Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/category/environment/page/17/)
Many states require termite inspections before real estate can change hands. None are required in Minnesota because there are no termites here. That is why I was astounded a few years ago when I sold a home that was infested with termites. The buyer had an inspection and we all saw the mud tubes, but since none of us had ever seen a termite or a mud tube it just did not register. Continue Reading
In January, Alondra Cano officially started her new job as the council member representing the 9th Ward of Minneapolis. She said the work actually started the evening she was elected. Her phone began ringing and people began asking her to listen to them. As she started to make decisions she thought a lot about the responsibility and opportunity she had worked so hard for, and the trust so many people had put in her.
Of Minnesota’s 55.6 million acres, 27 million acres are taken up by farmland. Currently, crop production is dominated by summer annuals like corn and soybeans, which need to be replanted each year and grow only in the summer. The consequence of this type of cropping is that for most of the year, no active roots exist in the soil to filter water, reduce runoff, or prevent erosion. Covering the ground with crops for a larger portion of the year by adding winter annuals and perennials to the landscape provides multiple benefits, including diversifying agricultural operations, protecting soils and waterways, and increasing wildlife habitat. Continue Reading
It seems clear that political officials who favor a pair of “shallow tunnels” between Cedar Lake and Isles for the Southwest Light Rail Train are not educated about the threat of reduced recharge to Cedar Lake. Reduced recharge means reduced water quality. I have repeatedly asked at Hennepin County Commission SW LRT meetings for an estimate of the dewatering amount for the proposed construction project and never had my inquiry acknowledged or answered. Cedar LakeCedar Lake originally emptied to the northeast, into Bassett Creek. During the early 1900s rowboat craze, the Kenilworth Lagoon was dug between Cedar Lake and Isles, reversing the Cedar drainage from Bassett Creek to Minnehaha Creek along the Chain of Lakes. In the mid-1990s, the Seattle-based landscape architects Jones & Jones working on the design for the north part of the Cedar Lake Trail dug and dug but could not find the old northeast outflow path from Cedar Lake. Continue Reading
For Minnesotans the true Rite of Spring is planting season – even if the experience is remembered or vicarious. Planting season with real farmers on real tractors with genetically un-modified seeds, rotated crops and other practices that promote sustainable agricultural systems. Happily, nostalgia is giving way to reality as urban farming, farm to home, and farmers market programs and locavore cuisine raise the profile of family farming and the role that family farmers play in growing nutritious food to feed a hungry world — while protecting the environment and preserving the land. Continue Reading
Unlike other forms of infrastructure, urban forests are also an ecosystem. As a managed system, it grows and evolves over time, but has basic requirements that must be met in order to function as planned. It is a bit like an infantry unit; it will suffer casualties and face attrition over time. Replacement candidates have to be cultivated and carefully selected to address specific weaknesses in the unit as a whole and must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and impending threats. But regardless of tree selection, it all starts with the soil. It’s easy to look down on the dirt and forget that it also is a living system that itself needs to be protected and cultivated. We can plant a million trees, but unless we understand what is happening below the surface it will largely be a wasted effort. Continue Reading
Solar panels, vegetation and buzzing bees could all appear on Southeast Como roofs this summer.
Having been born into a family of nine children, I learned to re-use and recycle before it was politically correct. I grew up in a family that refinished furniture, sewed creatively, and artistically turned leftovers into magnificent meals. My family took pride in the ability to find new purposes for used things. Now, as an adult, with children and grandchildren of my own, I find that my enthusiasm for recycling and re-purposing is a support for my friends, family and neighbors. Locally, I am supported in my desire to re-use and recycle through city and county programs.
A few years ago, I was on the state highway traveling back from South Dakota. It was a beautiful day. I was driving my teal 1995 Honda Civic and traveling with my friend Peter. We came east out of Roberts County from South Dakota and turned south winding along Big Stone Lake through Ortonville then up out of the valley and across the beautiful farmlands of West Central Minnesota.
Sustainable Mining is an Oxymoron – Legislation has been introduced to create a so-called “Sustainable Mining Institute” ( HF 2842/ SF 2632 ). Money would be appropriated from the state general fund ($3 million for 2015, and may accept funds from outside sources). Mineral resources are finite, therefore mining is inherently not sustainable. In addition, the mining process depletes clean, sustaining sources of water, and requires enormous amounts of energy. This legislation is unnecessary and is a subsidy to the mining industry to promote more mining. The Natural Resource Research Institute (NRRI) and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) are already involved in research on mining, along with the Department of Natural Resources Lands and Minerals Division.Any new research money should instead be devoted to a sustainable use of our metals. Our state could create a Sustainable Usage of Metals Research Institute. Such research could find ways to recycle metals, repair products made from metals, engineer more efficient design of products, increase product durability, increase the longevity of metals already in use, re-source metals from abandoned settings, substitute non-metal materials where possible, and promote boycotting of electronic items that are designed for obsolescence.When our metals run out, they are gone, not to be replaced. Northeastern Minnesota needs to take a new direction, away from dependency upon a destructive and unhealthy mining economy that is inherently unsustainable. Email your legislators in opposition to this bill ( HF 2842/ SF 2632 ) Tell them to stop promoting mining and instead support the clean water and intact ecosystems that truly sustain all of us. Continue Reading