The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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    Rapidan Park

February 2, 2010

Pop-up tents to be allowed in Rapidan Park

By Dan Linehan The Free Press

MANKATO — In a step that makes a primitive public campground less rustic, pop-up campers will now be allowed in a specific area of the Rapidan Dam Park.

The Blue Earth County Board decided to allow the campers in a 3-to-1 vote Tuesday.

“It’s almost ageistic to limit it to tents,” Commissioner Drew Campbell said, referring to the difficulties of the elderly to camp in tents.

 The vote came against the advice of Public Works Director Al Forsberg, who said the county should try to maintain the park’s “primitive” nature. Allowing pop-up campers would be visually distracting, he said.

Commissioner Kip Bruender agreed, saying he earlier voted to allow a loop road in the park but made promises at the time that the road would be the last straw for development.

“We have to draw a line,” he said.

He also doubted opening the park to pop-up campers would significantly bolster its use.

He voted against allowing pop-up campers, which are pulled behind a vehicle with canvas walls that can be raised and lowered.

The three commissioners voting in favor chose the six campsites to allow because they’re larger and not bordering the river, where they could be a bigger eyesore or at risk for tumbling in.

Commissioner Tom McLaughlin was absent.

Campbell said he’s still committed to preserving the park’s connection with nature but said opening it up to pop-up campers would help more people enjoy the park.

Mike Dombroske, a New Richland resident who said he tent camps twice a month at Rapidan Dam Park during the summer, called the change “a good start in the right direction.”

He said there aren’t a lot of scenic camping sites in southern Minnesota on a river without tranquility-disturbing amenities such as pools and electricity.

Dombroske said inviting big RVs into the park might be too much, but he wants the county to “use it (the park) as best they can.”

The county used a Department of Natural Resources grant to help buy the park, and Forsberg said the department was not supportive of efforts to develop it. They would allow the pop-up campers but any more development and the DNR would ask for its money back, Forsberg said.

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