Mr. Meier,
At the 8/15/07 meeting I believe I heard you say that you were aware that I “had” issues with the MN DNR Fisheries in the past. That tense is incorrect. The correct tense is I “have” issues with the MN DNR Fisheries.
Let me briefly explain.
First I would like to say that I spent 4 years in college, my entire retirement and mortgaged my home to build my farm. It is important to me.
In 2001 I notified DNR Commissioner Garber that the MN DNR Fisheries Research Manager gave false testimony to the legislature. After waiting a month for some kind of response and receiving none I filed a formal ethics complaint.
Shortly after that Mr. Payer contacted me saying that the letter to Commissioner Garber had been misplaced or something. His reply contained some of the same misleading statements contained in the research manager’s false testimony.
Six weeks after I filed the ethics complaint Mr. Payer etal struck back by removing 95% of the MN fish species from my fish farm license. That included more than 30 indigenous species, some of which are found within sight of my farm according to the MN DNR Fisheries. The 2 reasons given for the revocation are undeniably false and even if true would only apply to non-indigenous species not the 30+ indigenous species they removed. The first reason given was that I had only raised a certain non-indigenous fish species in tanks. This could quickly be proven false by simply looking at my license. The second reason given was that my farm was in the 25-year flood plain. That also is easily shown to be false by looking at the 1996 internal DNR memo that correctly states that my farm is actually out of the 100-year floodplain. That was also in my file when Mr. Payer etal revoked most of my license. In 2003 (2 years after the retaliation began) I asked for documentation that my farm is in the 25-year floodplain. I was told it didn’t exist. Still Mr. Payer etal continued to attempt to cover-up the retaliation by giving a string of equally false reasons. They included the threat of a 37” rainfall, a flood that would put the city of Brainerd under 20’ of water (that’s feet not inches) and even that my newer ponds were never licensed even though Mr. Goeman (region manager) personally approved them in writing for all MN Species in 1998 and 2001. On October 14, 2003 Mr. Goeman falsely told the legislative claims committee that the ponds he personally approved were not licensed. He also claimed to be unaware of the ponds that he personally approved. Then Deputy Commissioner Holsten was in the audience during that hearing. Holsten did nothing about his staff misleading the committee.
The retaliation initially cost my small farm a $10,000 order at a critical time and forced me to work off the farm in my attempt to keep it afloat. At 2,000 hours a year that’s almost 12,000 hours of working off the farm when I should have been there taking care of business and building my farm.
Now that I am working off the farm I never catch up and my production suffers drastically because critical chores don’t get done. That has cost me tens of thousands of dollars and continues to cost me each season. Nearly every day I leave critical chores undone because I don’t have the time to do them despite working until dark most days and every weekend. Some days I don’t even get them fed.
I watch as bird predators eat the results of my hard work on an almost daily basis because I cannot stay at the farm to keep them chased away. I drive up and they fly away. I leave for work and they fly back and resume feeding. If I were on the farm I would be able to drive them away without killing them. As much as I dislike killing any animal that I don’t intend on eating I have to resort to killing them but that takes time that I don’t have and it’s usually weeks before I can kill them. Then another flies in and resumes feeding.
The fact that Commissioner Holsten and Deputy Commissioner Martinson are both aware of this retaliation and have taken no action to hold Mr. Payer etal accountable tells me that the MN DNR considers retaliation against whistleblowers acceptable. It also shows me that Commissioner Holsten thinks it’s okay for DNR staff to deliberately mislead the legislature.
It’s impossible for me to recover the thousands of hours I’ve lost. It’s also impossible for me to recover the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve lost. Meanwhile each of the perpetrators continue to cost MN taxpayers $100,000+ a year.
I used to be a strong supporter of the MN DNR but because of the actions of Mr. Payer etal and the non-action of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner those days are long gone.
So you can now see why I “have” issues with the MN DNR Fisheries and as long as Mr. Payer etal regulates my farm I will continue to “have” issues with the MN DNR.
Sincerely,
John Reynolds
Midwest Fish and Crayfish