Freshwater Society

Is Minnesota making progress toward cleaning up the 40 percent of its rivers and lakes that suffer from some type of pollution that makes then unfit for swimming or fishing or inhospitable to the aquatic species that live in them?

Are the Legislature and state agencies on the right track toward spending the estimated $3.25 billion that a sales tax increase last year will yield over 25 years for protecting and restoring water?

About 100 people gathered Tuesday, Oct. 20, at a forum to ask, and try to answer, those questions.

The forum was sponsored by the Minnesota Environmental Initiative and hosted by the Freshwater Society at the Gray Freshwater Center in Excelsior. To view participants’ presentations, click here.

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Michael Osterholm

In a world with a constantly growing population and an increasing threat of pollution from tens of thousands of chemical compounds, clean water will someday be as valuable as oil, Michael Osterholm predicted in a forum on groundwater sustainability and quality.

Osterholm, an international expert on infectious diseases, was the featured speaker Thursday, Oct. 8, in a forum co-sponsored by the Freshwater Society and three League of Women Voters chapters. To view the presentation, click here to see a video taped by the Lake Minnetonka Cable Commission, Channel 21.

About 100 people listened raptly as Osterholm talked about the world’s reliance on groundwater and the threats groundwater faces from overuse and from chemical contamination. Osterholm, who serves on an advisory group for the Freshwater Society, said he was convinced that  in Minnesota, and around the world, groundwater is being pumped faster than it is being returned to aquifers through recharge from rain and snow.

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The Freshwater Society invites high school artists to compete for scholarships in its sixth annual Water is Life art contest. In the contest,  co-sponsored by the Society and seven Minnesota Service Cooperatives, students create works of art that illustrate the value of water and the threats that water resources face today.

Winning entries from this year are on display, through Oct. 31, in the 8400 Building — next to Kincaid’s restaurant — in the Normandale Office Park, 8400 Normandale Lake Blvd., Bloomington. From Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, the entries will be displayed in the offices of Emmons and Olivier Resources, 651 Hale Ave., N., Oakdale.

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More than 1,200 children learned where rain water goes after it runs into storm drains, analyzed samples from different bodies of water to determine where the water originated and learned ways to keep trash from polluting the water .

The youngsters – fifth-grade students from 20 metro-area schools – took part in the 12^th annual Metro Children’s Water Festival last week.

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Today — April 22 — is the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day, the call to consciousness that started the environmental movement in the United States. Check out a new web site, Whitehouse.gov/EarthDay, that will compile success stories of citizens’ efforts to protect the environment. And read a Wall Street Journal column by William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, about envrironmental successes and the pollution challenges we still face.

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