Preserving Our Parks and Environment

By Elizabeth Shaffer

Spending the summer in our Minneapolis parks, listening to residents, and working together has continued to inspire my decision to run for park commissioner this November.

After my community event in Bassett’s Creek Park, I received a phone call from Carter Casmaer, a Bryn Mawr resident. Carter is an ER doctor who often volunteers his time picking up trash in the neighborhood and parks. Recently Carter became very concerned about solid waste accumulating at long abandoned encampment sites as well as several areas of illegal dumping in Wirth Park which were posing an environmental liability for Bassett’s Creek. He had been working on the removal since fall of 2020 (hauling refuse out himself) and was disappointed in the lack of response from his park commissioner. MPRB staff had been out one time to review the site in the early spring but no action was ever taken.

Carter encouraged me to visit the location. It was alarming (see picture) to see needles and garbage among other trash seeping into the soil for almost a year and endangering the creek. Additionally, we all know letting trash sit encourages more dumping. As I continued to explore the area east of the creek and west of the tracks (that run under Glenwood Ave bridge and towards Utepils Brewing), I also noticed an occupied camper along the tracks and an active encampment on the creek.

On July 27th, MPRB Street Reach team met six community members onsite to assess the situation and together we started to pick up some trash. It was determined MPRB needed to survey the exact property lines between their land and Canadian Pacific Rail to assess how much of the trash we could legally remove. Street Reach staff also engaged with the two men in the tent and camper to connect them with appropriate shelter services. Soon after, MPRB surveyed the site and removed three trash piles, including an illegal dumping area containing tires, refrigerators and multiple propane tanks. This action left only one large trash site on the CP Rail property.

I reached out to Nikol Daniels, Manager of US Real Estate for CP Rail, to arrange a chance to visit the site on August 20th and meet with Carter and several other community members. CP Rail then took a GPS location of the refuse and as a next step set up a meeting with Superintendent Bangora, Park Police Chief Ohotto and other MPRB staff to discuss and finalize removal.

Small, committed communities of people can work together and drive positive change. I have had the privilege to meet many of them this summer, people like Anna Peterson and Ryan Atwell’s buckthorn team in Bassett’s Creek Park, Robert Skafte and company at Stevens Square Overlook Garden, the Seven Pools team in Lowry Hill, David Crary and team for opening river views along the parkway due to invasive removal, Steve Kotvis and team on west Cedar Lake and Will Stensrud, Angie Erdrich, Keith Prussing and team on east Cedar Lake, Claudia Callaghan and Soo Line Garden team working to protect their acre of paradise, Elliot and Nancy Gross from East Isles cleaning graffiti around Lake of the Isles and of course Carter, to name a few.

Elizabeth Shaffer is a candidate for the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board 4th District. Visit her website at https://www.elizabethforparks.org/