Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Report: Mercury Levels Rising in MN’s Most Pristine Lakes
Mercury, a toxin known to cause memory, language, and cognitive damage in humans—especially in kids and unborn children—is on the rise in Minnesota. According to the Department of Natural Resources, the mercury levels of fish found in over 500 northeast Minnesota lakes are deemed to be so high that those fish aren't safe for human consumption; some game fish are testing three to seven times above the threshold.
In the especially pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, over 100 lakes fall into the dangerous for fishing category. That’s grim news considering Minnesota has cut mercury emissions by two-thirds over the last 20 years. Why is this happening now? Wetlands, which often drain into the lakes in the area, tend to have higher mercury levels, Dan Kraker explains for MPR. Throw in climate change and pollutants from nearby industries like mining, and you’ve got a real problem, especially in bigger fish. (Speaking of mining, the Trump administration is trying like hell to green light copper-nickel mining right next to the BWCA.)
“Walleye are mercury magnets,” Syracuse University professor Charles Driscoll tells Kraker. “Those types of game fish that are really up at the top of the food chain have the highest concentrations.”
DEI Rollbacks Impacting MN's Immigrant, Black Farmers
According to a 2021 census data, 99% of farmers in Minnesota are white. With new state programs, USDA grants, and other forms of support, the 39 Black farmers in the state were hoping to change those numbers and make farming more accessible.
That’s all up in the air now, as the Trump administration has deemed any types of programs encouraging equity as illegal and discriminatory. And that’s bad news locally, of course. Emerging farmers’ orgs like the Food Group rely on Federal Funding, while places like the Sudanese Farming Group or the Minnesota African Immigrant Farmers Association utilize resources from groups that receive this type of funding.
“I know that shock is still trickling down, but just understanding the impact is just really frightening for most farmers,” Better Greens founder Funwi Tita tells Yvette Higgins in this informative story from Sahan Journal on how funding impacts immigrant farmers. “I think some of us are resilient enough to try and ride the storm, and hopefully we survive and come out on the other side.”
Welp... At Least MPR's in an OK Position to Weather Federal Cuts?
Speaking of funding cuts, in one of the more depressing rankings released this week, Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab has placed Minnesota Public Radio atop a list of stations primed to survive now that the current administration (sensing a theme this Flyover?) has killed federal public media funding.
Why does MPR top this particular list? Because it's based on web traffic, and the numbers show that MPR has the strongest online operation in the nation at 3,299,259 visits in June, up 52.6% from May. Yay, I guess?
“The public media outlets on this list are among those who’ve done the most to prepare for that fight,” Benton writes. “They’ve built syndication businesses, production studios, national programming, university partnerships, cross-media tie-ups, statewide networks, and a thousand other things meant to strengthen the institution. For them, the federal defunding will be painful but not fatal.”
PSA for Birds: Mirror Airbnb Coming to MN
It’s called an ÖÖD House, it’s originally from Estonia, and it makes glamping look like something only the feral do. While its umlauts may be excessive, its boxy shape, IKEA stage room aesthetic, and floor-to-ceiling one-way mirrors are minimalist. It also looks like an example of the “passive housing” featured in Nathan Fielding’s The Curse, though ÖÖD makes no claims of eco-friendliness.
ÖÖD’s origin story, according to its website:
During a weekend hike, the two brothers wanted to elevate their trip with an overnight stay… Outdated log cabins in short of light and spirit just didn’t cut it any longer and surely there were many nature aficionados on the same thought frequency.
And now you can rent one up in Crosby, Minnesota. “We wanted to plop this mirror cabin right in the middle of a totally natural landscape, so that it feels like the cabin almost disappears,” Meghan Zoesch tells Katherine Lawless at the Star Tribune. She’s set up a pre-fab/Airbnb ÖÖD in Crosby with her husband, Jake, that will be available to rent soon.
Hm. But what about the birds? This story about a similar type of house suggests that birds will fly into these structures and die.
“A lot of people have asked us about mirror houses effect on birds. 
OK, whew. Carry on then. Just watch out for raging stags during mating season.
