Minnesota flooding threatens influential environmentalist’s property

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Flooding in northern Minnesota is threatening a renowned environmentalist’s retreat.

Flooding is threatening many properties in the Rainy River Basin, the Star Tribune reported. Rainy Lake just outside of International Falls is expected to rise another foot in the next few days and break a 1950 record.

Resort, cabin and business owners across the region have been filling sandbags for days. One of the properties is environmentalist Ernest Oberholtzer’s retreat on Mallard Island.

Oberholtzer lived on Mallard Island until 1957 and lobbied against a series of proposed dams in the northern watershed in the 1920s, an effort that helped establish the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Voyageurs National Park.

His property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and functions as a public retreat. Caretakers have removed a collection of literature from its library but a piano in another building sits in several inches of water.