Clean Water Blog

Keep leaves out of lakes and rivers by keeping them out of the streets and away from storm drains.

Although leaves seem “natural” and harmless, excess leaves pose a threat to the health of our surface waters. Leaves in the gutter in front of your house are on the fast track to our lakes and rivers. When it rains, leaves are washed into storm drains and directly into the nearest lake or river. Once they get into the water and begin to decay, leaves release phosphorus, a nutrient that contributes to the green algae you see on the surface of our waters. Excess algae makes recreation unpleasant, plus decomposing algae uses up oxygen in the water which, in turn, suffocates fish.

Rake them up, not out
Raking leaves into the street the day before the street sweeper comes still threatens the health of our surface waters. Leaves left in the street are crushed by car tires and mixed with rain to make a rich “nutrient tea” that flows along the gutter into storm drains. Remember, the fewer leaves that make it to the street, the better.

Here are some watershed-friendly alternatives to raking leaves into the street:
• Compost leaves for a nutrient-rich fertilizer for your gardens
• Use a mower to chop leaves into small particles and apply directly to your lawn to enrich it (this is called top-dressing)
• Use chopped leaves as winter mulch for your flower gardens
• Drop off bagged leaves at your local compost site or participate in curb side collection if available. Contact your City Hall to learn what services are available in your community.

Everyone can participate. The distance between your yard and the water’s edge is as close as the nearest storm drain. Keep leaves out of the street as an important act of protection for our lakes and rivers.

Clean streets mean clean water!

(photo courtesy of Weather Pulse Blog)

“It’s 3 a.m. Your two-year-old is crying. Her forehead is hot and you fear she’s running a fever. You rush to get a thermometer. You grab one, but in your haste, you drop it. It breaks, and mercury beads shoot across the bathroom floor. Now you’ve not only got a sick kid, but a potentially health-threatening mercury spill to deal with, too.
“Lately we’ve been advising more people on how to clean up spilled mercury from broken fever thermometers, probably because they’re using them more with the advent of cold and flu season,” said Lisa Yantachka, an emergency responder with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). “But running the risk of compounding your problems by having a mercury thermometer in the house at all just doesn’t make sense.”

While the vapor given off from spilled mercury is a neurotoxin that can be health threatening if it is inhaled at a high enough concentration or over a long period, mercury spills in the home almost always can be cleaned up so that they do not pose a danger. However, cleaning up a spill properly will take time and considerable care. And cleanup can be expensive; if the mercury is spilled on a carpet, the contaminated portion will have to be cut out and discarded. If it is spilled on a mattress or upholstered chair, the mattress or chair will have to be thrown away. Larger spills or widespread contamination may even require the services of an environmental contractor.

“Digital thermometers are now the standard in the health care industry,” Yantachka said. “They are as accurate as mercury thermometers, but unlike mercury thermometers, they can’t create a health and environmental hazard.” Yantachka urges people to replace all the mercury thermometers in their homes - fever and cooking - with digital thermometers and to take their mercury thermometers to their local household hazardous waste facility for proper disposal. Contact information for Minnesota’s county household hazardous waste facilities may be found at www.pca.state.mn.us/waste/hhw/hhw-localprograms.html or by calling the MPCA at 651-296-6300 or 1-800-657-3864.

If you break a mercury fever thermometer, you can probably clean up the spilled mercury, but you’ll need to exercise considerable care, Yantachka said. Immediately after the spill:
1. Isolate the spill and ventilate the area. Keep all people and pets away from the spill area. Open windows and exterior doors. Close all doors between the room where the spill occurred and the rest of the house. Close all cold air returns so that mercury vapor is not carried throughout the house. Turn down heaters and turn up window air conditioners. Turn off central air conditioning. Turn off fans unless they vent to the outdoors. Use fans to blow mercury-contaminated air outside.
2. If mercury has touched your skin shoes, or clothing, stay still and have someone bring you a plastic trash bag and wet paper towels. Wipe off any visible beads of mercury with the wet paper towels and put them in the trash bag. Check your shirt pockets for mercury. Remove contaminated shoes and clothing and place them in the trash bag. Seal the bag and put it in the trash. Shower well.
3. If you feel you’ve inhaled a lot of mercury vapor, call the Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222.
4. Decide whether you can clean up the spill yourself, which you may be able to do if the spill involved a single fever thermometer on a hard, smooth surface. Call the Minnesota Duty Officer at 1-800-422-0798 to report the spill, any time, day or night. The Duty Officer will put you in touch with an MPCA emergency responder who will advise you on cleaning up the spill.

