Tips and tales about keeping water clean
‘Tis the season for gratitude, and this Thanksgiving I’m counting flushing toilets among my many blessings in life. What did people do before toilets were invented? Well, depending on where they lived, they either walked outside to use the outhouse in the freezing cold or did their business in a chamber pot and then dumped…
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“All operators are busy at the moment. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in approximately…60 minutes.” I was checking in on-line for a flight recently when I noticed that my name was wrong on the ticket. I called the airline and waited on hold for 1 hour, 7 minutes, and…
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I’m training for an Ironman triathlon and, despite my best intentions to prevent triathlon from taking over my life, triathlon has taken over my life. On a typical day I get up at 4:45am to fit in my first workout before starting work at 7am. I do my second workout over lunch, leaving the evening…
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It shouldn’t be a secret, but you might be surprised to learn that 49% of lakes in Washington County have improving water quality. Trout are surviving and may be reproducing in Brown’s Creek again. Woodbury has cut its annual groundwater use by nearly 35 million gallons in only one year, and Bone Lake in Scandia…
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Much has changed since the Valley Branch Watershed District was established in 1968. At the time, development had just begun to boom in the eastern suburbs of St. Paul, with new neighborhoods springing up in Oakdale, Maplewood, and the Tri-Lakes area of Lake Elmo. Several years of rainy weather resulted in high lake levels and…
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It’s 6:30pm on a Tuesday night and a small group is gathered inside the Scandia Pizzeria to hear neighbor Tom Furey talk about water quality in Bone Lake. Ten years ago, Bone Lake was considered to be one of the worst lakes in Washington County. The water was murky, phosphorus and algae levels were high,…
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Written in partnership with Watershed Partners: http://www.cleanwatermn.org More than ten years ago, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) came to a frightening realization. After testing lakes and streams in the Twin Cities metro area, they discovered that chloride levels in many were climbing, and that some were already too salty to support fish. Further testing…
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The state has 11,842 lakes and 69,000 miles of rivers and streams, and Minnesotans intend to hunt, fish, boat and swim every one of those water bodies.
Read MoreToday, Arnold is somewhat of a trendsetter herself. She farms just over 40-acres of land along the St. Croix River in Scandia and has become an advocate for the river and other environmental concerns.
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Analysis conducted by Emmons & Olivier Resources, Inc. (EOR) for the Comfort Lake – Forest Lake Watershed District indicates that the City of Forest Lake could keep an additional 137 pounds of phosphorus and 169,793 pounds of solids out of local lakes if it began sweeping twice a month with a regenerative air sweeper.
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