ENVI RONM ENTAL SERVICES REPORT
November 15,2012
Ponderosa Landfill . EAW update o Permit Update . CON update - Don Kyser retires . Cell Construction early 2013 o Public Service Building - time frame . Adjacent Property . New Haul Road . Jersey Barriers ¡ Annual Flyover/Annual Reporting ¡ Xcel Contract for Ash Placement
Solid Waste/ Recycling . Recycling Operations Contract (WMl) o New State Rule under discussion: Concrete disposal o Solid Waste Management Plan r Waste Pharmaceuticals and Sharps r FullCircle Organics
Household Hazardous Waste o Closed for Season . Off Season Activity r STS processing
Miscellaneous . County Web Site o Credit Card Machine - and at Landfill . Web Portal Evaluation . Buffer Project
NEXT SCHEDULED MEETING - January 17,2013 lnformation Articles
Minnesota Pollution Control Solid Waste Plan Review Checklist Agency Mankato Free Press Single-sort in store of Mankato Mankato Free Press Briefs: 'Sharps' now accepted at Hy-Vee Lake CrystalTibune Convenient Disposal Options Available to Area Residents Mankato Free Press Callfor compost site review rejected Mankato Free Press Township agreements'operating very well' Waste and Recycling News Partnerships push progress of Coke's plant-based bottles Waste and Recycling News Facilities overwhelmed by piles of CRT glass Mankato Free Press Do Your Part: Top five solutions to recycling problems Post-Bulletin We all pay for illegaltrash disposal Star Tribune Ol' Man River is fullof life again Star Tribune Residential thirst straining, draining White Bear Lake Minnesota Pollution Control How's the water? Much better after 40 years of Clean Water Act Agency Minnesota Public Radio Businesses and boaters pinched by low river levels in Minnesota Star Tribune Sweeping cleanup of St. Croix gets OK Mankato Free Press Near Amboy, Jackson Lake was wiped off the map Star Tribune The ABCs of climate change Star Tribune Did we cause this? Star Tribune Sandy sounds alarm on climate change Minnesota Public Radio When Heat Kills: GlobalWarming as Public Health Threat National Public Radio As Temps Rise, Cities Combat'Heat lsland'Effect Popular Science Climate Change is Already Happening Star Tribune ln surprise, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions drop to a 2O-year low Star Tribune Plug-in car owners to share info, tips Mankato Free Press Common-sense steps can cut home Energy Bills Star Tribune Hunter to Hunted Minnesota Pollution ControlAgency Sotid Waste Ptan 520 Lafayette Road North Review Checktist 5t. Paul, MN 55155-4194 Gounty, District, or Multicounty Area Minn. Stat. S 1154 Doc Type: Solid Waste Plan
lnstructions: This checklist is intended to be used as a guidance document for the development of a plan for a county, district, or multicounty area. While every attempt has been made to incorporate planning rule requirements as accurately as possible, the rule and applicable provisions of Minn. Stat. $ 1154 remains the final authority on plan contents and approval procedures. Please consult Minn. R. 9215.0500-9215.0950 for further reference.
Contact lnformation Name of county or region submitting document:
Contact name: Contact telephone: Contact e-mail address:
Plan author(s): MPCA reviewer Submittal dates: (mm/dd/W) (mm/dd/w) (mm/dd/yy) (mm/dd/w)
Plan Contents Check the following codes to describe the completeness of your plan: C = Complete l= lncomplete M =Missing N/A = Notapplicable
Format (M¡nn. R. 9215.0820, subp. 4 Printed on both sides of the Two submitted (one electronic
Provide an overview of the current solid waste system and the proposed future solid waste system. lnclude a table or a reference to the Goal Volume Table Appendix for the next ten years and a table
. R.9215.0560. subo.2 lnclude demographic information that relates to or directly impacts the generation or management of
for the next ten
local economic conditions
o sunìnìâry of demographic, geographical, and regional constraints and opportunities that have or mav impact the existinq or
estimate the amount of solid waste oenerated annu
. describe the solid waste collection and disposal rate structure, including the current range of
www.pca.state.mn.us . ó51-29ó-ó300 800-657-38ó4 . TTY 651-782-5332 or 800-ó57-38ó4 . Avaitabte in atternative formats p-f3-19 , 12121110 Page 1 of I information Minn. R. Continued financial incentives forwaste reduction and
. estimate the annual percentage of solid waste from residential and commercial/industrial solid
. summarize the solid waste collection and generation constraints and opportunities that have
Construction and demolition debris
ldentify the major solid waste generators, such as: large institutional (e.9., educational or medical) facilities. laroe industrial or commercial oenerators. etc. of solid waste oenerated annuallv bv such
or barriers to develooment of . address the resolution of conflicting, duplicative, or overlapping local solid waste management efforts
Solid Waste M
of
o availabilitv of resource of local and state resources
Solid Waste nn. R. 9215.0577. subos.2-4 lnclude: goals to be achieved over the ten-year planning period, and which must be consistent with policy in Minn. Stat. S 1154.02 (a); a description of the specific and quantifìable means, including policies and programs, that will be continued or implemented and described in Minn. R. 9215.0580 to 9215.0700 to achieve the A description of the technical, fìnancial, demographic, geographic, regional, and solid waste system constraints or barr¡ers that limit ability to achieve greater independence from land
. A demonstration that there are no solid waste system alternatives that are more feasible and
Solid Waste Evaluation and Ten Year
annual amount of solid waste to be reduced
identification of costs and budget (may direct to Budget Appendix)in implementing and managing
at. S 1154.552
wv/w.pca.state,mn.us ó51-29ó-6300 800-ó57-3864 TTY 651-282-5332 or 800-ó57-3864 . Avaitabte in atternative formats p-f3-19 , 12121110 Page 2 of I Solid Waste Evaluation and Ten Year lm
Solid waste education programs (Minn. R. 9215.0590, subps. 2-6; Minn. Stat. 9115.4552, subp.3). lnclude information on: 'al and ¡ existino solid waste education and oroorams (includino education rams to maintain, ex or imolement durino the next ten f information required at least once three months direct to
Minn. Stat. ç1 154.551 general policy and goals established to meet or exceed recycling goal requirements, opportunity Stat. I 1 154. existing public and pr¡vate sector recycling programs including collection, processing, and marketing, including the number of haulers operating in the unit, and collection or processing
. identification of annual recycling tonnages collected, processed, and marketed by sector or
local market condition for . spec¡fic programs proposed to maintain, expand, or implement during the next ten years which
. residential "opportunity to recycle" at convenient collection sites for residents: 1 recycling center, 12+ hrs/week as required by Minn. Stat. S 1154.555 in cities >5.000: once/month curbside. or a center acceotino 4+ in cities >20,000: once/month curbside of 4+ materials
of vs. mandatorv. where costs and budoet (mav direct to the schedule
. R. 92'15.06'10 ) lnclude information on:
on of the vard solid waste ion and and o a description of methods for identifying the portions of the solid waste stream, such as ings, tree and plant residue, and paper for use in aqricultural o a recognition of the prohibition on disposal of yard solid waste in land and at resource
and sector vard solid waste and o estimated level of rd solid waste
collected for the last five vears. if available local market conditions for finished vard waste the unit oroooses to the next ten
off sites . collection
