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By Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio
July 11, 2001
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In Duluth the Parks and Recreation Commission is holding a public hearing on a controversial proposal to build a golf course and lodge on Spirit Mountain. The group approved the $24 million project last month, but people opposing it are still hoping the development can be stopped.
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Nancy Nelson is a geologist and a member of Duluth's Tree Commission. She's been fighting the golf course since it was proposed four years ago. Nelson says there are about 500 acres of old-growth forest in Spirit Mountain and an adjacent city forest.
"I don't know of any other city that has a big chunk of hardwood forest right on the edge of town. There are patches through this whole area of old growth, and then there's Stewart Creek, which is a trout stream, and I've actually seen the trout in it. So it's what ecologists call a functioning ecosystem," according to Nelson.
Nelson says even if the golf course is designed as carefully as its promoters promise, the nature of the woods here would change.
Duluth's director of planning and development, Mike Conlan, says environmental concerns about the golf course have been addressed, and the city will insist that the developer meet every requirement of the 20 or so permits needed for the project.
"This is a private developer who's proposed a $24 million project without a penny of public money," he says. "The developer wants to take the risk, build this facility, with the eye toward the benefit of Spirit Mountain. The Spirit Mountain Authority very much wants to see this development happen, because they realize that they can't exist on three to four months of revenue a year."
But a complicated bureaucratic snarl-up is threatening to derail the project. Thirty years ago, the city bought the land to create the Spirit Mountain recreation area. The money came from the National Park Service, under the condition that the land must be maintained for public use forever. People opposed to the project say a golf course with fees of $85 for a round of golf, and a lodge including some time-share condominiums, is not really public use.
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The city administration and the developer both say they've followed all the rules. Developer Kent Oliver says early meetings with the DNR didn't turn up any concerns about complying with federal funding rules, and he thinks critics are trying to exploit a technicality to stop the project.
"It will always be for public purposes, just like the ski hill. People are going to come and pay money and ski, people come to the campground and pay money, they can camp. People come to the golf course, they pay money, they can golf. First come, first served, whoever puts up the money; it's open to the public, period," Oliver says.
Oliver says the land can still be used by cross-country skiers, bird-watchers, and hikers. But for project opponent Nancy Nelson, Spirit Mountain is the wrong place for a golf course, and she's hoping a bureaucratic technicality can prevent it. "We'd have turn grass in there, manicured lawns, all these big chunks of manicured lawn, in the middle of what used to be wonderful hardwood forest. You don't destroy a forest and a trout stream that could go somewhere else," Nelson says.
After years of working against the project, Nelson has decided to run for City Council this fall. The city and developer Kent Oliver say they're confident the Park Service will ultimately determine the project is a public use.
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