Tonka Bay officials think they found a new site for soil piled outside City Hall that is sacred to the Dakota people. But some residents don’t like it.
Tonka Bay may have a site for sacred soil displaced amid construction. Some residents don’t like it.
Soil sacred to the Dakota people has been sitting outside City Hall since crews unearthed it while trying to update roads, water and sewer lines.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
January 22, 2025 at 5:30PM
In a lengthy meeting last week, some neighbors raised concerns about construction, the environment and their ability to protect the sanctity of the proposed location near the intersection of Pleasant Avenue and Lilah Lane. The soil comes from an area that long ago served as a sacred burial site for some Dakota people.
So when City Council members gave engineers the go-ahead to start planning for the new location, they added a caveat: The work will only begin if representatives for the tribes tell them the soil must remain within Tonka Bay.
“It is a difficult situation,” Council Member Kelly Wischmeier said in the meeting, adding that officials were trying to appease both residents and the tribes. “So we’re stuck in this sticky situation.”
Much of what is now the Twin Cities metro area served as a longtime homeland for the Dakota people, many of whom were forced out after the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.
When people flocked to the suburbs a century later, many cities installed new roads, water and sewer lines. Current laws requiring officials to consult with tribes and return remains and sacred objects weren’t yet in place, so some burial sites were disturbed.
Crews working to replace aging infrastructure now say that can make it especially difficult to determine which sites they need to avoid disturbing.
“We’re not the only city that has had this issue,” former Council Member Kristin Viger said during the meeting. “We’re the only city with this dirt sitting in front of City Hall with no solution.”
Viger was among a handful of residents who spoke during the meeting, where discussion of the proposal lasted more than an hour.
Some people said they were tired of construction. Some sought assurances that adding the soil wouldn’t damage wetlands or destroy habitat for deer and other wildlife. Some wanted to know how the city would prevent people from driving snowmobiles or all-terrain vehicles over a burial mound.
John Bradford, with the consulting firm WSB, who serves as the city’s engineer, said some of those questions would be answered in the design process, which would include input from tribal representatives.
The parcel of land where the city might move the soil is owned by the city and bordered by trees and buckthorn. It already contains an Indigenous cemetery, which surprised some people in the meeting. The locations of burial sites are often closely guarded to prevent people from looting.
Representatives for the affected tribes either declined to comment for this story or referred questions to the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, whose members didn’t return a message this week.
Bradford has been working with the council to consult tribal leaders, who he said rejected several other sites for the soil and insisted that it must remain within Tonka Bay.
New Council Member Kathy Ottum said she met with a different representative for the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, who said the soil could be moved to another cemetery if residents oppose this plan.
“This is just totally new to me,” Bradford said.
The project is expected to be the Twin Cities' largest “sacred settlement,” where churches build tiny house communities for the homeless on their land.