Solid Waste System Evaluat¡on Ten Year and lmplementation Plan (continued) I I I I www.pca.state.mn.us . 651'29ó'ó300 . 800.ó57-3864 . TTY 651-282-5332 or 800-ó57-3864 . Avaitabte in atternative formats p-f3-19,12t21/10 Page 3 of I ic Materials Comoostino (Minn. R. 921
collection svstem used to collect sou
identifìcation of costs and
consideration and evaluation of known and potential environmental and public health impacts and proposal of a course of action to alleviate those impacts. (lnclude assessment of operational safety during past two year, results of compost testing, results of inspection and monitoring by
description of mixed municipal solid waste composting facilities and programs that propose to maintain, implement, or particlpate in during the next ten years, including the annual amount or
consideration and evaluation of known and potent¡al environmental and public health impacts and propose a course of action to alleviate those impacts. lncludes assessment of operational safety during past five years, results of ash and emissions testing, results of inspection and
description of how the county or region intends to meet statutory goals of reducing the toxicity and quantity of incinerator ash and of reducing the quantity of processing residuals that require
. description of energy recovery facilities and programs propose to maintain, implement, or participate in during the next ten years, including the annual amount or quantity of waste to be
. implementation schedule including design, permitting, construct¡on and designation where
o identification of costs and budget (may direct to Budget Appendix), including itemized capital and
lnclude information on:
. identification and status of closed landfìlls and whether the unit is implementing any programs for
of facilities where the unit's mixed municioal solid waste is . table indicatino amount received. processed. and
Solid waste System Evaluation and Ten Year lmplementat¡on Plan (continued) I a I I I ¡¡ I *,o
www. pca.state.mn.us ó51 -29ó-ó300 800-ó57-3864 TTY ó51-282-5332 or 800-ó57-3864 . Available in atternative formats p-f3-19 . 12121/10 Page 4 of I evaluation of known and potential environmental and public health impacts and proposal of a course of action to alleviate those impacts. lnclude information assessing operational safety during the past fìve years, information summarizing the results of recent inspections by the appropriate state agency, report on the results of ground and surface water monitoring (including
. description of specific programs to be developed: land disposal facilities and programs that the
identification of need for new o permiüing schedule, including Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) or
all costs and budoet (mav direct to
Solid waste tire management programs (Minn. R. 9215.0650 Minn. Stat. S 1154.914, subd. 3). lnclude:
and ooals established that comolv with Minn. Stat. S 1 15A.914. subd. 3 . status of public sector and private sector solid waste tire management. List permitted storage
included in the ooal-volume table
status of county solid waste tire ordinance that meets or exceeds MPCA Rules (S115A.914, subd. 3, and Minn. R. chs. 9220.0200 to 9220.0680
. identification of all costs and budget for existing and any proposed tire programs (may direct to
lnclude information on: with Minn. Stat. € 1'154.9565 existing public and pr¡vate sector electronic products management programs established to comply with applicable state, federal, and local regulations for disposal of used electronic
specific programs to be developed: describe any new or existing electronic products
the annual amount or
o the responsible persons and estimate staff time necessary to implement and manage each
the annual costs to be incurred by the unit in implementing or managing the electronic products management programs for the next ten years, including itemized capital and operating costs
. a time schedule for implementation of the proposed electronic product management programs
Evaluation and Ten
. R. 9215.0660 )lnclude information on: www,pca.State,mn.us . 65r-296-ó300 . 800-ó57-38ó4 TTY ó51-282-5332 or 800-657-3864 . Avaitabte in alternative formats p-f3-19 , 12121110 Page 5 of I general policy and goals established that comply with Minn. Stat. $$ 1154.552, subd. 1, and
efforts
process to determine compliance with applicable state, federal and local regulations for disposal solid wastes contained in the o specif¡c programs to maintain or implement during the next ten years, including the annual
estimated staff. time and education efforts needed for identification of costs and
Automotive mercury switches, motor vehicle fluids and filters, and lead-acid and dry cell batteries R. 9215.0670). lnclude information on: o gênêrâl policy and goals established that comply with Minn. Stat. $$ 1 154.91 5, 1 15A.91 55, and 1 1 54.916 . description and funding of existing public and private sector programs and practices, and specific programs proposed to be maintained, expanded, or implemented in the next year including: the amount or quant¡ty of materials recovered by type, public education, collection options,
. estimated annual program budget over the next 10 years, including itemized capital and
R. 9215.0680). lnclude information on:
general policy and goals established that comply with the requirements in Minn. Stat. S1 154.96, subd. 6
identification of public education for household hazardous waste (HHW), emphasizing reduced of hazardous substances and identification of options for collecting, separation from mixed municipal solid waste, the amounts or quantity of materials recovered, (The county or region may join the MPCA program to sponsor
specific programs the unit proposes to maintain or implement during the next ten years; programs must include a broad based public education component, a strategy for reduction of household hazardous solid waste, and a strategy for separation of household hazardous solid waste from mixed municipal solid waste and the collection, storage, and proper management of that solid waste
e description of existing demolition debris practices and programs, including private and public
. specif¡c programs to maintain or implement during the next ten years, including the amount or
identiflcation of costs and schedule
Evaluation and Ten Year
Waste Ordinance and Minn. R. 9215.0700). lnclude information on:
www.pca.state.mn.us . ó51-29ó-ó300 . 800.657.3864 TTY 651-282-5332 or 800-ó57-38ó4 . Available in alternative formats p.f3-19 , 12121110 Page 6 ol I of with implementinq or enforcinq the current ordinance to develoo or amend
financial incentives for solid waste abatement
o implementation schedule; and must include a description of the responsible persons and
Minn. R. 9215.0710). lnclude information on: . description of existing levels of stafflng for solid waste programs in place; or description of staffing
identifìcation of costs and direct
R. 9215.0720). lnclude information on: ¡ the future solid waste program funding goals that the Unit has established; future funding needs
estimated annual program budget, including itemized capital and operating costs such as staff time, land, buildings, equipment, redemption costs, and other associated costs, over the next ten
o ex¡sting funding amounts and sources (percentage funded with tipping fees, service fees,
Development of Numeric GoalÂ/olume Table (Minn. R. 9215.0740). lnclude as Goal-Volume Table
Completion using correct format approved by the MPCA noted in the GW Appendix, and containing at a minimum the recycling goal as required in Minn. Stat. $ 115A.551;an estimate of land disposal capacity needed for the ten-year period in acre feet, tons, and cubic yards; and an I facilities that will be used.
