Minnesota will pour millions of dollars into recreational trails, environmental education, water protections, and a smorgasbord of wildlife conservation efforts specified in the latest grant package funded by state lottery proceeds.
In all, this year’s Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund bill will distribute $77.6 million to 101 different projects, more projects than ever before. The bill, shaped in 2023 by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), sailed smoothly through the Legislature and was signed into law Monday by Gov. Tim Walz.
All new in the list of projects is the creation of a 110-mile Driftless Area Hiking Trail in southeastern Minnesota. Volunteers would shepherd the proposed backpacking trail, which has been likened to the Superior Hiking Trail along the North Shore. The initial appropriation of $426,000 will be aimed at route planning, obtaining land permissions, and other preliminary work.
Becca Nash, LCCMR executive director, said she’s thrilled by the bill’s early passage.
“None of us has any memory of the bill passing this early in the session,’’ she said.
The speedy approval is an extra gift for the grantees, Nash said, because it allows them to move ahead sooner than usual. Project work plans must be approved by the LCCMR before the grant money can start to flow in July.
One of the largest appropriations authorized in the bill is $5 million to expand and rehabilitate existing state trails, including high-priority bridge repairs or replacements. Trail building also will be incorporated into other projects, such as the $2.9 million upgrade to Spring Lake Park Reserve in Dakota County.
Game and nongame wildlife projects are sprinkled throughout the bill. The conservation efforts pertain to walleyes, deer, elk, bison, wolves, trumpeter swans, butterflies, moths, small weasels, loons and other critters.
