A mediation committee has failed to reach agreement on a plan to revise management of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness. The committee negotiating the best uses for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area struggled to find any consensus after a proposal once considered a possible compromise was rejected by some Ely area residents and those who want to expand the wilderness.
BOB KELLEHER: Attorney Brian O'Neill's proposal was praised two weeks ago as a potential breakthrough, after months of negotiations. It offered to trade an easier motorboat access to popular Basswood Lake in exchange for an end to motor use on the Moose Lake chain of lakes. But that would close down more than a dozen tow boat operations which use motorboats to carry loads of canoes and canoeists deep into the wilderness. It was an idea lambasted by Ely residents in a meeting last week. Brian O'Neill says he was also criticized by his environmental constituents for offering motorized access on a river that's been closed to motors since 1978.
BRIAN O'NEILL: I'm less optimistic today than I was two weeks ago.
BOB KELLEHER: O'Neill was at times dejected and at times combative. Negotiating crawled to a stop as committee members postulated on their positions and challenged others on theirs. O'Neill admitted he's wanted to remove all motors from the wilderness, and said he'd continue to pursue that goal if the negotiators could not reach consensus.
BRIAN O'NEILL: If there's some consensus that comes out of this group that lays down what the rules are going to be, those are going to be the rules for a number of years. If there's no consensus that comes out of this group, I will continue on in what I've done for the last 23 years of my life.
BOB KELLEHER: Outfitter and publisher Stu Osthoff feared that the two completely different points of view would never meld into a single consensus.
STU OSTHOFF: We have people that think you can coexist with motors in the boundary waters. And we have people that-- whose agenda is to eliminate them. And I don't know how we can reconcile that.
I think most people feel you can coexist. It's my feeling that you can't. And if you don't feel that, I don't know where we go from here. I really don't.
BOB KELLEHER: Osthoff and St. Louis County Representative John Ongaro each engaged in heated exchanges with Brian O'Neill. Ongaro says the issues dividing committee members can only be understood in the context of history, and the acts of Congress that created and expanded the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
JOHN ONGARO: Whenever the environmental community is saying, well, this is what we're giving up, the people from Northeastern Minnesota feel that's something that was already taken from them in the past so that the environmental side really isn't giving up something. But of course, the environmental side then in turn requires people from Northeastern Minnesota to give up something in addition. So it appears as a net loss to the people of Northeastern Minnesota.
BOB KELLEHER: The negotiators considered several more options and discussed at length the ramifications of removing tow boats from the wilderness. But they have yet to settle on a satisfactory solution. One possibility that looms stronger than ever is to maintain the status quo, essentially doing nothing to change the Boundary Waters Canoe area.
It's been suggested that the hard battle settled in a 1978 agreement may be the best that can be done. However, the members of the committee give it another try today, with another session scheduled at Iron World, USA, in Chisholm. In Duluth, I'm Bob Kelleher. Minnesota Public Radio.
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