Non-confidential Version
Public version released for review; contains the report’s scope, methods, findings, limitations, and recommendations.
Click to ReadPublic Record Evidence
Potential Is Not Closure
MPRB’s own archaeological report does not recommend decommissioning the Minnehaha Dog Park.
The report identifies archaeological potential and recommends further investigation. MPRB chose decommissioning. The missing public record is the analysis explaining why closure—rather than mitigation, survey, fencing, boundary modification, monitoring, or managed access—became the chosen remedy.
Protecting cultural resources is not optional. Neither is public accountability. The question is not whether the Minnehaha Off-Leash Dog Park sits within a historically and culturally significant landscape. It does. The question is whether MPRB has produced a public, legally adequate record showing that permanent decommissioning is necessary rather than fencing, buffers, restricted zones, additional survey, monitoring, enforcement, boundary modification, replacement, or other mitigation.
106 Group report, Non-Confidential Version, internal p. 1 / PDF p. 6.
Fencing Project
“construct fencing on MPRB land to enclose an existing off-leash dog area”
The Report Evaluates a Fence
MPRB’s consultant report states that the project involved National Park Service funding to construct fencing on MPRB land to enclose an existing off-leash dog area. The report explains that the fencing was intended to demarcate MPRB’s property boundary and prevent off-leash dogs from entering adjacent non-MPRB land near Mni Owe Sni / Coldwater Spring.
That matters.
This was not commissioned as a decommissioning study. It was not an off-leash-use compatibility study. It was not a replacement-capacity study. It was not a permit-holder impact study. It was not a public engagement report. It was an archaeological literature review and assessment for a proposed fence. Even worse, it was at minimal scale and not sufficient to determine any of the Boards' public stated rationale for park closure (e.g., confirmed burial sites, human remains, or archaeologically significant findings).
106 Group Non-site Archaeological Study Features:
Desktop Assessment
“no site visit was conducted”
Limitation
“no shovel testing was conducted within the study area”
No Completed Systematic Survey
“not possible to say” the study area had been subject to “systematic archaeological survey”
Potential Is Not Closure
“moderate to high potential”
Potential Is Not Proof
One of the most important facts about the report is what it does not claim.
The report does not conclude that significant archaeological resources have been demonstrated throughout the Minnehaha Off-Leash Dog Park.
Instead, it discusses archaeological potential.
The report is a literature review and desktop assessment. No site visit was conducted. No shovel testing was conducted within the study area. The report explicitly recommends additional archaeological investigation before construction.
The report also states that Mni Owe Sni / Coldwater Spring is a cultural and natural property, not an archaeological resource, and is not addressed further in this archaeological report (internal p. 6 / PDF p. 11). MPRB cannot blur archaeology, TCP concerns, burial-site protection, ceremonial-use concerns, land ownership, and closure policy into one opaque rationale.
Potential matters. It just does not answer the closure question.
Potential does not establish
- A finding that resources may exist is not the same as a finding that closure is necessary.
- A finding that further investigation is warranted is not the same as a finding that public recreation must end.
- A finding that archaeological sensitivity exists is not the same as a finding that mitigation is impossible.
MPRB has not publicly shown the analysis that bridges those gaps.
The Report Identifies Sensitivity. It Does Not Identify Closure as the Remedy.
The report identifies archaeological sensitivity and historical context. Those findings deserve seriousness. But archaeological sensitivity is the beginning of management analysis, not the end of it.
The report assesses the study area as possessing moderate-to-high potential for intact significant precontact and post-contact archaeological resources. That supports caution. It supports further survey before ground disturbance. It supports avoidance of known features. It supports controlled access decisions grounded in evidence.
It does not support skipping over alternatives analysis and going straight to decommissioning.
Mni Owe Sni / Coldwater Spring is significant and should be treated with respect. But MPRB cannot blur distinct legal and factual issues when explaining a closure decision.
