Dennis Anderson: Minnesota Buffer Law→

Star Tribune:

“While Republicans in the Legislature again take aim at the state’s new stream-and-ditch buffer law, John Mages rests easy.

Mages, a past president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, farms 850 acres of good soil in Stearns County, planting corn and soybeans in spring and harvesting the crops in fall. To save topsoil and reduce overhead costs, he practices minimum tillage. And if the weather cooperates, his yields are superb: The past two years he’s averaged more than 200 bushels an acre of corn, without irrigating.

But one day last week, as Mages showed a visitor around his well-kept operation, the issue wasn’t crops but buffers. In all, he has about 30 acres of grasslands bordering waterways that either abut his croplands or run through them.”

Jed Kolko: Growth of Suburbs Exceeds Urban Areas→

FiveThirtyEight:

“The suburbanization of America marches on. Population growth in big cities slowed for the fifth-straight year in 2016,1 according to new census data, while population growth accelerated in the more sprawling counties that surround them.

The Census Bureau on Thursday released population estimates for every one of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. I grouped those counties into six categories: urban centers of large metropolitan areas; their densely populated suburbs; their lightly populated suburbs; midsize metros; smaller metro areas; and rural counties, which are outside metro areas entirely.2
The fastest growth was in those lower-density suburbs. Those counties grew by 1.3 percent in 2016, the fastest rate since 2008, when the housing bust put an end to rapid homebuilding in these areas.”

An inefficient development pattern keeps chugging along... until it doesn't make sense economically to individual homeowners.

Isaac Davison: A First -- A River is Given Legal Status→

New Zealand Herald:

Whanganui River

“Whanganui River now has the legal status of a person under a unique Treaty settlement passed into law today. The settlement means the river, the third-longest in the country, has all the rights, duties and liabilities that come with personhood.

Among other things, the river could now be represented in court proceedings, Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson said. “I know the initial inclination of some people will say it’s pretty strange to give a natural resource a legal personality. But it’s no stranger than family trusts, or companies or incorporated societies.””

Andrew Small: What Cities Looked Like Before the EPA→

CityLab:

“This might be a good time to reflect on its legacy, especially in urban spaces. Though environmentalism conjures “America the Beautiful” images of purple mountains and unspoiled wilderness, much of the EPA’s heaviest lifting in rescuing this nation from its own filth happened in cities...”

Dave Orrick: Minnesota Lakehome Owner Demographics→

Pioneer Press:

“Minnesota lake home and cabin owners — that oh-so-MN demographic — are getting older. And not any richer. And their health care costs are rising.

Which might prove troublesome for the cherished natural resources — namely our lakes — that lakefront property owners are at the forefront of protecting.

Those are among the findings of a study released Friday by Minnesota Lakes and Rivers Advocates, an environmental-advocacy group that often focuses on issues relevant to lake property owners associations.

The group called the findings a “disturbing trend” because of the uncertainty it could create over the future of both seasonal property ownership and environmental stewardship.”

Walker Angell: Bicycles Benefits→

Streets.mn

“Bicycles are arguably the most efficient form of transportation there is. Over 4 times faster than walking and they can carry heavier loads. Bicycling requires much less infrastructure, maintenance, and space than motor vehicles and are massively more affordable for individuals and communities.”

David Brooks: Dignity and Sadness in the Working Class→

New York Times:

“Suburbia isn’t working. During the baby boom, the suburbs gave families safe places to raise their kids. But now we are in an era of an aging population, telecommuting workers and single-person households.

The culture and geography of suburbia are failing to nurture webs of mutual dependence.

We are animals who can’t flourish unless we can’t get along without one another. Yet one finds too many people thrust into lives of semi-independence.

These are not the victims of postindustrial blight I’m talking about; they are successful people who worked hard and built good lives but who are left nonetheless strangely isolated, in attenuated communities, and who are left radiating the residual sadness of the lonely heart.”

Suburbia may have made sense when families were larger, one parent stayed home, and energy was cheap. Now this form a development leaves kids in basements with video games and parents more isolated from their community.

Lee Bergquist: Water Wars on the Sand Counties of Wisconsin→

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Two articles on groundwater and lakes

“War Over Water

In 2010, Minnesota lawmakers passed legislation giving that state’s DNR the authority to establish groundwater protection areas that allow the agency to limit water use to meet human needs and protect lakes, streams and wetlands.

After three years of review, the first protection area was designated in November 2015 in metropolitan St. Paul — an area that runs to the Wisconsin border. Two other areas have been identified in rural areas of Minnesota.

In Wisconsin, with Kraft’s work being questioned and environmentalists pressing for action, the DNR and the growers association underwrote a two-year, $230,000 study of the Little Plover.

