HOUSE APPROVES BUFFER CLARIFICATION BILL

ST. PAUL – The Minnesota House of Representatives recently approved legislation that better clarifies last session’s vegetative buffer requirements, and Governor Dayton has signed it into law.

State Representative Tony Cornish (R-Vernon Center) said the legislation was necessary thanks to significant overreach by the governor and his administration.

“It took the administration only a few months to misinterpret the buffer law and radically expand it to places where it did not belong,” Cornish said. “This is the reason we needed to go back and provide numerous, concise clarifications so landowners won’t have to fear any future interpretation nonsense.”

Under an agreement reached by the House, Senate, and Governor Dayton last year, by November of 2017, buffers with an average of 50 feet with a 30 foot minimum must be in place for lands adjacent to public waters. By November of 2018, buffers of 16.5 feet must be installed on all public ditches.

Months later it was discovered the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was misinterpreting the new law and greatly expanding its scope to include private ditches. Following a meeting with Governor Dayton where House Republicans expressed their concerns, the governor ordered the DNR to stand down.

Highlighting the list of changes is the removal of the problematic "benefitted area" language that Governor Dayton misinterpreted in an attempt to expand buffer requirements to private ditches, and ensuring fair compensation for farmers by requiring that compensation be based on property value prior to buffer installation.

“Everyone should now be on the same page when it comes to buffer requirements,” Cornish said. “This is an issue the governor was not going to let go, so we did the best we could without giving government more of an opportunity to unlawfully take your land.”