Kirsti Marohn: Surveying Fish in Streams for Water Health→

MPR:

“Chad Anderson and John Sandberg slosh through a muddy stream in hip waders, pausing occasionally to duck under overgrown branches or swat a mosquito.

Sandberg carries a long pole with a metal ring on the end. He moves it through the water, sending out an electrical current that temporarily stuns the fish. Anderson comes behind him with a net, scooping them up. “We want to capture every single species, every fish,” Anderson said. “The little species are sometimes just as important as the big ones...”

This slow and sometimes painstaking work is part of the MPCA’s effort to document and monitor all 80 of Minnesota’s major watersheds. The work has produced a wealth of data about the health of Minnesota’s rivers, lakes and streams.”

Elizabeth Dunbar: Polluted Minnesota Lakes and Rivers→

Minnesota Public Radio:

“Six and a half years after Minnesotans voted to raise taxes to clean up lakes and streams, it’s clear the state has a long way to go. A report released Wednesday representing data from half of the state’s watersheds shows half or more of lakes and streams monitored in the southern half of the state are plagued by bacteria, sediment, nutrients and other pollutants.

Those bodies of water are often too nasty to swim in and can’t fully support fish and other aquatic life, according to the report. With help from the Legacy Amendment, which voters approved in 2008 to raise sales tax revenue for the environment and the arts, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is monitoring and assessing lakes and rivers in all of the state’s 81 watersheds — geographic areas defined by all of the waters emptying into the same body of water.”

Links to Minnesota PCA information and full report.

Sauk River Chain of Lakes Face Pollution →

Kirsti Marohn, reporting for the St. Cloud Times:

Kimm Anderson, St. Cloud Times

“An active watershed district and lake association have taken ambitious steps to curb pollution entering the lakes. By most accounts, the lakes’ clarity has vastly improved and fish are more abundant. “The condition of the chain was dramatically worse water quality than it currently is,” said Greg Van Eeckhout, environmental specialist with the MPCA.

But the chain still faces many challenges. It’s fed by the Sauk River, which drains a huge area of largely agricultural land. Most of the chain’s lakes are considered impaired because of high nutrient levels. Algae blooms still make the water murky at times. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is proposing new standards for the lake that would aim to reduce those nutrient levels and improve the clarity of the water. But one environmental group says the standards are too lenient.

As the debate over the Sauk Chain’s future heats up, nearly everyone seems to agree that much progress has been made in the past few decades.”

If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play. Change standards without changing system, skeptical we are.