In April, the Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey found that groundwater played a key role in the health of the Little Plover; the river was vulnerable to groundwater pumping; and that stream flows would improve substantially if wells nearest the river were removed.

The study “did not refute the work of Dr. Kraft — if anything, it built on that work,” said Ken Bradbury, director of the state natural history survey and co-author of the study.

But Tamas Houlihan, executive director of the potato and vegetable group, said his industry isn’t convinced, although he says growers near the Little Plover have voluntarily changed their farming and irrigation practices to conserve water.”

— http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2016/09/03/war-over-water-land-plenty/89481060/

“Water Policy

Plainfield — Three years after Brian Wolf bought his home on Long Lake in 2006, lawmakers and water policy experts began stopping by to see what had happened to the lake.

”It’s as if someone pulled the plug in a bathtub,” Wolf told one group of visitors in November 2009. “This lake is dead.”

Legislators left Wolf’s home in western Waushara County with plans to address growing worries about high-capacity wells and the effect groundwater pumping was having on lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands.

But lawmakers tried and failed to pass a groundwater bill in the 2010 legislative session. This year, legislative efforts also went nowhere.

This summer, the water in Long Lake is mostly gone, dotted by a few marshy areas. Cattails and grasses sprout from the former lake bed. Other traditionally shallow lakes in this region of sandy soil in the middle of the state have shared similar fates.

A dock on Long Lake near Coloma is surrounded by weeds. The lake has seen its water levels plummet and has become a marsh. Landowners blame the large number of high-capacity wells used to irrigate crops in the region.

They have become symbols of the tug-of-war over water use in Wisconsin. The advantage has shifted to large water users as the number of high-capacity wells have proliferated and efforts to put more limits on the use of groundwater have foundered.”

— http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2016/09/04/conflicts-thwart-reforms-state-water-policy/89482796/

Governor Dayton Moves to Protect Bees

PAN:

“This morning at the State Fair, Governor Mark Dayton and Commissioner of Agriculture Dave Frederickson announced Minnesota’s comprehensive new plans to limit the use of bee-harming pesticides across the state. Today’s decision concludes a nearly 3-year review of the impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on pollinators, conducted by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA). The executive order announced today makes Minnesota a national leader in pollinator protection — and the first state to tackle neonicotinoid use in farm fields and on public lands.

“Today, Minnesota set the strongest rules in the nation to protect pollinators from pesticides,” said Lex Horan of Pesticide Action Network. “The plan will help ensure that bee-harming pesticides won’t be used unnecessarily, and it lays the groundwork for reducing the use of neonicotinoid seed coatings. This decision is rooted in the resounding scientific evidence that neonicotinoids are harmful to pollinators. It’s past time for state and federal decisionmakers to take action to restrict the use of bee-harming pesticides, and today Minnesota did just that.””

— http://www.panna.org/press-release/new-rules-minnesota-leads-country-protecting-pollinators-pesticides

MPR: Gunderson & Dunbar

“Seeking to reverse a decline in bees and other pollinators, Gov. Mark Dayton issued an executive order Friday that limits the use of nicotine-based pesticides.

The governor’s move won praise from environmentalists, but farm groups said it could hurt farmers financially.

Nicotine-based insecticides known as neonicotinoids are effective against a variety of pests, so they’re widely used, but a growing body of research shows the insecticides harm bees.

After a two-year review of 300 scientific studies, the state Agriculture Department decided restrictions were necessary, said Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson.

”Some of these are bold recommendations that have not been considered by any other state across the nation,” Frederickson said at a Minnesota State Fair news conference.”

— http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/08/26/dayton-orders-steps-protect-bees-pollinators

We now await the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's review of the neonicotinoids, which is anticipated to be completed by 2018.  

The Governor's Executive Order

Minnesota Department of Agriculture - Neonicotinoid Review

Justin Fox: Zoning Overuse - 100 Year Review→

Bloomberg News:

“Over the past few years, zoning has been blamed, mainly by economists bearing substantial empirical evidence, for an ever-growing litany of ills. The charge that zoning is used to keep poor people and minorities out of wealthy suburbs has been around for decades. But recent research has also blamed it for increasing income segregation, reducing economic mobility and depressing economic growth nationwide.

One can never be certain about these things, but it’s quite possible that excessive land-use restrictions are among the major causes of our long national economic malaise. Jason Furman, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, made this very point in a speech in November. Yet the platform adopted at the Democratic National Convention this week made no mention of either “land use” or “zoning,” while the Republican platform mentioned them only to condemn the current administration’s purported efforts “to undermine zoning laws in order to socially engineer every community in the country.”

