BOUNDARY WATERS – There are three counties in northeastern Minnesota that comprise the 1.1-million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Of these three counties, St. Louis County is by far the largest, amassing an area of more than 6,850 square miles. The second largest is Cook County, which is 3,340 square miles, with Lake County just behind at a size of 2,991 square miles.
County governments are largely hands-off when it comes to work being done inside the BWCA Wilderness, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Various volunteer organizations do enter the wilderness under the auspices of the three counties, primarily for search and rescue operations or as law enforcement working for the sheriff’s department in Cook, Lake, or St. Louis counties.
In recent years, Cook County has expanded an arm of the highway department to do more work under a job known as the certified agricultural inspector, commonly referred to in government lingo as a “CAI.” Tia Parks is the first full-time CAI in Cook County. Neither Lake County nor St. Louis County have a full-time CAI, nor anyone who dedicates a significant amount of time to the role who is on the county payroll.
According to state statute, all of Minnesota’s 87 counties are required to have an agricultural inspector. In the far northeastern part of the state, where there is not much farming or other forms of agriculture, the role of the inspector typically falls under the umbrella of the highway engineer or another job that already exists within the local branch of government. In Lake County, for example, Jason DiPiazza is both the highway engineer and the CAI. In massive St. Louis County, which is roughly the size of New Jersey, the CAI role is split between two county employees who work in the county’s planning and zoning department.
Prior to hiring Parks and subsequently making the CAI position full-time, the highway engineer in Cook County filled the role of the inspector. Since becoming the full-time agricultural inspector in Cook County, Parks’ role within local government has expanded. In addition to being full-time herself, Parks now has a team working underneath her, including a ¾-time position (though the highway department is hoping to make that job full-time in 2026) and a seasonal (summer) intern. It was Cook County Highway Engineer Robbie Kimmel-Hass who shifted the role of the CAI from being a duty of the highway engineer to a full-time position. Prior to a full time CAI, the county would just put out the required noxious weeds public notice every year and “that would be it,” Kimmel-Hass said.
“There were no invasive species treatment plans, no coordinated outreach efforts, and no management for replanting native species,” he said.
When asked why he or his predecessors, including Dave Betts and Krysten Foster, did not engage in any public outreach regarding invasive species, as is done in Lake and St. Louis counties with their dual-role approach to the CAI, Kimmel-Hass said, “Our historical effort in noxious weed treatment in Cook County was minimal until the creation of a full-time CAI. The noxious weed notice was posted and if calls were made by the public to make us aware of a problem species we would go and treat the site. While I can’t speak for my predecessors, that is the approach I took when I was the CAI. For the same reasons we have social workers, accountants, and truck drivers, there needs to be specialists in those roles to better serve our community.”
Kimmel-Hass said the county started to have the discussion about creating a full-time CAI position in 2021. These discussions were initially held at several Highway Advisory Committee and Gunflint Trail Scenic Byway Committee meetings, then at committee of the whole meetings. Eventually, Hass said, the county board opted to create the position.
Beyond just having a full-time person in the job, Cook County is the only county of the three encompassing the BWCA that pays staff to do work in the wilderness as part of the CAI’s duties. In an interview with Lake County Administrator Matt Huddleston Aug. 6, he told Paddle & Portage (P&P) that the Lake County CAI (who is also the highway engineer) is regularly engaging with partners from the Forest Service, DNR, Lake County Soil and Water, etc., to help share information about invasive species and noxious weeds in Lake County. Huddleston also says Lake County is not planning to add more staff for an agricultural team or expand it beyond the scope of the highway engineer. There are no plans for the CAI to do work in the BWCA Wilderness, he added.
In St. Louis County, Ada Tse, one of the two CAIs the county has in the role, said she and Paul Butler will do educational outreach to help other branches of government (townships, cities, etc.,) and private citizens learn about grants and other projects available to help control noxious weeds and invasive species. The CAI duo have no plans to do any work in the BWCA Wilderness, Tse said.
The officials who serve as the CAIs in Lake and St. Louis counties spend minimal time each month, to the tune of several hours each, primarily doing things like outreach and collaborating with other agencies and organizations to share information about invasive species. In Cook County, there could be (if the county board approves moving Parks’ assistant from ¾ to full-time) two people and an intern doing these same responsibilities. Parks has a much more visible presence than the CAIs in St. Louis and Lake counties, including efforts like pop-up booths at the brewery in Grand Marais and at various festivals, events, and public appearances, where she shares information about invasive species and the threats they pose in Cook County.
It is not unusual for the Forest Service to partner with other organizations to provide services in the BWCA Wilderness. In addition to search and rescue and law enforcement, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Friends of Superior National Forest, and other partner organizations do everything from fish stocking to clearing portage trails. Taking that a step further, Parks, as an “environmentalist specialist” for the highway department and in her role as the CAI, spent time working to mitigate invasive plants in the BWCA Wilderness in both 2024 and this summer. According to Kimmel-Hass, Parks spent five hours for the entire year on invasive species treatment inside the BWCA Wilderness. In 2025, Parks is on track to spend 12 hours total for the year on invasive species treatments inside the BWCA Wilderness. A focus of Parks’ work this summer, along with that of the Cook County Invasives Team, is locating and removing an invasive plant known as leafy spurge from the wilderness. The team located and removed about 60 leafy spurge plants earlier this summer, according to a story produced by WTIP radio in July. In that story, Parks is quoted as saying: “This is a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, so we get some of the closer infestations in the Boundary Waters. We’ve started doing that over the last two years. Last year we did a purple loosestrife paddle up around Saganaga, Seagull, and Alpine lakes, and that went over really well. So we’re just taking on a couple of these sites a year.”
