Public health

Getting to clean water: Complex problem, no easy solutions

photo: Friends of the Mississippi River executive director Whitney Clark pours water from the Mississippi River into a tube used to monitor water clarity at Hidden Falls Regional Park in St. Paul on Monday.

If you’re looking for one place that best illustrates the challenges facing Minnesota’s water, paddle a canoe just past Pike Island, near Fort Snelling, where the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers flow together. On a clear day, you can see a line in the water. On one side is the clear, coffee-colored Mississippi. On the other, the milky waters of the Minnesota, laden with sediment and pollutants from the agricultural land it flows through.

"It’s like somebody poured milk in the river," said Whitney Clark, executive director of Friends of the Mississippi River. Minnesota has made strides in recent decades when it comes to improving water quality. But evidence shows there’s still a long way to go. The confluence of the Minnesota River, on left, and the Mississippi in an undated photo. Forty percent of the state’s lakes and streams are polluted, and many aren’t safe for swimming or fishing. Three out of four Minnesotans rely on ground water for drinking. But in many areas, it’s contaminated […]

Recent Posts

Scathing report released detailing Navy’s handling of Red Hill fuel spill

The Inspector General of the Department of Defense released some scathing reports Thursday over the…

5 days ago

Growing Food Instead of Grass Lawns in California Front Yards

Photo: Morgan Boone, a volunteer with Crop Swap LA, harvested lettuce at the La Salle…

2 weeks ago

LA River restoration connects us back to ‘the life force of our city’

Los Angeles residents at a section of the Los Angeles River cleanup in Los Angeles,…

3 weeks ago

LAist: New study raises questions about heavy metals in fire retardants

Over the past decade, about 67 million gallons of fire retardant have been dropped on…

3 weeks ago

Meadow and watershed restoration in the Golden Trout Wilderness

Photo: Golden Trout Wilderness Seeking blue, seeing gold The Kern Plateau features a chain of…

3 weeks ago

First sighting of salmon in 100 years marks key milestone for California dam removal

For the first time in more than a century, a salmon was observed swimming through Klamath…

4 weeks ago