The irony, of course, is that zoning laws are themselves a form of social engineering. That doesn’t mean they’re always malign, but during this anniversary week it does seem worth going over how and why the engineering got started. ”

Ron Meador: Minnesota Buffer Map→

MinnPost:

“Apart from its importance as a reference tool for landowners and regulators, the map of Minnesota watercourses requiring protective buffers creates a fascinating new view of the state and its distinguishing natural resource.

An exercise in high-resolution and highly interactive cartography, the map and online viewer published a couple of weeks ago by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources merges data from detailed paper maps and modern satellite imaging.

It enables a close-up look at all of the state’s lakes and streams, shown in blue in the section above, and also its public ditches, rendered in green. (The red squiggles indicate locations earmarked for ground-truthing.) You can choose to view them laid over satellite imagery of the surface, a road layout or a minimalist gray base map.”

Andy McGlashen: Uninformed or the Serious Misinformed Use Lead Ammo→

ENSIA:

“Lead poisoning causes brain damage and, in humans, is thought to be linked with lower IQ, poor school performance and violent behavior. Even the ancient Romans knew lead could cause cognitive damage and death.

“Indeed, we know more about the toxicity of lead than we do about almost any other contaminant,” says Myra Finkelstein, an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who studies lead’s effects on wildlife.

Finkelstein was among 30 scientists who signed a 2013 consensus statement citing “the overwhelming scientific evidence of the toxic effects of lead on human and wildlife health” and calling for “reducing and eventually eliminating the introduction of lead into the environment from lead-based ammunition.””

Mondale and Roosevelt: Protect the Boundary Waters→

New York Times:

“MINNESOTA’S Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is one of America’s most popular wild destinations. Water is its lifeblood. Over 1,200 miles of streams wend their way through 1.1 million acres thick with fir, pine and spruce and stippled by lakes left behind by glaciers. Moose, bears, wolves, loons, ospreys, eagles and northern pike make their home there and in the surrounding Superior National Forest.

All of this is now threatened by a proposal for a huge mine to extract copper, nickel and other metals from sulfide ores. The mine would lie within the national forest along the South Kawishiwi River, which flows directly into the Boundary Waters Wilderness.”

Smart people calling for action to protect a national asset.

France Diep: Water Use per Crop→

ScienceLine (via street.mn chart of the day):

“Homeowners have a “definitely significant” role in the nation’s water budget, says Cristina Milesi, an ecosystem modeling researcher now with NASA who led the 2005 Environmental Management study. “Each family may have only a small lawn,” she explains, “but once you add them all up they have a big impact.”

Watering the lawn generally accounts for 50 percent to 75 percent of a home’s water use during the summer. To save water and money, Milesi suggests choosing more drought resistant turf and adjusting your watering schedules to fit the weather and season. Many cities have suggested or required water schedules for different times of the year.

Some even advocate abandoning the great green lawn in favor of meadows, vegetable gardens, local native plants or just letting the grass die.”

Matt Steele: Zoning Contributes to Unaffordability→

streets.mn:

“There’s an Ethiopian proverb that goes something like, “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” When it comes to housing, Minneapolitans may have it better than those in Seattle, San Francisco, D.C., and Brooklyn, but a larger and wider slice of Minneapolis is feeling the pinch of fast-rising rents. For some, this even means displacement or possibly even homelessness. This is unacceptable. And it doesn’t have to be this way, because we could eliminate artificial caps on housing supply in Minneapolis, thereby reducing equilibrium rents and making housing more affordable for more people. If every dwelling unit is like a little barely-visible spider web, it may seem like a unit here or two units there won’t make a big difference. But, on the whole, the economics are sound: Rising supply necessarily lowers rents.

No, I’m not going to claim that upzoning is the panacea to housing affordability. But our current zoning code is working against natural housing supply, and that’s working against housing affordability. It seems like such an easy, obvious win to get rid of the barriers to new housing stock in our city.

To understand how our zoning code is restrictive to the point of being harmful to housing affordability, let’s look at a real life example... ”

The reader comments to this article are worth reading as well.

Tom Neil: Minneapolis Parks -- Priority for Repair→

MinnPost:

“The map below shows the 106 Minneapolis parks that were recently given priority rankings (out of 157 total neighborhood parks in the city) for maintenance and improvement under the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s new capital and rehabilitation plan. The parks in the darker shade of green are slated for improvements to be made in the next five years; parks in lighter green will be included in future plans. Click on a park to see its overall ranking and the projects that are planned for the park, if known. To search for an address, use the box in the upper-right corner. For more information on how the rankings were determined, see the table...”

Good organization of the data on the city parks.

Kurt Chandler: Who Gets to Drink From the Great Lakes?→

Atlantic:

“Water has become the 21st-century equivalent of oil, and a plan to divert water from the Great Lakes to surrounding areas is raising questions about the possibility of future water grabs from far-flung water-sparse regions.