Paddle and Portage asked for clarification on this statement, saying to Kimmel-Hass, Parks, and other county officials via email Aug. 7: “What does ‘went over really well’ mean in terms of outcomes and justification of the time spent working in the BWCA Wilderness?” Despite answering more than a dozen other questions relevant to this story, there was no information provided about what Parks meant when she said the paddle trip to Sag, Seagull and Alpine meant beyond that it “went over really well.”
Kimmel-Hass told P&P that “the notion of the CAI as a ‘weed puller’ frankly understates the importance of that role.” (It’s worth noting that P&P never referred to Parks or the CAI as a “weed puller.”) When describing the work being done in the BWCA Wilderness by Parks and her team, Hass said the Forest Service “has been dealing with funding cuts more than ever and that trickles down to invasive species management and the capability of the (federal agency to) handle that management.” Kimmel-Hass said the partnerships the Cook County Invasives Team has developed over the last few years have been essential for creating management plans all across the county and are a great example of what intergovernmental cooperation can look like.
To showcase the work Parks is doing in the county to address noxious weeds and combat invasive species, including inside the BWCA Wilderness, Kimmel-Hass said he nominated her for the 2025 Rita Beard Visionary Leadership Award. This award comes from the North American Invasive Species Management Association and recognizes “exceptional dedication and accomplishments regarding invasive species management or educational activities.” Parks will be flying to Lake Tahoe in November to receive the award, county officials confirmed to P&P. Her flight, lodging, and registration fees for a conference about invasive species that coincides with the presentation of the award will all be paid for by the county. Parks’ salary and that of her staff are funded by local tax dol-lars, or as Hass referred to them, “levy dollars.”
“We’re very proud of the work (Parks) has been doing and support the efforts of protecting our pristine wilderness up here in Cook County from invasive species,” Kimmel-Hass said.
The list of terrestrial and aquatic invasive species that currently pose a threat to the BWCA Wilderness is extensive. The Forest Service and other agencies, including the DNR, share information about these threats and how to prevent or slow their spread. From rusty crayfish to Eurasian water milfoil, invasive species can cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health, according to the Forest Service.
Unlike much of the U.S., the Arrowhead region and the Superior National Forest are fortunate because many of the species that are a problem in the upper Midwest are not well established here yet, according to the Forest Service. How-ever, nonnative invasive species can quickly spread once introduced into the environment. These invasives “can spread on the air, in the water, and on articles like campers, firewood, boats, vehicles, even the mud on your boots,” according to the Forest Service.
“Because non-native invasive species do not respect property lines, we are working with other agencies, non-governmental organizations, and citizens like you to increase awareness of this resource management issue and take action to stop the spread of (invasive species) in our area,” a memo from the Forest Service reads.
As we’ve previously re-ported, Superior National Forest is facing budget and staffing woes that will continue to impact things like portage and campsite maintenance in the BWCA Wilderness. Hass said putting together the Cook Coun-ty Highway Department’s budget for 2026 is proving extra challenging during a time when so much un-certainty revolves around funding. For example, Hass said one source of funding being cut from the highway department’s budget comes from Superior National Forest Funds and their Secure Rural Schools initiative.
“We are losing $108,000,” Kimmel-Hass said, “which means we either decrease our 2026 budget by that amount or pass it on to the local levy.”
In his presentation of the 2026 budget for the high-way department that he presented to the Cook County Board of Commissioners during their July 22 meeting, Kimmel-Hass said the high-way department would like to “transition nine-month, ¾-time environmental tech to year-round, full-time position.” This comes with an additional $20,000 (approximate) cost to the county and will be paid for using local tax dollars, the same as for Parks’ salary. Paddle and Portage also asked for more information about an added expense to the budget for “$11,000 for one month rental of remote-control mower” for the agricultural inspector and her staff to use. We asked Hass and Parks to describe what type of mower this is, who uses it, what it is used for, and if there are plans to purchase a remote-control mower for the county or if it will continue to be rented on an annual basis. They did not respond to this question.
In our conversation with Lake County’s Huddleston, he referenced a recent re-port from the Minnesota Management and Budget office. The report found that if the state government in Minnesota keeps spending at its current rate, the state will go from a budget sur-plus to a $6 billion revenue shortfall by 2027. Since the report came out, various legislative committees have outlined hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts to core areas of state government.
Of Lake County’s 829 lakes, 799 of them are located within the BWCA Wilderness. Despite the abundance of lakes in the wilderness, Huddleston said the county prefers to let the Forest Service manage the wilderness, though “partnerships” is a word he used to describe how the land and water across the county are more broadly managed.
Federal, state, and local governments are in a time of rethinking how their budgets will be shaped and supported in the immediate future and into the future. County officials in Cook, Lake, and St. Louis counties whom we spoke with for this story all agreed on that reality. What remains cloudy, particularly in Cook County, is the amount of local tax dollars that will continue to fund projects like pulling invasive species in the BWCA Wilderness.
“I can imagine someone who is as passionate about the wilderness as you are that ensuring we are doing our best to protect our pris-tine waters and landscapes is of utmost importance,” Kimmel-Hass told this re-porter. “Having a full-time CAI allows us the opportunity to do just that.”
