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The article about groundwater issues around Lake Nokomis was misleading (“The hole story at Nokomis,” April 20,). According to the article, homes were built with peat dredged directly from Lake Nokomis. It is not true. Theodore Wirth, the Park Superintendent, may have been too aggressive in shaping shorelines according to current standards, but he did create “100 acres of manmade buildable land.” The lake’s dredged material was used to create wetlands around the lake that are now a beach, bathhouse, and parking lot. It is not housing lots.
The dredging did not create Lake Nokomis. It merely reshaped a previously marshy shoreline, and made the lake deeper. It is Wirth and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board who are responsible for water problems. They created a lake that was more defined and more attractive to allow for new homes to be built near it. These homes were built on soils that the Park Board had not cultivated. The Park Board’s actions in the area were detailed in the white paper cited. This only confirmed that peat soils were a problem.
The article should have mentioned a key finding in the white paper: Most homes in the area with water problems are 5 to 19 feet above Lake Nokomis and Minnehaha Creek’s surface water levels.
Let’s not forget about the Park Board’s excessive rainfall and where people built their homes. The Park Board deserves praise for trying over many years to alleviate some of the excesses that park planners in the past were less informed about, at Lake Nokomis, and elsewhere in the City.
David C. Smith, Minneapolis
The author is “City of Parks: A Story of Minneapolis Parks”.
The recent article on the 30×30 initiative to preserve wild ecosystems in 30% of the United States (“Minnesota falls short on federal land conservation goal,” 26 April, was very well written. Your report needs a few more points.
This is more than a Biden administration idea. It is a goal set by a coalition government to conserve the world’s biological diversity.
This is crucial because humans are changing the world faster than evolution can keep up with. Nonhuman species have to deal with the effects of human-produced pesticides and poisons, as well as climate change and the destruction and loss of forests, grasslands, and oceans. We are likely to be the next species that cannot keep up. The human takeover of their environment is causing a decline in the millions of species that make up the web. Even in a millennial’s lifetime, we have seen a dramatic decline in the number of bird and insect species. This destruction is increasing and has a catastrophic impact on human well being. And how can you reweave the web if there are no strands? The loss of biodiversity cannot be reversed by humans; it will take nature hundreds and thousands of years to do so.
U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber’s description of the effort as “no further use of our lands” is a characterization that I strongly disagree with. This is not and cannot be an effort to keep humans from 30% of the planet’s resources. This is about humans utilizing land and water wisely through sustainable farming, logging, fishing (even mining!) Use sustainable practices over destructive ones. While preserves may exist, they will only be a small fraction of the land and water that are “protected”.
This must encourage a sense of community among all people that nonhumans and humans have a place in the natural environment, and that we depend on each others for our well-being. This applies everywhere, from our backyards and suburbs to our city parks, lakes, woods, and suburban yards.
David Brockway, Hopkins
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Joseph Kennedy made a personal commitment to God and made a promise to God. Who else should be held accountable for that promise? Opinion Exchange, April 19. Public displays of faith by anyone in power create an implied obligation on others to honor and take part in the ritual.
While public displays of gratitude for God’s athletic performance are common, not all people appreciate them. Sometimes, excessive celebrations have included taking a knee after a touchdown and looking up at the sky. After a missed free throw, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a gesture. These gestures are a way to say “Look at me!” Moments rather than private devotion and personal devotion. Interfering with a mixed social gathering and asking for prayers for the next meal is a form narcissism that both Qur’an and the Bible find disgusting.
If you feel that participation in public prayer, which is either requested or coerced, is a freedom-of-religious issue, you should accept the same from a Muslim coach or other non-Christian one.
Jerrol Noller, Anoka
The Supreme Court case will not be ruled on if the practice is voluntary or generic. The opinion of the former Viking kicker is the same. “High school coaches should never lead prayers.” Too many liberal left-wing politicians, media, and faithless citizens continue their tacit drive to universal atheism. Who knows, the Pledge of Allegiance could be the next thing.
The country’s founding believers and subsequent generations held firm to the belief that “in God we believe”. It seems that the more we stray from this principle, the more we become uncivilized. Minnesota nice? It’s hard to find Minnesotans in Minneapolis, the home of the Vikings. There, day and night violence is the new normal. Perhaps it’s the right time to have more faith and a more Protestant work ethic. That would require a conscience, and discipline that are not readily appealing to many people today.
But then, the playbooks of today aren’t working. So what do you have to lose by trying something else? It would require leadership of a different type than the ones in charge today.
John D. Smith, Stillwater
The Bill of Rights was established to ensure that the Constitution protected the rights of citizens against the government’s dictates. Its first clause, which prohibited any laws “respecting the establishment of religion”, demonstrates how important it was for the founders to ensure that we are not subject to government dictates about what religious tenets “correct.”
Public employees who try to use their position for their religious beliefs can cause problems. Kennedy did this when he was a high school football coach in Seattle. After each game, Kennedy began to pray at the 50-yard mark. He would then pray loudly if any students were present. He said that he did it to make his students better. Kennedy v. Bremerton school district, currently before the Supreme Court is a case in which the First Amendment’s establishment clause conflicts with Kennedy’s free exercise of religion rights and free speech rights.
The establishment clause prohibits the government from coercing people to follow religious practices it does not like. Coercion goes beyond the government’s power to fine or arrest people. They may feel they must conform to the government’s demands to show patriotism or please their peers by adhering to a group behavior. In Lee v. Weisman, the former Justice Anthony Kennedy stated that government cannot use social pressures to enforce orthodoxy any more than it can use more direct methods.
Justice Kennedy pointed out that children are particularly vulnerable to psychological pressure. This is why the government must be careful not to inject religious persuasion in public school activities.
Kennedy, a former coach, agreed to restrictions on his freedom of religion expression when he accepted government employment at a public school. However, he is also requesting the right to be the focal point of attention at the 50-yard mark of a packed stadium. The court must not only consider the rights he claims, but also the rights of the students he was charged with to be free from religious coercion from government officials.
George Francis Kane, St. Paul