t of Solid Waste Proqram Budqet Minn. R.
ts for each maior solid waste
with cost per household and cost oer ton o narrative discussion of financial assumplions used in budget development (may direct to
Description of the process to evaluate, identify, and implement specific alternatives if the system described 9. 10. or 1'1 above is not
Environmental and Public Health ln addition to the discussion of environmental and public health ¡mpacts described in parts 9215.0610 to 9215.0640 describe the efforts to mitigate the environmental risks of the following technologies
r on-site disposal of MSW by farms or households. lnclude mitigating impacts to air, surface
lo air. surface water. and
Evaluation and Ten Y
www.pca.state.mn.us . 651-296-6300 800-ó57-3864 TTY ó51-282-5332 or 800-ó57-3864 . Avaitabte in alternatìve formats p-f3-19 . 12t21t10 Page 7 of I lf the county or region is proposing to develop a solid waste facility (landfill, MSW compost facility, or incineration) during the ten-year planning period, include a description of a detailed siting procedure and development program to assure the orderly location, development, and financing of the facility, both of which must be consistent with applicable rules of the office, the MPCA, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the Environmental Quality Board (EQB), and other state agencies; and include siting criteria and a program for public
An explanation of methods for documenting public participation during lhe development and
. location of where documentation of public input by interested partíes, including citizens, publ¡c advisory committees, regional authorities, adjacent counties or districts, local units of and solid waste service comoanies conductino business within . documentation of ongoing process which ensures the involvement of and consultation with those who are concerned with solid wâste menaoement. includino those listed
Multicounty plans prepared by two or more counties are encouraged. A joint plan must include information on how each county, district or multicounty area will comply with the goals prescribed in statute or rule, and delineate the responsibility of each county, district or multicounty area with respect to implementation of the joint plan or amendment. The joint plan must be adopted by each participating county, district, or multicounty area and copies of the official resolutions of the plan must be included in the final submittal.
www, pca.state.mn.us ó51-29ó-ó300 . 800-ó57-3864 TTY 651-282-5332 or 800-ó57-38ó4 . Avaitabte in alternative formats p-f3-19 . 12121110 Poge 8 of I The Free Press / Sunday, October 14,2Ol2
Blue Earth Coun$ Reclcling Coordindor Jean [undquist $ingle-$ort in store fon ltlankato uplains how môre plætiæ, "lVe believe single sort share," he said, but such æ bottle City continues to has some value to the cus- declined to elaborate. Gaps and plastic tomer," City Manager Pat Mankato now has "dual- boxes, can now which Hentges said during a sort" recycling be ræycled. ïhe negotiate change with recent budget meeting. means recyclables should be epans¡on ¡n sorted into, rougtrly speak- He said there were chal- plætics rocyol¡ng paper and plastics. Waste Management lenges to a switch but said ing the move hæbæn they aren't significant One cost from pur- accompan¡sd by enough to warrant large to single sort is the ing much about their new aütnd towa¡{ By Dan Linehan. price increases. The ques- chase of thousands of dlinehan@mankat0fi'eepl'ess.com monthsJong negotiations more sin$e-sort tion of how much more res- larger recycling bins. the recycling changes. rffaste over idénts would pay under sin- If the ncycling, wh¡ttt But the city is deter- I\4ANI(ATO Single-sort gle-sort recycling appears Management negotiations Mankato is - to mined to change recycling the city recycling is coming to be the sticking point. aren't resolved, punu¡ng. Mankato, eventually. to single sort, which means plans to rebid the contract able to put "ïîy'e have some beliefs in ' Neither the city of residents will be rWaste its hauler, all of their recyclables in this negotiation that Mankato nor Pat Chilstnan Waste Management, is saY' one bin. Management doesn't Pleæe see RE0YCLII'IG, Page A8 RECYCHIIû: llorth lUlankato stitks with dual-sort system
Co¡¡tinnd fum Pap A1 Their refuse fees tion proposal, and it will Management has new tech- the most recent year for went up slightly, again call for dual-sort recy- nolog¡r in the lrin Cities which data were ar¡ailable, next year with single sort as though the recy- cling. that separates recycling. the county's recycling rate a requirement, according to cling fees stayed 'We just believe it's more That "makes it more eco was 59.3 percent, compared the 2013 budget. the same. efficient and takes less man' nomicâl to put everything to the state average of 43.2 The move to make recy- &lina, a suburb power to operate that way," together and haul it up percent. cling easier for residents is of Minneapolis, Interim City Administrator there," she said. Those figures come from part of a trend seen in cities switched to single Mike Fischer said, because In a related trend, tech- counties, which receive from lake Crystal, which sort Oct. 1 and is there is less sorting of the nology and tle deveþment tl¡em from waste haulers. switched July 1, to also making the recycling necessary. of recycling markets also Vee said lots of factors, Minneapolis, which is mov- switch to every North Mankato opentes has expanded the types of such as rural recycling col- ing to single sort in 2013. other week, recy- its own recycling center and plastic that can be recycled, lection points and educa- While single-sort recy- cling coordinator will require the bidder to she said. tion, can raise a county's cling diverts more waste Solvei Wilmot said. bring recyclables there. Just about every plastic SCORB number. from landñlls, it is not with- That change lets Single-sort recycling would numbered 3 to 7, except for 'For the counties tìat out its problems. their hauler, Allied have to be sorted at the plastic foam, such as have gone to single sort, "It makes people feel Waste, save money plant, some by hand, while Styrofoam, can be recycled you do see an increase in good," said t"arry on fuel. Iarge companies have tech- locally, Lundquist said. participation," she said. president Biederman, of As for the new nology to sort waste. The Blue Earth County \{hen asked about con- LJP \ilaste and Recycling. bins, the citv The state requires every Recycling Center, operated tamination with non-recycla- product But the end and allowed bidders for county to have recycling by Waste Management ble goods, as Biederman - P¿t Christrmn recycling can ultimately be the contract to options for its residents. As under a contract with the predicted, Lundquist said as a product plastiæ conceived - lffilankato hæ its w all ofthese - decide who would in North Mankato's case, county, already accepts that is less of a problem is worth less. along wih paper and other recyclablæ will own them, and the the different recycling cen- mixed recycling. with today's technology. in a - proposals "Look single-sort be able to be recycled ¡n one b¡n. best ters are one factor in decid- Lundquist hopes single- Lundquist said single sort you'll container and see came in with the ing whether a city goes to sort recyclingwill raise the is becoming more widely more non-recyclable materi- hauler owning single sort. county's recycling rates, as accepted. al,' he said. Lake Crystal went from them. They cost about $60 "Each county has a measured by the Minnesota 'As people see single Even so, Biederman weekly to every other week or $70 per bin. dynamic all by itself," said Pollution Control Agency's sort, they want single sort,"' believes it's here to stây. when it switched this sum- Their recycling now costs Arlene Vee, a solid waste SCORE reports. In 2010, she said. "I think that's going to mer, though it stayed with about $2.80 per house and planner with the Minnesota be the way of the future Waste Management. is expected to go slightly Pollution Control Agency. and we're going to lìave to City Administntor lower for single sort. find better ways to sort it," Robert Hauge said the move Not all cities are switch- Better tech he said. to single sort "seemed to be ing. Jean Lundquist, recycling coordinator local cities differ where everyone was going North Maukato is work- for Blue Earth to be going in the future." ing on a new waste collec- C.ounty, said'v!'aste St. Peter has had single- sort recycling for more than 10 years, City Administrator Todd Pralke said. Since then, they've been allowing more types of waste to be recycled, such as magazines and cereal boxes. Those change are sometimes made by Waste Management, and other times made at the request of the city. 