For more information on cleaning up a mercury spill, see the MPCA fact sheet, “Cleaning up spilled mercury in the home,” at www.pca.state.mn.us/publications/hhw-mercuryspills.pdf.”

Press Release on Launch of Lawn Reform Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Communicators United in Call for Lawn Reform

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 14, 2009 — United by their common goal of reducing the impact of lawns on the environment and human and animal health, nine of the leading horticultural communicators in the United States announced the formation of the Lawn Reform Coalition, a media campaign that will provide up-to-date information for home and business owners across the country.

“With lawns covering as much as 50 million acres of our nation, requiring copious amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuels to maintain, they have become a drain on precious resources that we can no longer afford to waste,” said filmmaker and author Paul Tukey from Maine. “At their worst, lawns are toxic blankets that aren’t even safe for our children and pets.”

Using the website LawnReform.org, social networking groups and downloadable materials, the members will focus their message on regionally appropriate lawn species, eco-friendly care for all lawns, and ways to reduce or replace lawns, including by growing food.

“If your lawn serves a useful purpose, like playing ball with your up-and-coming Cy Young Award winner, how about downsizing to the minimum necessary size, managing your water wisely, going fossil-free, and giving the chemicals a rest?” said Billy Goodnick, a California landscape architect, writer and television host.

“People need practical ideas for managing their yards in eco-friendly ways,” said Susan Harris of Washington, D.C., cofounder of the Garden Rant blog. “The good news is we’re starting to see better lawn types on the market, and more lawns - even golf courses - being cared for organically.”

Just as several Florida counties, Washington, D.C., and numerous other American municipalities consider restrictions on certain lawn and garden pesticides and fertilizers, the Lawn Reform Coalition stated several goals of its campaign, including: 1) Reduced fertilizer and pesticide runoff in waterways; 2) reduction of the use of potable water supplies for irrigation; 3) widespread education about lawn alternatives; and 4) reduction of the use of gasoline-powered mowers, trimmers and blowers, which account for 5 to 10 percent of air pollution in summer.

“My personal goal is to share design ideas to help you think outside the lawn!” said Shirley Bovshow, a landscape designer and television host from California.

Other members of the coalition include: Tom Christopher, a New York author; Tom Engelman, a California conservationist and founder of the Grass Roots Program; Evelyn Hadden, a Minnesota-based public speaker and founder of the website LessLawn.com; Susan Morrison, a northern California Master Gardener, designer and speaker; and Ginny Stibolt, a newspaper columnist and author based in Florida.

“As a garden designer, I’ve seen first-hand how willing people are to choose eco-friendly alternatives to lawns once they have the right information,” said Morrison. “I’m thrilled to be a part of the Lawn Reform Coalition’s mission to spread the word.”

For more information, visit www.LawnReform.org or contact Susan Harris at 301-270-5481 (Eastern) or Susan@Sustainable-Gardening.com.

Here is your chance to “get close to nature” and help the environment. We need volunteers to help control European Buckthorn, an invasive shrub, in Rockville County Park and Nature Preserve. This county park is immediately west of the City of Rockville’s Eagle Park.

WHEN: Each Sunday afternoon in October from 2 to 4 p.m.

WHERE: We’ll meet at the steel shed on the corner of Sauk River Road and Glacier Road. This is 1/3 mile west of the County Highway 139 bridge over the Sauk River, just north of Rockville. Cross the bridge, then stay left, on Sauk River Road, after Hwy 139 turns right.

WHAT TO BRING: Sturdy clothes, gloves and shoes suitable for brushy conditions. Loppers or pruning saws may be helpful. We’ll have extra saws and gloves, and we’ll provide herbicide for painting stumps.

