The state's northern forests have been greatly depleted by fires, lumbering, and farming, but efforts to replenish them began as early as 1876, with the formation of the state's first forestry association. In 1911, the legislature authorized a state nursery, established forest reserves and parks, and created the post of chief fire warden to oversee forestry resources and promote reforestation projects. Minnesota divides its environmental programs among three agencies: the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Office of Waste Management (newly reorganized as the Office of Environmental Assistance). The Conservation Department, created in 1931, evolved into the present Department of Natural Resources, which is responsible for the management of forests, fish and game, public lands, minerals, and state parks and waters. The department's Soil and Water Conservation Board has jurisdiction over the state's 92 soil and water conservation districts. A separate Pollution Control Agency enforces air and water quality standards and oversees solid waste disposal and pollution-related land-use planning. The Environmental Quality Board coordinates conservation efforts among various state agencies.
Minnesotans dump 4,400 tons of waste a year (0.99 tons per capita) into 53 municipal landfills. In 1994, the state implemented the Minnesota Landfill Cleanup Program to ensure the proper care of 106 closed or closing municipal landfills. Beginning in 1996, the state began construction on 25 new municipal landfills and instituted a planning effort to manage all existing and closed sites. In 2003, Minnesota had 81 hazardous waste sites listed in the Environmental Protection Agency's database, 24 of which were on the National Priorities List. To control the state's solid waste stream, Minnesotans have established 488 curbside recycling programs. In 1997, the state had some 9.5 million acres (3.8 million hectares) of wetlands. The Wetlands Conservation Act of 1991 set the ambitious goal of no wetland loss in the future. The Reserve Mining Co. complied with a court order in 1980 by ending the dumping of taconite wastes, a possible carcinogen, into Lake Superior. Other pollution problems came to light during the 1970s with the discovery of asbestos in drinking water from Lake Superior, of contaminants from inadequately buried toxic wastes at St. Louis Park, and of the killing by agricultural pesticides of an estimated 100,000 fish in two southeastern Minnesota brooks. During the early 1980s, the state's Pollution Control Agency approved plans by FMC, a munitions maker, to clean up a hazardous waste site at Fridley (near Minneapolis), which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claimed was the country's most dangerous hazardous waste area. The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. in 1983 began to remove chemical wastes from three dumps in Oakdale (a suburb of St. Paul), where the company had disposed of hazardous wastes since the late 1940s. Each cleanup project was to cost the respective companies at least $6 million. In 2001, Minnesota received $67,104,000 in federal grants from the EPA; EPA expenditures for procurement contracts in Minnesota that year amounted to $3,582,000.