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Three groups – four fourth-grade classes in Apple Valley, youth from a Lutheran Church’s confirmation program in Blaine and a Boys and Girls Club in Sauk Rapids – have won $500 apiece for anti-pollution projects aimed at keeping leaves and other organic debris out of lakes and rivers.

The contest was sponsored by Freshwater and InCommons to encourage small neighborhood-based efforts to reduce the phosphorus pollution that leads to excessive algae growth in surface waters throughout Minnesota. The Little Falls-based Initiative Foundation also was a sponsor and contributed the prize for the Sauk Rapids winner.

The winners were:

• The fourth-grade classes at Cedar Park Elementary School in Apple Valley, where students operated a drop-off site at the school that allowed Apple Valley residents to recycle leaves.

• About 130 youth and a nearly equal number of parents from Christ Lutheran Church in Blaine, who raked leaves from yards, parks and streets in neighborhoods around the church on Oct. 12.

Members of the Raymond Park Boys and Girls Club in Sauk Rapids, who raked leaves in and around the park for two purposes: to keep the leaves out of the nearby Mississippi River, and to mulch vegetable and flower gardens.

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Do you want to reduce urban runoff and pollution that flow into lakes and rivers? Do you have a good idea for how you and your friends and neighbors could work together to clean up soil, grass clippings and leaves from streets and storm drains? And could you use $500?

Then we have a contest for you.

The Freshwater Society and InCommons are sponsoring a Work For Water “micro challenge” that will award two $500 prizes for the best short-term community projects to protect our waters from the pollution found in the leaves, grass and soil that wash into streets. Enter here.

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Fred Kirschenmann

If you missed the Nov. 10 lecture by organic agriculture leader Fred Kirschenmann, it is available on video. If your internet connection can not support the video, listen to an audio-only or downloadable mp3 version. Or read a short account of Kirschenmann’s talk published in edible Twin Cities.

An active, engaged audience of about 200 people heard Kirschenmann speak on “Water and the Challenges Facing U.S. and World Agriculture in the 21^st Century.” The lecture at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Student Center was sponsored by the Freshwater Society and the university’s College of Biological Sciences.

Kirschenmann, who owns a 2,400-acre certified organic farm in North Dakota, is a distinguished fellow at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

As he spoke, Kirschenmann peppered his talk with references to books and journal articles on environmental sustainability. Check out his recommended reading list.

Three Minnesota experts in sustainable agriculture appeared with him. They were:

• George Boody, executive director of the Land Stewardship Project.
• Mary Jo Forbord, who operates an organic beef farm in Starbuck.
• Dr. David Mulla, a professor in the university’s Department of Soil, Water, and Climate who has worked extensively in the fields of precision agriculture and precision conservation.

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Minnesota FarmWise, an innovative program to encourage conservation and protect clean water in the Minnesota River Valley, has won a $15,000 challenge grant in the Minnesota Idea Open.

The Freshwater Society and the National Park Service will use the grant to form a farmer-to-farmer mentoring program to encourage practices aimed at reducing soil erosion and the runoff of fertilizers and pesticides into the streams and rivers that lead to the Mississippi River.

View a video about the mentoring program. Read the Minnesota Idea Open announcement of the grant.

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Minnesota FarmWise, an innovative program to encourage conservation and protect clean water in the Minnesota River Valley, has won a $15,000 challenge grant in the Minnesota Idea Open.

The Freshwater Society and the National Park Service will use the grant to form a farmer-to-farmer mentoring program to encourage practices aimed at reducing soil erosion and the runoff of fertilizers and pesticides into the streams and rivers that lead to the Mississippi River.

View a video about the mentoring program. Read the Minnesota Idea Open announcement of the grant.

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The Freshwater Society and the National Park Service have a great idea! Join us in making the Minnesota FarmWise program a success.

The MN Idea Open — a unique, public, grant-making competition — is focused on Water Issues in Minnesota. Over 100 ideas were submitted in this year’s MN Idea Open and have been narrowed down to three finalists. Ours is one of the three! YOU decide who gets the $15,000 prize by voting online.

Here’s our idea — Water resources in Minnesota are at risk due to how we use our land. The Minnesota River Valley is particularly endangered by both urban development and agricultural practices. Soils, manure, fertilizer, and other chemicals run off streets, farm fields and livestock yards, polluting our lakes and rivers, including the Mississippi, into which the Minnesota River drains. In turn, we send our water further downstream. The “dead zone” that is seen in the Gulf of Mexico most years starts with the Mississippi River here in Minnesota. The Minnesota FarmWise program will focus on agricultural influences on the watershed.

The Minnesota FarmWise program will identify the most vulnerable areas in the Minnesota River Valley, and work through existing community relationships to mentor, advise and implement farmer-proven and farmer-approved water-friendly practices that protect these critical, high-priority areas.

To learn more about our Minnesota FarmWise program, take a look at this video.

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Every five years, a massive federal Farm Bill allocates tens of billions of dollars to food programs for the poor, subsidies to farmers producing many crops, a fast-growing crop insurance program and incentives for farmers to practice conservation.

The Freshwater Society is joining the Izaak Walton League of America in planning and organizing a Monday, Aug. 22, forum in West St. Paul that will focus on the next Farm Bill to be considered by Congress. The event at the Dakota Lodge in Thompson Park is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required.

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