'One of the things we really pushed for was expanding into the maga- zine area," Prafke said. One drawback, argtrably, for single-sort recycling is that some cities, like St. Peter and Lake Crystal, col- lect it only every other week. That may not be con- sidered a drawback consid- ering the large bins used for single sort. St. Peter has considered going weekly, but it may cost more money. 'sharps'norÍ amepted at HY-Vee IvIANKAIO Needles, svringes and -lancets, known as "sharPs'' are no$t àcõepte¿ for tliiPosal at the iüuiôp and downtown'llY' Vee pharmacies, I Nõ loose sharps are I acceoted at HY'Vee. TheY shoúld be placed in a heavY nlastic container before they are d¡oPped 0ff.. It's imPortant to dlspose of shatpi ProperlY because thev can harm workers at solid wasæ antl recYcling iãciiities if theY are left in the---Hv-Vee household trash. is onlY accePtin-g sharis. Old and unwanted i.eåíttnet can be droPPed ãr át ttre permanent dis- Blue Earth -Cãuntvó*ãtoxit the Sheriff's Office in the Juåtice Center, 401 Carver Road, Mankato' Call507'3044'242 or visit co.blue-earth.mn,us' Convenient Disposal OPtions Available to Area Residents
Blue Earth County continues heavy plastic containers, such as to work to help residents prop- laundry detergent bottles, with erly dispose of old medications the lid securely attached. No and medical equipment in a safe loose sharps can be accepted. i:[:3ti:fllilï,"ilãt o and convenient manner. Through Also, no metal or glass contain- August 15' 2012 a collaborative effort between ers should be used. Glass can Blue Earth County and Hilltop break and metal cans, such as Hy-Vee Pharmacy, sharps are coffee cans can pop open if mercury thermometers are ac- now accepted for proper dis- bent. cepted in this program. Merc_ury posal during regular pharmacy Only sharps.are accepted at thèrmometers are accepted free hours. The downtown Hy-Vee these locations. Old orunwanted ofcharge from residents at the Pharmacy also will continue to medicines should be taken to the Blue Earth Count¡' Household accept sharps. The cost for dis- Sheriffs Ofüce intheBlue Earth Hazardous Waste Faciliqv at 651 posal at both locations is $5.00 County Justice Center at 401 Summit Avenue in Mankato. per container. Carver Road in Mankato. A per- For more information call the Sharps are needles, syringes manent disposal box for old or 24-hour waste and recycling and lancets that can harm worþ unwanted medications is located hotline at (507) 304-4242 or visit ers at solid waste and recycling in the Sheriffs Ofüce lobby and www.co.blue-earth.mn.us. facilities if disposed of improp- disposal is free. No sharps or erly. They should be placed in Call for colnpost site review rejected
ing. Compost sites like thís off about a litany of envi' Farms are rare in Minnesota; the ronmental concerns she Fùll Circle Organics, MFS MPCA has said this would said weren't addressed bY be the only one in this area the MPCA. plan site east of Good Thunder of the state. For example, she said "By putting a dump bacteria, mold, pollutants mY back and other contaminants By llan Unehan Board denied a request for of the permit, both on ô0 1,400 feet out you are denying me would fall to the ground d¡fì[email protected] a more stringent environ' votes. door, and enter a nearbY wetland mental review on a 5'1 vote The permit, for Full -Wilcox,.my rights," said Victor Maple River during A request from G Continued from Page 81 But most of the board The Free Press August 90, 2012 members agreed with the /'I'hursday, - environmental review MPCA that the type, loca- would tackle this sort of tion and management of issue. An MPCA staff mem- the compost site meant fur- ber said he didn't know He ther review wasn't neces- also said the agency's sary. reviews show the proposal Board member Chester doesn't reach the standard Wilander said he heard the of the "potential for signifi- staff, who believe there is cant environmental effects," '"no potential for environ- which would require fur- mental degradation here." ther environmental review. While he said the "basic Newman said he won- standards" have been met dered whether to believe by the project, he said neighbors who complained there should've been an about environmental environmental review done harms, lVere these "reason- closer to the start of the able environmental effects," project. he asked, or neighbors "The pubLic has a real "throwing everything in right to know about \r'¡hat there they can think of happens out there relevant because they don't want to these facilities, especially their neighborhood to v¡hen wete still developing change." rules relative to these facili- St, Paul Attorney Paula ties," he said, Macabee, who testified in The lack of MPCA rules support of residents, about compost sites of this acknowledged the not-in- type was a key claim of my-bacþrd-effect can Brenda lVilcox, who said warp logic, to a point. "Full Circle Organics can "l've been in neighbor- claim they meet all regula- hoods where hundreds of tions and requirements, people sign things that are because they don't exist." not problematic, but I d The MPCA is writing have to say to some extent, those regllations, but says where there's smoke there's it held the applicant to fire. And that's what the stringent standards. The EAW (environmental Blue Earth County Boald assessment worksheet) approved its permit for this sorts out, is which ones are compost operation on April just the smoke, and which 24 on a 3-to-2 vote. ones have a little bit of Richards, the MPCA offi- fire." cial, said the Citizens' Newman, citing in part Board decision could be the claim about water con- appealed to the state's t¿mination, voted to court of appeals, but those require the EAW actions are rare. lhe ¡,ïee .rress / luesday, Uctober 23,2012 Township agrGements 'operating uery well' Renewal likely By Tim Xrohn [email protected] 0Agreements Mankato has with two abutting town- ships to bring orderly growth and annexation are likely to be renewed. "The good news is both agreeme¡ts are operating very well," Paul Vogel, Mankato community devel- AûRttiltlrlT$: $econd is for orderly alrrrertûtiolr opment director said of the agreements with Lime and Continued from Page A1 Commission would be happen, 100 percent of the Mankato townships. bound to go along with it properly owners in the sub- The "orderly annexation that step, saying its agree- under the orderly annexa- division must aglee to it. agreements," made some 15 ment and relationship with tion agteement. The city said that has yeal's ago, were sought to Mankato was good for both caused problems for some prevent haphazard home the city and township. Mankato Township subdivisions adjacent to the subdivision construction in When Jordan Sands, a city, where most, but not rural areas where townships subsidiary of Coughlan subdivisions