Invasive bighead carp caught on the Minnesota River, upstream from Twin Cities. While a disappointing find, the single fish does not indicate the presence of an established population. Research and deterrent efforts are listed.
Three lawsuits are testing whether groundwater is legally connected to surface waters such as rivers and lakes. Scientifically, the connection is clear, but if a regulatory tie can be established also, that would be a strong step to improved water quality.
Scholars from the humanities, science, and professional disciplines provide contexts for the water crisis in Flint.
Minneapolis resident and University of Minnesota student sees Flint water crisis as reminder to protect the water resources we value, take for granted.
New Orleans is moving from plans to action in a large-scale rethinking of the city’s relationship with water. The city has begun to embrace “green infrastructure” as a water management strategy, rather than just relying on pumping out rainwater.
The Yamuna River in India is both highly venerated and also highly polluted. Where it flows through New Delhi, the river is both a site of purification rituals and also the city’s open sewer. This review of the exhibition ABSUR- CITY –PITY DITY explores this paradox. Artwork is included from multiple media; more detail is at the artist’s web site.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced recently that eagle surveys show a very strong resurgence of nesting pairs. Eagles have recolonized almost every county in the state and, in some areas, have appeared to be near a population maximum. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, where the Mississippi River corridor is designated as the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, rebounding eagle populations have been documented through several years’ of intensive survey and scientific measurement. The soaring eagle population is widely understood as a strong indicator of better water quality in the river.
“Place” is central to much of the important work that happens on or around rivers, yet the term is one of the most commonly used and least thought-about words we know. Shanai Matteson has recently written from her perspective as part of the public/community arts collaborative Works Progress about place, about the vexed and rewarding relationships to and with places, about language, and about the complexities of being fully “here.”
Mayors from the United States, including several associated with the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, were in Paris for the deliberations at COP21. As Mayor of St. Paul Chris Coleman wrote before the trip, “the stakes [connecting climate change to river health] could not be higher”. In Paris, the mayors from the Mississippi River valley found common cause with mayors from other river cities across the world, arguing that river basins merited increased attention as food-producing regions supporting billions of people worldwide.
Debate has been growing in Minnesota about the role agricultural practices play in the overall quality of the state’s surface waters (i.e. rivers, streams, and lakes) and, if farming is found to have a harmful impact, what can be done about that. Much of these debates are beginning to resemble debates about climate change: argued more from bases in deeply held beliefs rather than appeal to arguments grounded in “facts.” Sometimes even what is a “fact” can be debated. The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote recently about the costs incurred by state agencies to try to clean water of pollutants most likely associated with agriculture, about the system of agricultural subsidies that contributes to existing farming practices, and how the logjam connecting rewards, incentives, practices, and unanticipated harmful side effects might be broken.