From nature preserve to ATV track?

David Chanen

Grant Yonke's back yard borders pristine Sandhill Crane Natural Area in East Bethel, filled with hundred-year-old trees, nesting cranes, rare turtles and wildflowers. The 533 acres that make up this preserve have escaped any real drastic disturbance in 150 years. Until, authorities say, Yonke decided he wanted to build an ATV track the size of a football field near his property.

Yonke, 27, appeared in Anoka County court last week after being charged in March with felony first-degree property damage, an offense usually associated with smashed-in car windows or spray-painted graffiti on a building. He declined to comment after the brief hearing in the case, which dates to last summer.

A sign on Yonke's property clearly indicates the preserve's boundary line, said Anoka County Park Operations Manager Jeff Perry. He estimated it will cost $12,000 to repair the damage, which allegedly included cutting down nearly a dozen maple, basswood, ash and white oak trees, some 40 years old. Yonke also allegedly hauled large amounts of dirt with machinery to make banks and jumps for his ATV track, destroying vegetation and shrubbery.

"This is most severe park encroachment I've seen in the 20 years I've worked with parks," Perry said. "He told a sheriff deputy that he was surprised it wasn't an allowable activity."

At the state level, Dennis Simon, chief of the Department of Natural Resources' wildlife management section, said he can't remember anybody being charged with a felony for trespassing on DNR property in his 37 years with the agency. He estimated that the DNR, which manages about 1.3 million acres of recreational property, handles about two dozen minor encroachment reports a year, most of which are resolved through restitution.

"People will park a boat or RV or an old car on the land because they might think it's just wasteland," he said.

It's often difficult for park agencies that own vast amounts of land to police every boundary to make sure property owners aren't encroaching, Perry said. Transgressions usually involve someone building a garden or play structure that crosses into park land or dumping grass clippings onto the property, he said.

"Most reports come from neighbors," he said. "In this case, it was difficult for the neighbor to overlook a skid steer going back into the area."

Last summer, Yonke's construction project caught the attention of a neighbor, who told the parks department she was concerned for the nesting pairs of sandhill cranes in the area. When she was later interviewed by a sheriff investigator, she said that Yonke had recently moved into his house and that he had been a good neighbor, according to a court document.

Perry examined the property and saw the beginnings of a circular ATV track with piles of soil to make ramps and berms, heavy equipment and shovels still on the property. Several trees 15 inches in diameter were ripped out of the ground, he said. The destruction, on the northern boundary of the park, covered nearly two acres, he said.

Yonke was shown pictures of the damage by an investigator, and he acknowledged cutting down trees and moving dirt around on park property, the court document said. A felony property damage charge requires that the damage reduces the property value by more than $1,000 as measured by the cost of repair and replacement. The county is waiting to restore the property until Yonke's case is complete, Perry said.

It doesn't appear that any sandhill crane or turtle nesting or breeding activity was disturbed, he said. However, the removal of trees and crumpling of vegetation and potential loud ATV noises "would have pushed those sensitive species out of there," Perry said.

Sandhill, which consists of land owned by four state and local government agencies, was developed after an early 1990s duck hunting trip in the area by the mayor of East Bethel and the Department of Natural Resources commissioner, Perry said. There is public access to one of its three lakes, but it doesn't have park facilities or man-made walking paths because "the vision was to manage it and leave it how it is," he said.

From a biological and wildlife standpoint, Sandhill is considered one of the higher quality nature areas in the Twin Cities, he said. Besides cranes, it contains a well-preserved hardwood forest, a rare variety of violet and an even rarer nesting area for Blanding's turtles, he said. The county is seeking funding for low-impact trails and programming.

In 32 years on the job, Washington County parks manager Mike Polehna said he's never heard of an encroachment as major as that alleged in Yonke's case. He deals with the occasional person who chops down a tree or two, but such people are told to replant the trees or face criminal charges.

"One homeowner in Lake Elmo cut down 13 trees, but we didn't catch them in the act," he said. "We couldn't prove who did it."

Several years ago, the employees at Three Rivers Park District headquartered in Plymouth spent six months checking boundaries on their 27,000 acres of property and found more than 100 encroachments. They ranged from cut-down trees for firewood to a portion of a pole barn built on park property, said Larry Gillette, the district's wildlife manager.

"We did have a situation where a guy didn't like water backing up into his yard, so he brought in some machinery and re-channeled a park stream," he said.

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/north/96620149.html?page=3&c=y

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