The report itself draws the line. It notes that Mni Owe Sni / Coldwater Spring was listed in the National Register as a Traditional Cultural Place, but then states that the TCP is a cultural and natural property, not an archaeological resource, and is not addressed further in this archaeological report.
If MPRB is relying on TCP concerns, ceremonial-use concerns, burial-site concerns, access-conflict concerns, consultation findings, land ownership issues, or grant-compliance requirements beyond archaeology, it must say so in a nonconfidential way. Exact locations and sensitive details can remain protected. The basic factual predicate cannot be hidden.
Different predicates require different remedies.
The Consultant’s Actual Recommendation Was Not Closure
The report’s recommendation is narrow and practical: avoid impacts to known archaeological features where feasible, and conduct Phase I archaeological field survey in areas subject to project-related ground disturbance before construction.
That is the key.
The consultant did not recommend decommissioning the Minnehaha Off-Leash Dog Park.
The consultant did not conclude that off-leash use is categorically incompatible with resource protection.
The consultant did not analyze closure versus fencing, buffers, restricted zones, monitored access, boundary reduction, seasonal limitations, enforcement, or replacement.
The consultant did not provide a public finding that continued access cannot be managed.
MPRB may have other information. If so, it should release every legally disclosable portion of it.
The Actual Next Step
“Phase I archaeological field survey … prior to construction”
Recommendation
“Project impacts to known archaeological features be avoided, if feasible”
Where Is the Secular Closure Rationale?
The public record currently appears to contain three categories of explanation:
- Archaeological potential.
- Cultural and historical significance.
- Statements from officials or advocates describing the area as sacred, spiritually significant, or religiously important.
But the archaeological report does not recommend closure.
The report does not conclude that continued public access is incompatible with resource protection.
The report does not evaluate mitigation alternatives.
The report does not conclude that decommissioning is required by law.
That leaves an obvious question:
Public Record Question
“Where is the independently sufficient secular closure rationale?”
If this is the basis, release the record
- If archaeological necessity is the basis, release the analysis.
- If burial-site protection is the basis, release the nonconfidential findings.
- If legal compliance is the basis, identify the legal requirement.
- If land-management necessity is the basis, release the alternatives analysis.
Without that disclosure, the public is left to wonder whether sacredness- and spirituality-based objections are carrying far more weight in the decision than MPRB has acknowledged.
That is not transparency.
That is not accountability.
And it creates serious constitutional-process concerns that MPRB should address directly rather than leaving citizens to speculate.
With current public statements, and lack of clear demonstration of a secular justification, there is a concerning missing set of materials in MPRB's rationale and produced evidence.
MPRB has not publicly produced the bridge between those two points.
What MPRB Must Release Before Implementation
Cultural-resource protection and public transparency are not opposing values. They are complementary obligations.
MPRB can protect sensitive archaeological and cultural information without hiding the policy basis for closing a public amenity. It can protect exact locations without withholding nonconfidential conclusions. It can honor cultural significance without bypassing process, disclosure, alternatives analysis, secular governance, and replacement planning.
- The report supports caution.
- It supports survey.
- It supports mitigation.
- It does not support an unexplained rush to decommission.
Missing public record
- The nonconfidential closure rationale.
- The specific factual predicate for decommissioning.
- The secular governing basis for closure.
- The alternatives analysis.
- The mitigation analysis.
- Any nonconfidential consultation conclusions.
- The redaction log and statutory basis for withheld material.
- The Open Meeting Law accounting for any private or closed briefings.
- The permit-holder impact analysis.
- Refund, credit, fee-adjustment, or substitute-access analysis.
- A funded equivalent replacement plan.
Until MPRB releases the missing record, Resolution 2026-114 should not be implemented.
Read the 106 Group Archaeological Literature Review Assessment.
Redacted Version
Earlier redacted draft version released through public records; sensitive archaeological information remains withheld.
Click to Read