While plans to divert water from the Great Lakes basin date back to the early 1900s, modern-day attempts have become increasingly extravagant. In 1982, Congress directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the feasibility of using Great Lakes water to irrigate farmland on the Great Plains. (Not so feasible, said the Corps.) Fifteen years later, a businessman in Canada secured a permit from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to transport 158 million gallons of water each year from Lake Superior to Asia in tanker ships. (He withdrew his proposal in 1998 under pressure from Canadian officials.) And in 2007, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, in his presidential bid, suggested piping Great Lakes water to the arid Southwest. (Richardson’s campaign foundered and his trial balloon burst.)

But it was the proposal put forth by the Canadian businessman that especially rattled citizens and set off alarms among officials in the eight states and two provinces that border the Great Lakes, propelling them to devise once and for all a binding binational system that would manage and regulate the largest source of surface freshwater in the world. Over the course of seven years, policy makers, lawyers, and elected officials from each of the Great Lakes states and provinces crafted the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. Passed by Congress and signed into law in 2008 by President George W. Bush, it was lauded as a model agreement by industries and environmentalists alike.”

J. Patrick Coolican: Buffer Bill Passes→

Star Tribune:

“For Dayton, the passage of the bill caps off a week of lobbying that he hopes will galvanize Minnesotans on clean water, which has become one of his signature issues.

“More and more citizens and communities throughout Minnesota are being threatened by water that is unsafe for their drinking, washing and recreation,” he said in his statement last week. “These water quality problems must be addressed by all of us recognizing our shared need for safe and clean water, and our by shared willingness to protect this priceless resource.””

The politics of shoreline buffers is hard. 

Lee Bergquist: Little Plover River Groundwater Study→

Journal Sentinel:

“A long-awaited study that examines how irrigation is affecting the closely watched Little Plover River in central Wisconsin could help prevent the river from running dry again.

The results of the state-funded research also may provide clues on how large-scale groundwater withdrawals are affecting streams, rivers and lakes elsewhere, according to scientists.

Groundwater issues have become increasingly contentious in Wisconsin, especially in the 1.75 million-acre Central Sands region — home to a large potato and vegetable growing industry. The region relies on more than 3,000 high-capacity wells to grow crops.

The Little Plover, a Class 1 trout stream, flows for about 6 miles near Stevens Point before it enters the Wisconsin River. But more than its reputation for fishing, the river is infamously known for stretches that run dry, as they did in 2005 and 2009.”

Good groundwater science was done years ago by Dr. Kraft, who was quoted in this article. However, farmers and civic leaders apparently did not want to hear about how farm irrigation was the main reason for lower river flows. So the science and the predictions are now better and yet some farmers and civic leaders apparently still will not be convinced. When you start with a given pre-set belief or dogma and then search for any argument to rationalize, defend or justify the overexploiting of a pubic resource, then you are corrupt and your actions self-servicing. 

Wisconsin Public Radio's Route 51 broadcast a program discussing the newly released scientific study of the effects of high capacity wells on groundwater and the Little Plover River in the central sands region of Wisconsin. It included a panel discussion with George Kraft, hydrologist with UW Extension in Stevens Point; Tamas Houlihan, executive director of the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association; Scott Krug, Republican Party Assemblyman from the Town of Rome; and Katrina Shankland, Democratic Party Assemblywoman from Stevens Point. 

If you would like to listen to the podcast of this program, click this link

Beth Mole: Antibacterial Soaps Do More Harm Than Good→

Ars Technica:

“Whether you’re coming home from an airport fluttering with international germs, a daycare full of sticky-fingered toddlers, or just a grimy office building, scrubbing your hands with bacteria-busting soap seems like a great idea. But the data that have washed up on the cleansers in recent years suggest that they actually do more harm than good—for you, those around you, and the environment.

Scientists report that common antibacterial compounds found in those soaps, namely triclosan and triclocarban, may increase the risk of infections, alter the gut microbiome, and spur bacteria to become resistant to prescription antibiotics. Meanwhile, proof of the soaps’ benefits is slim.

There are specific circumstances in which those antimicrobials can be useful, civil engineer Patrick McNamara of Marquette University in Milwaukee told Ars. Triclosan, for instance, may be useful to doctors scrubbing for minutes at a time before a surgery or for hospital patients who can’t necessarily scrub with soap but could soak in a chemical bath. Triclosan and triclocarban do kill off bacteria during long washes. But most people only clean their hands for a few seconds. “There’s evidence that there is no improvement with using soaps that have these chemicals relative to washing your hands under warm water for 30 seconds with soaps without these chemicals,” he said.”