0viewshed of a historic place. This prevalent attitude has created a Bdote Minisota crisscrossed with highways, managed by a dozen\u00a0different government agencies, each with a different management plans and a different agenda.<\/p>\n

Is it possible to change the way the\u00a0valuable sacred, cultural and historic resources are treated in the Bdote area? It is unclear what can be done to change the\u00a0culture and practices of some of the agencies involved, but change in the outcomes of environmental review processes can only happen if\u00a0public pressure is exerted early enough to make a\u00a0difference in the process. What is required is a truthful, open, and ongoing public environmental review process to examine, document, and review all actions planned or undertaken by public agencies\u00a0and private entities within Bdote Minisota. Without such a process in place, this sacred and historic space may\u00a0continue to be destroyed bit by bit, historic property by historic property.<\/p>\n

Left\u00a0to their own devices, few of the public agencies involved would\u00a0ever\u00a0undertake such an ambitious process. [However, now in 2009, it appears that there is some movement in this direction.] Instead the public must\u00a0take the lead in carrying out such a review. In effect a process like this is underway involving\u00a0the various groups which have worked separately to\u00a0preserve Fort Snelling<\/a>, Coldwater Spring<\/a>, and Pilot Knob<\/a>. What is\u00a0lacking however is joint action by these groups and others, working together to protect the whole space of Bdote Minisota. In the long run, this is\u00a0the only way that this sacred and historic area can be preserved and\u00a0enhanced effectively in the years ahead.<\/p>\n

It is the purpose of this online series to aid the efforts of existing\u00a0preservation\u00a0groups\u00a0by\u00a0recording the history and culture of Bdote Minisota in such a way\u00a0that it is available to all. The series will also document and\u00a0examine the decisions and actions of the government agencies that\u00a0control the various properties in the area. In the long run it is hoped that\u00a0by this means the public can do a better\u00a0job of protecting\u00a0all of Bdote Minisota, not just fragments salvaged from\u00a0the whole.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Note on the Spelling of Bdote\/Mdote<\/h3>\n

Recent scholars have pointed out that the word usually spelled Mdote should be transcribed as\u00a0Bdote, to\u00a0convey more accurately the way the word is actually pronounced. The word Mdote is used here not as an assertion that this is the correct spelling of the word, but rather to avoid confusion among those not familiar with the Dakota language.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The words of one language are always difficult to transcribe with the alphabet of another. Even in English the\u00a0spellings of words do not consistently convey correct prononciations. The missionary Stephen R. Riggs, in his Dakota-English Dictionary<\/a>\u00a0transcribed Dakota words using the English alphabet with the addition of a number of special characters and marks. Riggs wrote that\u00a0the word Bdote means “the mouth or junction of one river with another (a name commonly applied to the country about Fort Snelling, or mouth of the Saint Peters),” the Minnesota River. He spelled the word\u00a0beginning with the letter m, but he also noted that \u201csome Dakotas in some instances, introduce a slight b sound before the m.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work is now under way to produce a new Dakota\/English dictionary, as described by\u00a0Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, in her book Remember\u00a0This! Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Narratives<\/a>\u00a0published\u00a0by the University of Nebraska Press in 2005. Waziyatawin and\u00a0the\u00a0linguist and anthropologist Timothy Dunnigan of the University of Minnesota describe the\u00a0new system of orthography, based on Riggs’s system but making use of some new characters and marks. A special computer font was developed to record and display the new system.<\/a><\/p>\n

It should be noted that Waziyatawin also prefers the word Bdewakantunwan, referring to “Spirit Lake Village,” a major Dakota community group once located at Lake Mille Lacs in north central Minnesota [also a sacred place for Dakota people], instead of Mdewakantonwan, the spelling given by Riggs and many other earlier writers. Both Waziyatawin and Riggs use English letters to indicate all\u00a0the sounds in the word except for the n, which is actually an n with a hook on its right leg, a special character known as an “angma,” indicating the nasalized sound of the preceding vowel.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three years ago, early in Department of Interior’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process to determine the fate of the Bureau of Mines-Twin Cities Campus property, I called for a parallel public EIS, stating: \u00a0 A truthful, open,\u00a0and ongoing environmental review process, carried out by the public for the public, is\u00a0needed to examine, document,\u00a0and review\u00a0all actions … Continue reading Bdote\/ Mdote Minisota: A Public EIS continues<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bdote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minnesotahistory.net\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}