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The Wild and Scenic St. Croix Riverway

27 It was the threat of a 610,000-kilowatt power plant in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, proposed in the 1960s, which triggered action leading to designation of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, one of the first eight rivers designated as part of the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The riverway includes the St. Croix River and a major tributary, the Namekagon. Other river development proposals had been debated since the 1800s, including an idea that persisted for decades to connect Lake Superior with the Mississippi via the Namekagon and St. Croix Rivers. As early as 1870, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had considered damming the Lower St. Croix to create a reservoir and control navigation on the Mississippi (Merritt 1979:72–77, 289). By the late 1920s, Northern States Power Company (now part of Xcel Energy) had acquired almost 30,000 acres along the St. Croix for power-generating facilities. In the 1940s, struggling farm cooperatives in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota wanted the Corps of Engineers to create a “little TVA of the north” along the St. Croix River. The Izaak Walton League was instrumental in fighting off this proposal (Karamanski 1993:29–30, 33). By 1953, there were 23 dams and hydroelectric plants in the St. Croix Basin, including five small dams on the upper Namekagon River. However, the middle and lower St. Croix remained a free-flowing North Woods stream, popular among canoeists and anglers (Karamanski 1993:38). By the 1960s, the Twin Cities metropolitan area was growing rapidly, extending farther out from the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Blufftop, floodplain and farmland property along the St. Croix was being subdivided for homes and commercial developments. Ever more people were coming to the river to swim, boat, fish, sail, water-ski, canoe, camp, and enjoy the scenery. The Oak Park Heights plant, proposed by Northern States Power, would have been one of the largest in the nation, and it set off a firestorm of public opposition. Activists formed the Save the St. Croix Committee, with representatives from both Wisconsin and Minnesota (Karamanski 1993:50). The Wild and Scenic St. Croix Riverway