all, properff owners want to and counties have difficulty Companies, proposed this Mankato and Mankato be annexed. delivering services and spring to operate a silica Township entered into an The city and township issues arise over things like sand operation in Lime orderþ annexation agree are to be$n renegotiating septic systems. Township, opponents ment in 1995 with the goal the agreements next year pushed the Township Board of stopping nonfarm hous- and the current agreement to take over as the sole ing developments in rural expires.in 2015. The town- Silica sand debate planning board for the areas unless they are ship is developing a propös- Mankato and Lime township. Opponents had annexed into the city of al that would allow Mankato hoped Township entered into an the Township Board Mankato. to annex adjacent subdivi- , orderly annexation agree- would then declare a mora- Both sides say the aglee sions if 66 percent of prop ment in 1997 with the city torium on all new sand ment has worked, but the erty owners want to be providing limited planning opemtions. agteement doesn't address annexed. It would also allow services for the township The Township Board the city annexing subdivi- the city to annex small and the city's Planning declined the suggestion to sions previously built in the parcels when the city is sur- planning Commission serving as the take over as the township. For annexation to rounding them. planning board for zoning authority for the township. issues in the township. But the Township Board The city-operated plan- is meeting Oct.29 to con- sider whether to seek a ning board, howeve¡ is to moratorium on future quar- make zoning decisions that ries. If the township reflect the comments and requests a moratorium, the recommendations of the Mankato Planning Lime Township Board, meaning the planning board is basically bound by the wishes of the Township Board. Over the years, there have been discussions bv the Township Board that it make itself the planning board for the township. But the township never took Pleæe see AGREEMIIITS, Page A2 \flesrEaftEcrclnrcffnws October 29,2012 FaÉnersh¡ps push progress of Goke's plant-based bottles By Mike Verespei "We don't know when it will be fully ap- ment Heinz inked with Coke in early 2011 to Crain News Service plied. But in the next few years, you will see use PlantBottle technology in 2O-ounce a fully 1007o PlantBottle. ketchup bottles. Perhaps far more quickly than anyone an- "\ile have three drivers for this program," '"!Ve realized we could accelerate the build- ticipated - except maybe executives at Coca- added Vitters. 'ïVe want to improve our envi- out by bringing other brands into the innova- Cola Co. - plant-based PET has established ronmental and social performance. We want tion space," said Vitters. "We âre building out roots in soft d¡ink and to ensure our cost-competi- the supply chain to make it a reality. water bottles, tiveness and our long-term "PET plastic is not just used in PET bot- In less than three ability to meet all of our tles," he said. "It is used in fibers, in markets years, Coke has sold packaging commitments. on the inside ofyour car, your running shirt" more than 10 billion We want to differentiate and other forms of packaging. PlantBottles that con- ourselves from our com- "This collaboration makes it clear that the tain plant-based petitors in resin costs evolution from conventional petroleum to mono ethylene glycol, and leverage technolo- bio-feedstocks is not just an idea, but a com- which represents gy to give our cus- mercial reality." said Vitters. '1Ve put togeth- 30Vo of the weight of tomers and consumers er the collaborative because we realized that a PET bottle. a better package. there were other industry leaders who had a Even more signifï- "The driver for us shared interest in finding a solution to the cant, by the end of with packaging is ul- 70Vo portion of the PET formulaüion. this year, 8-L0Vo of íhe timately about meet- "These are companies we respect and it company's toüal resin ing consumer needs." made sense to us to collecüively pull our re- consumption will be At the heart of sources together to potentially advance the plant-based, said Scott Coke's strategy: part- needed technologies even faster," he said. "If Vitters, general manager nerships with others. those questions can be answered together, it of the PlantBotble Sus- It is working with will speed up development." tainable Packaging Plat------/ two fìrms to build Thaü's critical for Coke, as one ofits corpo- form at Coca-Cola. plants to make plant- rate objectives is to increase the number of But he was quick to based MEG, including a eight-ounce servinþs of Coca-Cola proilucts add that, the rapid emer- partnership with JBF Industries Ltd. to build a from 1.8 billion per day to more than 3 billion gence ofplant-based PET is õ00 million metric ton per year plant in Brazil per day by 2020, while reducing its carbon just the beginning of the journey for Coke. that is scheduled to come online in late 2014. footprint at the same time, "We're trying to make a difference," Vitters Coke also has invested in three firms that "TVe don't want to do anything that ad- said. "We are looking at second generation are working to develop plant-based purifìed versely affects our environmental footprint solutions to meet environmental needs. terephühalic acid, which accounts for 7ÙVo,by or adversely impact recycling," Vitters said. We're going to continue to push innovation' weight, of PET resin. He also underscored that Coke's commit- We're looking at what we can use and lvhat To further push plant-based PET in end- ment to renewable materials does not mean we can'l use" to replace petroleum-based use markets, Coke put together a partnership the company is backing away from the use of feedstocks for PET. with Ford Motor Co., H.J. Heinz Co., Nike recycled content in its packaging, or that "One hundred percent of our virgin PET Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. three months Coke is not committed to recycling, as some will be converted to the one plant-based in- ago - dubbed the Plant PET Technology Col- criüics have suggested. : gredienü - bMEG - by 2020," Yilters said. laborative - to spur the development and use However, how quickly a t00Vo plant-based of plant-based PET material and fibers. M¡ke Vercspe¡ b a repofter for Plast¡cs News, a s¡ster PET bottle will emerge is uncertain, he said. That alliance further builds on the agree- publ¡catíon of Waste & Recycling Newf. Faci I ities overwhel med by piles of GRT glass Old TVs, monitors create "It's just really a waning tech- problems nology, and as people are replac- for recyclers ing their televisions, more and more CRTs are being recycled," By leremy Ganoll he said. WRN reporter Karl Palmer, chief of toxins in concernedrharamarkerf Ji¡ä:"f',å"il';åi'iirrïåtlÏiïi;ä:i"",äå'ï,ì:"fi 3 products for the DTSC, said the Califomia Department of Toxic Substances Gonlrol has ¡ssüed a rule allowing The market for cathode ray agency has been working on the the glass to be disposed in hazardous waste landfills. tube (CRT) glass is shrinking issue for more than a year and and it's only getting smaller, as emergency regulations will be in math, if the market dries up ... The company is also looking more and more old televisions place for two years. The agency we're going to have a continuing into new technologly, which in- and monitors are being recycled will look to replace it with some buildup of the glass," he said. cludes a process ofliquefying the instead ofbeing landfrlled, said sort ofpermanent regulation at "And we'll have continuing glass and pulling the lead out Steve Skurnac, president ofSims that time. buildups of these piles of waste that way. Another possible tech- Recycling Soluüions. "In the next year, we're