State Shutdown Would Freeze DNR, Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park

A shutdown of state government would suspend virtually all services and divisions within Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources.

All 74 state parks, recreational areas and camp grounds, visited by millions of people every year, will close. This includes Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park to Northfield's east. Conservation and enforcement operations will also cease, and ecological monitoring will come to a halt.

“We don’t have an agency master list of services affected by the potential shutdown,” said Colleen Coyle, a communications and outreach specialist with the department. “We are still in the midst of contingency planning, and the court has not yet ruled which of our services will be considered essential.”

Each DNR division director is being asked to lay out the effects of a potential shutdown on their units, Coyle said. 

Steve Hirsch, director of the DNR’s Division of Ecological and Water Resources Division, has come back with this assessment: All 300 staffers in his division will be laid off and go unpaid if the Republic-led Minnesota Legislature and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton fail to reach a budget compromise by July 1.

“If you look at the list of critical services, it doesn’t include most DNR employees,” Hirsch said. “Anytime you get something like this where there is a lot of uncertainty, people are concerned—they’re concerned about the work and they’re concerned about how they’re going to cope with it.”

Complete and partial shutdowns of state government have occurred during his 35 years at the DNR, but Hirsch said previous impasses haven't touched the DNR.

“Our budgets were already passed, so we were never affected like the other agencies were,” he said.

The Ecological and Water Resources Division also oversees invasive species inspections at the state’s boat accesses, which would likewise be halted.

Other DNR services that would be halted with a shutdown include environmental impact studies, monitoring of protected waters, non-game wildlife programs, biological surveys programs and ground water monitoring. Other state environmental departments, like the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, would be similar affected. That means the Cannon River Watersheld Partnership, which receives funding from the MPCA, could see much of its work stalled.

The public will also not be issued permits for water use. Most DNR volunteer programs and activities, including invasive species inspections, would also be suspended.

“If it was a short duration the impacts would be relatively minimal,” Hirsch said. “If it’s a longer duration I think we would start to become concerned.”

Editor's note: This article has been corrected to list the MPCA as a major funding source for the Cannon River Watershed Partnership.