southern MN | KLo - 5/19/2017 11:38
I agree Just Learning. We need to take care of what we have before we are all regulated to death.
Minnesota has had a buffer law since the 1990s. I doubt Dayton even knows that.
His law is a knee jerk reaction that was announced to a Pheasants Forever gathering, was the first time any farm groups got wind of it. Zero input from Fran groups or agencies. Zero input from any scientific research. He just announced he wanted to take 50 feet from any landowner out in the country and force them to plant it to grass.
Pheasant hunters cheered.
Everyone else wondered what the heck he was talking about?
The law was enacted 2 years ago, we -still- don't have 100% idea what exactly is the rules or laws or requirements. It was one of those 'this has to be a good idea, we will pass it and let beuracrats figure out all the details' sort of a deal.
Cart before the horse.
Very, very, very bad legal, law making, science.
If you live in a dry area, you don't realize what this entails. It is a land grab that will take 125,000 to 300,000 acres of farmland out of production. With no compensation, and it appears no reduction in property taxes. (That may be left up the good graces of the county to decide...) in addition, if you read this massive grassland hunting grounds will help everyone in the state - even you say it should help everyone... But only the land owner will have to likely pay full taxes on it, as well as pay out of their pocket to seed and weed it.
Ditches dug in Minnesota typically go through flat land, and as they were dug out the spoils piled and leveled along the sides. This creates a ridge, or lip, so -no- water can actually run over the surface and into the ditch. We typically need to run a tile 80 feet away parallel to the ditch to drain out beside the ditch. So for the Daton and the hunting groups to repeat over and over and over that it will prevent polution from water runoff is 90% totally false, lie. Most dug county ditches are bermed by their nature.
As I mentioned, a better buffer law was enacted in the 1990s already, on the books. It kicks in any time a ditch is redetermined, and reworked. Few know about it, but the counties were using that law as a framework to orderly, slowly, with thought, get some buffer strips into ditch districts. The cost of these buffers gets assessed to everyone in the individual watersheds, so as everyone benifits, everyone pays equally. -This- was a pretty good, thought out law. It takes time to impliment, it was there for a long time so the details could be thought through and implemented first where needed, less fast where it's not so important. Why is this being abandoned, now that it is actually coming into force? Because it was fairer?
Better water quality, taking better care of stuff is a good goal. Myself, I have a ditch splitting my farm in half. Dad put in grass field roads on both sides that we hay, been there since the 1970s and before. Technically at this time the buffer law will have little real affect on me, altho we have no clue still of exactly what it is, and Dayton keeps saying its a good first step..... What other land grab and $$$$ cost things will he do to individuals?
I find Dayton's buffer law disgusting abuse of power, wrong minded, unhelpful for the environment.
Bleech.
Paul |
Mn buffer. Read this stupid s###