hope- and it becomes less and less viable nolory is crushing the glass into "I thinkwe're al¡eady [atthe sat- ful there will be additional recy- economically for people to do the a powder and usirg chemicals to uration pointl in the market," he As more consumefs switch to flat cling technology that will come right thing which leads to, poten- pull the lead out. said. "The¡e's a lot of glass in Cali- screen devices, the recycling market online and be viable," he said. tially, abandonment of that waste "Nobody is doing it on a com- fornia that is having a hard time is being flooded with old GRT glass, Since 2005, more than 1.3 bil- or potential illegal disposal." mercial scale yet, but there are a frnding a home. Easily within the found in older TVs and monitors. lion pounds of old TVs and moni- In California, consumers pay number of companies in both next year, a similar issue is going tors have been recycled in the for electronics recycling pro- frelds that are trying to perfect to crop up in otherjurisdictions." ne\p avenues, including new California program with 100 mil- grams when they buy new items, this technology," Skurnac said. The California Department of technologies, for the glass. And if lion pounds of residual CRT based on the size of the device. Todd Gibson, vice president of Toxic Substances Control all else fails, disposal into a haz- glass recycled in 2011. That fee is going to drop in 2013, sales and marketing for (DTSC) recently announced ardous waste landfill is permit- Neither third-party electronics Mark Oldfield, spokesman for Romeoville, Ill.-based Vintage emergency regulations to allow ted, but only the residual glass certifier allows for landfrlling CalRecycle, said. Tech Recyclers Inc., said it hasn't for the disposal ofresidual CRT would be allowed for disposal, CRT glass. Skurnac said the problem con- encountered a challenge in dispos- glass into hazardous waste land- DTSC said. Corey Dehmey, assistant to tinues to build as more and more ing ofthe residual glass thus far, fills if recyclers cannot find a CRTs contain lead and some the executive director ofR2 Solu- states ban CRTs from landfills. He but certainly will in the future. He suitable reuse for the.glass. other hazardous materials, mak- tions, said there was a lengthy said a new wave ofCRT glass has said new technology, such as liq- Despite the new regulations, An- ing them difficult to recycle. The discussion on residual CRT glass hit the market in the last year be- uefring the glass, is exciting. dre Algazi, chief of the coûsumer traditional market for the glass when discussing revisions to the cause of various landfill bans, "I don't know if I agree with products section of DTSC, said he is other glass recyclers, whieh standard recently, but ultimate- such as Illinois and South Caroli- llandfillingl being a responsible doesn't expect electronic recyclers turn them into new CRTs. But ly, the rules will stay the same. na. CRTs will be banned from alternative," he said. "Under- to be lining up at landfills. w'ith the rise of flat-panel televi- "The standard has one excep- landñlls in Pennsylvania in 2013. standing those hazardous waste 'Disposal of hazardous rvaste is sions, demand for nerv CRTs has tion that is s'hen normal man- Sims Recycling Solutions is landfills are built to handle haz- costly and highly regulated," he fallen offa cliff. agement challenges are not among the largest electronics re- ardous materials, it just doesn't said. "We don't think hazardous "In the more developed coun- open," he said. "From the best we cyclers in the country with 14 fa- feel right. It takes the material waste disposal is going to be all tries, like the United States, can tell, normal management cilities, including three in Cali- out of being recycled or reuse that attractive of an option." CRT televisions and monitors channels are open." fornia, and Skurnac said the commodity down the stream to Previously, the glass could have pretty much vanished from Some recyclers have ware- company sends the glass to vari- something we might have to only be either recy-cled by glass the market," Algazi said. "Even houses where the residual glass ous smelters and recyclers. mine later." I recyclers, which often turned in the developing countries, that is being stored, but it can only be "'We have commercial relation- them into new CRTs, or they is becoming the case as well." stored legally for up to a year, ships with just about every Contact Waste & Becycling News repqfter could be sent to lead smelters. More than 4 million CRT tele- Palmer said. downstream glass guy you can Jercny Canoll at ¡canoll@wasterccycl¡ng The new regulations allow for visions were produced in 2011. "The concern is, if you do the think of," he said. news.com or 3 1 3 -446 -6780. e2 The Free Press / Wednesday, October 3,2072 Do Your Parfi Top fiue $olutions to pecyrling ppoblems By Terri Bennett thousands of years if Earth9l1.org and the those end up in our land- lilc0latchy-Tribune l'|ews Service ever to break down- in a Rechargeable Battery fills! Printer cartridges are landfill.- Since most curbside Recycling Corp. actually easily refilled and recycling collection services (www.rbrc.org) both pro recycled. You can also get don't collect them, you can vide online directories to paid to turn in your old car- return most plastic bags for help you ûnd battery recy- tridges. There are a number recycling at your local gro clers near where you live. of online sources that wíll pre-paid cery stores. And get this; supply a shipping Tattened clothing label to mail accepted car- most grocery stores (along given tridges in exchange for with Wal-Mart and Target) Most of us have good cash. Or you can turn in will also accept most plastic away box after box of or used up. Most peopl clothing to Goodwill or your used cartridges for sandwich bags, cereal bags, other charitable organiza- recycling at Office Max, newspaper bags, and all tions. But what about old Staples and Office Depot types of plastic wraps. Just clothing or other things like and earn a store credit for make sure to check with rags, bedding or towels that every accepted cartridge. your particular store for are too worn out to be re- Check out details. *¡r*þîiåînijä: Wu' used? Goodwill wants them DoYourPart. com/Columns for links to all the places that are a little trickier? Do lr,lcClatchy-Tribune l.lews Service too. However, the textiles Batteries you Your Part and check oul^l{ cannot be wet or contami- I've mentioned so can "00 Yor.rr Paft,l' ¡¡1fl check out my some soh¡tions to your recycling The heavy metals found Do Your Part to recycle vour recv- nated with chemicals. These tñrt'rr.t'to recycte ircms such æ fluorescent tigt¡r butbs, in batteries can contaminate you probably clng:?f:::l|,t|"j:.to proDlems: '-,^^*,^oi*'r*t items are sorted and sold what thought plætic L^i^ :-r, ^-¡ *^-^--^^*-i,t¡^^ --¡t f.a{*^-. land and water. Instead, get bags' ink and toner cætridges and batteries' for recycling or many other you couldn't. those prized materials recy- Fluorescent light bulbs uses such as sofa stuffing. CFLs or compact fluo- panies that have convenient Many full service recycling cled responsibly. Only a Terri, Benn¿tt is a aetran rescent light- bulbs drop off sites and will recy- centers will also accept handful of curbside recy- lnk, toner cartridges TV næteoroLogi.st, eco - exp ert should never be thrown- cle them responsibly. them. cling programs will accept Every year, hundreds of and. author of "Do Your a Lowes, Home Depot, batteries but there are mâny millions of ink and toner Part," a guide for away because they contain Plastic bags Ttroitbal small amount of mercury. Tärget, and lkea stores will retailers and full service cartridges are used in this atergdag green liuing auail- plastic There are several big com- get the job