The (Federal) Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) has announced it will undertake what’s known as a “special review” to examine the Minnesota DNR’s alleged misuse of federal grant funds designed to benefit wildlife and their habitat. The only other special review currently underway by the OLA is focused on the Department of Education’s oversight of the massive fraud committed by the nonprofit “Feeding Our Future” which bilked millions in Federal Covid dollars. That review should wrap up in July. And the review of the DNR will begin.
The problems came to light when 28 DNR wildlife managers sent a letter to the DNR Central Office agency leaders expressing their concerns for wildlife species due to timber harvest goals. The grant funds are sourced from Pittman-Robertson federal funding for Wildlife Habitat Management. The DNR did not provide proper documentation to US Fish and Wildlife Service of the timber sales and appropriate usage of grant funds.
The DNR’s knee jerk response was to put in place a 16-page categorical exclusion form that has 31 attachments (reviews of historical significance, ecologic, endangered species, wetland, and many more) that has to be done for every project that MTRA had planned to fund. MTRA funds do not come from Fish & Wildlife but Federal Highway Administration. MTRA was originally told that we would be exempt since we only fix existing trails and camps. However, the first (of 31) reviewers turned down every project for unbelievably stupid reasons.
Back to DNR “review”, a former deputy DNR Commissioner and a former DNR forester say this review is serious and Central Office should not be telling field staff to keep quiet and that everything is fine.
The April 4 DNR meeting at Sand Dunes State Forest spent much of the meeting talking about timber sales and logging at Sand Dunes. It appears the DNR is supporting logging urged by the timber industry. So where does that leave recreational users in state forests and Wildlife Management Areas (WMA). Field staff try to work with and accommodate users, but are Central Office staff in tune with recreational needs? Are recreational users ever consulted?