Coldwater Spring court case a
fascinating look at Minnesota history

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur J. Boylan dismissed charges against three people who entered the Coldwater area to collect spring water and pray, back in October 2005. The spring is a traditional sacred site for Dakota and other Upper Mississippi Indian nations and, under the 1805 Dakota-Pike Treaty, the Dakota had legal rights to the site.

Ever since March 2, 2006, lead attorney Larry Leventhal had moved four times for dismissal of the charges of “failure to obey a legal order.” Leventhal told defendants the order was not legal because the 1805 Dakota-Pike Treaty “promised” people of the Dakota Nation “the rights to pass, repass, hunt or make other uses of the said districts, as they have formerly done.”

Leventhal finessed a graceful exit from the case for Judge Boylan who made the unorthodox prima facie decision that the 1805 treaty is “invalid” (11/06). Instead of ruling again on the validity of the treaty, Boylan dismissed the petty misdemeanor charges by finding that enforcement of the paper permit entry system to the spring was defective.

“If the Treaty were not valid,” Leventhal said, “it would seem that the land would be considered Dakota land.”
The United States Constitution (Article VI. Section 2.) states that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.”

For Robyn Thorson, director of the eight-state Midwest region of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the dismissal may have been a career-saving move. FWS is responsible for maintenance of the 27-acre federal Coldwater property during a multi-year process to determine future use of the former Bureau of Mines site along the Mississippi blufftop south of Minnehaha Park.

Thorson pushed for extremely limited access to the Coldwater site, one hour a week, after nine years of open public access for 30 hours a week. The FWS clampdown occurred after a series of brittle meetings between Coldwater supporters and the director, who claimed the closure was for “safety” reasons.
The case ended abruptly after the prosecution rested, before the defense was presented. “The prosecution did not prove their case,” said a legal aide. Thirty supporters clapped for the stunned defendants as the judge quickly exited the chambers, some said with a red face.

The defendants’ Mendota Dakota attorney, Barbara Nimis, established sloppy police work through a series of questions about dates and whose authority was used to issue the violations.

During the struggle to stop the Highway 55 reroute through Minnehaha Park a number of charges were dismissed when police failed to show up for court appearances or failed to complete proper procedures. Supporters of Native rights and the environment always considered the police secret supporters when cases were dismissed.

This case is the latest ripple in the ongoing citizen effort to protect the Coldwater property, considered to be sacred and historic. In addition to Native claims, Coldwater is the birthplace of Minnesota, where the soldiers who built Fort Snelling lived. The spring furnished water to the fort from 1820-1920.
Since the Highway 55 construction there has been a loss of 27,500 gallons a day (almost 20 gallons a minute) from Coldwater Spring, which still flows at about 100,000-gallons a day. Coldwater is the last natural spring of size in Minneapolis or St. Paul including all of Hennepin County.