done for you. It ivill take bags recycling centers that will. country. And, 70 percent of able at D oYourPart. corn. POST-BULLETIN AUGUST 25 2012 We all pay for illegal trash disposal By John Helmers Did you know that illegal disposal ofsolid wastes (commonly called garbage) is costing you? It costs you in poorer health, potentially contarninated food, a dirtier environment and money from your pocket- book. - F:-:-----::--t Some people in Dodge and Olmsted Hffiñ, I S.,",lli::r*:,å'Jåå:T,i lÏ:iåtrtii, Wffiffinot your grandfather's garbage in his day, most household wastes containèd untreated- paper, wood, glass and unpainted metal cans. Today, your garbage contâins paper with coatings and colored inks, many diffelent types of plastics ãnd nuch more packaging that, when burned ât home, releases hazardons cancer-causing chemicals and toxic materials like lead, mercury and arsenic. Burn- ing wasfes at home also produces smoke which can make it difficult for some people to b¡eathe, particu- larly children and the elderly. It can produce dioxins, a known human carcinogen. These chemicals may, through bioaccumulation, end up in our food. Illegal disposal ofwastes causes pollution ofour environment. Burning at home dirties our air, emit- ting sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, heaw metals and fine particles that degrade the air quality. Dump- ing garbage on the ground or burying wastes in the glound can cause surface and groundwater contami- nation and lead to pollution of our precious drinking wâter. It the past, Minnesota cities, counties and stâte taxpayers have had to pay to clean up sites polluted from illegal disposal ofsolid wastes, spending many more dollars tlìân what it would have cost to properly dispose of the wastes in the I'irst place. This year, the integrated Solid Waste Manage- ment System celebrates its 25th anniversary. The system was carefully developed and refined over three decades to get the most beneftcial use of the waste generated i¡r Oìmsted and Dodge counties. The system provides "a proper place for all your waste" thlough waste leduction efforts, recycling, compost- ing, a hazardous waste managemenLprogiam, waste- to-energy and finally landfilling. The facilities that make up this system are subject to strict requirements to monitor for and pt'êvent release of harmful emissions. The operations of each of the facilities are well within Minnesota Pollution Coutlol Agency a¡rd US Environmental Protection Agency standards. The integrated system creates a level playing field for everyone who produces wastes to take respõn- sibility for what they generate by using the system. Ðveryorre pays their fair share for the investments we have wisely made for the protection of our air, soil and water. Those who don't use tlìe system do not pay for the benefits they get from the system, yet they puú the rest of us at risk for potential health issues and costly clean-up operations. Someone using a banned method of "throwing away" garbage may think they are saving money, but all they are doing is shifting their costs to those of us who use the proper disposal methods while setting themselves up to pay higher fees in the future. Please continue to place your waste in the proper place and encourage your friends and neighborr to do the same. It is the right thing to do añd it will reduce your costs. To report illegal dumping or burning in Olrnsted County, please contact the Planning Dèpartment at (507) 32&7100. tohn Helmers is the Sol¡d Waste Manager and Directot of Olmsted County Env¡ronméntal Resources. Page I of4 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Sep 28,2012; Section: Front Page; Page: Al Ol' Man River is full of life again ' Pollution in a stretch of the Mississippi has fallen, data show. By JOSE PH IN E MARCOTTY ma rcotty@startri bu ne.com The eagles are back, the fishing is good and, 40 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, the length of the Mississippi River that flows through the Twin Cities is healthier than it's been in a generation. The findings, released Thursday, show that decades of effort have reduced the flow of industrial pollutants, storm water runoff and human waste into the nation's largest river at the point where it begins its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, they focus attention on the river's emerging threats. The Mississippi also contains rising levels of new contaminants from household products and pharmaceuticals that could affect the health of both wildlife and people, bigger surges of water from bigger storms and significantly more pollutants from agriculture and urban runoff. The firsþever State of the River report was compiled by the National Park Service, which oversees the 72- mile Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, and Friends of the Míssissippi River. lt used 13 indicators to grade the river's ecological health from Dayton to Hastings. The analysis was conducted in part to answer questions the public often asks if and how they can use the river for swimming, fishing and boating, said Park Service spokesperson Lark Weller.- The answer, mostly, is yes. The Father of the Waters has proved to be remarkably resilient. "The river was dead in 1926," said Trevor Russell, watershed program director for the river advocacy group. Old surveys show that only two living fish were recorded downstream of St. Anthony Falls. Decades of sewage, industrial pollutants and dam construction destroyed the fisheries. All the way through the 1970s, the river was in essence a conduit for sewage. "That was the practice," said Tim Scherkenbach, a retired deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. "The river was seen as a natural flushing system." Putrid mats of solid waste used to build up behind the Ford Dam, he said, and nothing lived at the bottom of river. All that began to change with the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, and subsequent state and federal laws that required permits for industrial discharges, separation of storm water and sewage systems, and increasingly sophisticated technology to remove contaminants from wastewater treatment plants. "lt is good to remember back to that time," said Whitney Clark, executive director of the Friends of the Mississippi. "We took some decisive actions to reverse those trends." Eagles and pelicans Once the pollution stopped, the river began to heal itself. Today, it supports quality fisheries for catfish, walleyes and smallmouth bass. The number of walleye catches has tripled since 1979, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources . Of the 120 native species of fish that used to ply the water below St. Anthony Falls, a natural fish barrier, 1 '19 are back. The bald eagles, once endangered, are now commonplace, thanks to the Endangered Species Act and bans on destructive pesticides such as DDT. Today, there are 36 active nests along the 72-mile stretch of the river, and each produces on average two nestlings per year, according to the Park Service counts. Other fish-eating birds are thriving as well. "l saw my first white pelican in 1985 or 1986," said Hokan Miller, a birdwatcher who has worked on barges and commercial boats on the river for years. "l said, 'What is that!' " http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 9128t20r2 Page2 of 4 Now, he said, every spring flocks of the huge white birds fly in lazy circles over the river near downtown St. Paul. But the river continues to reflect the human life and land uses around it. The eagles carry contaminants in their blood - mercury from power plants, carcinogens from air pollution, and pesticides that run off the land. So do some fish, which sometimes makes eating them a risk for young children and pregnant women. The amount of water in the river has increased by more