MN Lawmakers Seek to Protect Wild Rice From Pesticides

ST. PAUL — In 2021, Dustin Roy and other members of the White Earth Nation learned the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources had been issuing aquatic plant management permits within their reservation for years.

One of these permits allowed a lakeshore owner on McCraney Lake to use mechanical equipment and chemicals to clear aquatic plants from the water to achieve what Roy described as a “picture-perfect lakefront.”

The first plant on this removal list, Roy said, was wild rice, or manoomin in Ojibwe. The aesthetic decision decimated the wild rice beds that the White Earth Nation had been working for years to restore.

Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton and a descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, is spearheading legislation to protect wild rice waters from pesticides.