MORE INFO: We’ll continue efforts started last fall to control this nasty shrub. We’ll work in small groups. Some groups will revisit areas worked on last year to pull up new young plants. Other groups will “push back the frontier” of bigger buckthorn. We want to get them before they are mature enough to have their black berries – which can be spread by birds.
October is a good time to control buckthorn. It is easier to identify then because it still has green leaves, whereas most other plants have dropped their leaves. Also the various “bugs” are mostly gone, and the stinging nettle has mostly died back.

For further information contact John or Linda Peck at 685-3365 or Stearns County Parks at 255-6172.

The MECA Annual Erosion Control & Stormwater Management
Conference & Trade Show will be held on:

March 11-12, 2010
Holiday Inn, St. Cloud, MN

Created in 1988, MECA (pronounced Mee-cah) strives to communicate erosion and sediment control techniques and practices, and encourage the use of those practices. Since storm water management is such an integral part of erosion and sedimentation control, MECA also actively promotes new and innovative storm water management practices.

MECA is an organization comprised of contractors, suppliers, engineers and government agencies. Our goal is to promote effective erosion control and storm water management through:
- An annual erosion conference
- Regional workshops and seminars
- A semi-annual newsletter
- Coordinating field demonstrations
We welcome the challenge to provide meaningful and fun educational activities for Minnesota and beyond.

For more information, the MECA website is www.mnerosion.org

Registration is now open for the Minnesota Environmental Initiative’s upcoming policy forum focused on the progress and challenges of implementing the Clean Water Legacy Act. Presenters will overview goals of the legislation, current protection and restoration efforts and the challenges we face in order to improve the quality of Minnesota’s waters.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Registration and Continental Breakfast at 8:00 a.m.
Gray Freshwater Center
Freshwater Society
Excelsior, MN

Location and Parking Information:
http://www.freshwater.org/index.php/contact-us
Visit our website for more information and to register online.

The Lower Sauk River Water Festivals Planning Committee would like to send a huge thank you out to the sponsors of the 2009 water festivals. Two festivals were held this fall including the Three Rivers WaterFest on September 23 and the Lower Sauk River Water Festival on September 24. These largely successful events would be impossible without the help of the sponsors listed below.

The purpose of the festivals was to teach over 850 central Minnesota fourth grade students about water; 1) what it is and how it fits into the hydrologic cycle, 2) its importance to all life, 3) how it relates to other natural resources, and 4) how human activities affect water quality and quantity. Students attended eight learning stations during the course of the day. They played educational games, interacted with hands-on activities, made giant bubbles and participated in many other fun events, all while learning about our most valuable resource – water!

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the following sponsors:

Ø City of St. Cloud
Ø City of Waite Park
Ø City of St. Joseph
Ø Sauk River Watershed District
Ø City of Sartell
Ø Anderson Trucking
Ø Marco Business Products
Ø Gold N Plump
Ø St. Cloud Surgical Center
Ø Kay and Neil Cook
Ø Target Corporation
Ø Cub Foods
Ø Cash Wise Foods

With the help of committed organizations such as those listed above, the annual Lower Sauk River Water Festival will continue to help educate our area’s youth in years to come.

Art Persons. Planning Program Supervisor, Minnesota Department of Health.

If you live or work in St. Cloud, St. Paul, or Minneapolis—including a
number of surrounding communities—the water you drink comes from the
Mississippi River. Yet, how often does that thought cross your mind as you drive over or boat on the river, or as you watch a snow plow apply salt to roads and bridges? Mr. Persons will discuss how three communities are responding to the need to protect the Mississippi River as a source of drinking water for one million Minnesotans. In addition, Mr. Persons will describe the work of the Health Department to integrate source water protection on the Mississippi River with the MN Pollution Control Agency(MPCA)’s Upper Mississippi River Bacteria Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Project, thereby integrating the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act in protecting and improving the water quality of the Mississippi River.

Light breakfast provided. Free.

TIME:
Friday, October 16, 7:30-9:00 a.m.

LOCATION:
St. Cloud City Council Chambers
400-2nd Street South,
St. Cloud, 56301.