Blog

Minnesota stands strong against water pollution

March 31, 2020

We’ve been hearing from members and friends who are concerned that COVID-19 is being used as a cover to relax environmental standards by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), based … Read more

A Minnesota Ghost Story

February 12, 2020

The town of Beaver in Winona County is a Minnesota ghost town. The Dust Bowl—the climate crisis of the decade—set the stage for the town’s demise. It was abandoned after … Read more

How We Treat Water

January 22, 2020

No one wants to talk about it. We’re often relying on decades to century-old technology. And we are just barely getting by. What am I referring to?  Water and wastewater … Read more

Making headway*

June 14, 2019

My friend Todd, the barge pilot, says he’s been laid off for over six months. Freeze-up was late on Lake Pepin where he lives and the ice-off time was pretty … Read more

Innovation worth its salt (savings)

February 22, 2019

The Morton Salt Girl helped Mike Gresch crystalize (forgive the pun) some innovative ideas to save both money and impacts on the environment. That iconic image of her with salt … Read more

Can't you hear it, too?

September 20, 2018

I’ve been thinking about ways to bridge the communication gap between science and public policy. I recently attended the Water Pavilion in San Francisco. It was an affiliate event of … Read more

More on Flint… and doing one’s job

July 31, 2018

We’ve posted several articles and opinions on the long slow story that was and continues to be Flint Michigan’s infamous water failure. Just out is an Environmental Protection Agency review … Read more

Drought at the doorstep

July 24, 2018

Those April blizzards are a distant memory after spring whiplashed us into full-on summer in record time. The prairie we are restoring on our farm went from winter drab to … Read more

The Arctic-Minnesota connection

April 24, 2018

Now that spring has finally arrived (knock on wood), is it safe to talk about what just happened and what it means for our water future in the upper Midwest? … Read more

A Salted Lake: Lake Johanna

March 9, 2018

Even after the winter’s snow has melted, our lakes and streams will not forget what we have done to move about at summer speeds during the winter months. Salt we … Read more