than 25 percent on average since 1975. Some of that is the result of the much larger rainfalls that some experts believe may be associated with climate change. But most of it comes from draining the vast agriculturalfields around the Minnesota River, which flows into the Mississippi at Fort Snelling. With bigger rains comes sediment that clouds the water, carrying pollutants like phosphorus and nitrates that all drop to the bottom when the river widens into Lake Pepin. Phosphorus, which causes blue-green algal blooms, has dropped significantly, largely as a result of new water treatment processes. But compared to 1975, nitrates from fertilizers, pet waste and organic material have increased by up to 47 percent in some recent years. Eventually, they flow into the Gulf of Mexico, contributing to a "dead zone" around the mouth of the river that cannot sustain life. A new dioxin Equally worrisome, say scientísts, are new contaminants, many from consumer products used by millions of people. Scientists found that concentrations of a contaminant formed by triclosan, a common antibacterial product, have jumped more than 200 percent since it was invented in the 1960s. lt's commonly used in soap, toothpaste, deodorants and other household products that are flushed through water treatment systems and into the river. Exposure to chlorine and sunlight turn it into a dioxin, a potentially harmful toxin for people and wildlife. Other dioxins that come from waste incineration have declined in the last 50 years, meaning that those from triclosan now make up 31 percent of the total mass of dioxins in Lake Pepin. The irony, said researchers, is that triclosan provides little or no benefit in the products that contain it. "lt's a marketing tool," said Bill Arnold, a researcher at the University of Minnesota Duluth who studied the dioxins in sediment cores from Lake Pepin. The lesson, said Scherkenbach , is that the cleanup never ends. "But we are getting better, and getting smarter as a society in understanding how complex nature is," he said. "And the next generation of kids will be even more aware." Josephine Marcotty' 612-673-7 394 JEFF WHEELER' [email protected] National Park Service rangers led 83 ninth-graders from St. Paul on a program Thursday on the Mississippi River. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 9128120t2 Page I of4 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Oct 1,2012; Section: Front Page; Page: Al Residential thirst strainirg, draining White Bear Lake By BILL McAULIFFE [email protected] Sometíme this fall, probably soon, White Bear Lake will reach its lowest level on record lower than the mark it reached only two years ago. - But the course of the shrinking lake can't be entirely blamed on this summer's drought. It also involves a man-made threat to one of the metro area's brightest jewels, and other lakes like it: the use of underground water for lawn watering, bathing and drinking. Since 1980, growing communities in the northeast metro have more than doubled the volume of water they pump from the Prairie du Chien aquifer beneath them, pulling water from White Bear Lake and other lakes nearby, according to Perry Jones, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologist. Jones just completed a two-year study of groundwater-surface water interactions, which found that since about 2003, White Bear continued to drop even in wet periods a significant new trend. One reason: The city of White Bear Lake and nine surrounding communities pumped 2.6- billion gallons of water from the Prairie du Chien aquifer in '1980, but 6 billion in 2008. Most of that has been for residential use, while industrial and commercial use, including golf course watering, remained steady. The study found that it would take annual rainfall 4 inches above normaljust to stop the lake's shrinkage. White Bear and the surrounding lakes and streams are particularly prone to shrink quickly due to pumping because the sandy soil beneath them allows surface water to drain readily into the aquifer. White Bear Lake, in particular, is deep enough to have an easy exchange with the aquifer. As a result, shoreline residents will have to continue dragging their docks hundreds of yards to reach water or trying to find them in tall brush while swimmers at the main public beach encounter a steep drop off at what- used to be a long, shallow walk-in,- and dozens of slips at the downtown marina remain vacant, with mud having replaced boats. "l'm thinking White Bear Lake is reaching a 'new normal,' " said Molly Shodeen, a metro-area hydrologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. A big shallow end White Bear dropped more that 5/zfeet between early 2003, when it was last at its "ordinary high water" level, and Nov. 13,2010, when it reached the lowest level ever recorded. lt rose partway back last year, but lost all of that in recent months, and last week was within about 2lzinches of the record low again. The drop has left residents reeling. Some have obtained permits from the DNR to mow the plants that have grown on the sandy lake bottom that now makes up their vast and growing front yards. Lifelong resident Jan Holtz Kraemer said neighbors don't encounter each other as much as they used to, in the old days when "life was good and docks were short." ln fact, she now goes down to the lake when she wants to be alone, she said; it's much quieter without jet skis and boats on the water. This summer she turned her White Bear Lake flag upside down to signal distress, until her psychiatrist advised her she wasn't responsible for the dwindling lake. "The drought hasn't helped," Kraemer said. "l wish it were just God's fault. But it isn't." While the problem has been vivid at White Bear Lake, aquifer pumping has the potential to create much wider problems. Shoreview's Turtle Lake, and others extending into Washington and Chisago counties, have seen similar drops in the last severalyears; South SchoolSection Lake, a small lake in Washington County, dropped nearly 12feet between a 1997 peak and the latest reading, last April. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm tÙlU20t2 Page2 of 4 "The metro area is still water-rich," said Keith Buttleman, an assistant general manager at the Met Council, which oversees long-range water demand and planning for the metro area. "However, it's not evenly distributed , and there are a number of areas where if the trends established over the past 20 to 40 years continue, there will be fairly serious problems." Looking for fixes But meanwhíle, many communities, from Woodbury to White Bear, have already jumped into water conservation programs, from alternate-date lawn sprinkling to increased billing. Water use in the city of White Bear Lake dropped 20 percent in the last five years, said city manager Mark Sather. Sather said increasing the cost of water was one reason. Another is an aging population with smaller households. "We're just seeing people use less water," Sather added. "They're becoming more aware of the issue." Jones said one promising strategy indeed, an aim of the USGS study is to identify wells that draw the highest concentrations of lake water -and move them farther away from the -aquifer. Other community groups are thinking more grandly. Lake associations along Snail and Gilfillan lakes in Shoreview have arranged to divert water heading from the Mississippi River into the city of St. Paul's reservoir system; now it would augment their lakes. A citizens' task force looking at solutions for White Bear Lake is considering a pipeline that would carry water from the Mississippi River and filter out invasive critters before dumping it into the lake. Another idea: pumping and filtering water from nearby Bald Eagle Lake, which doesn't lose appreciable water to the aquifer. Yet another: building a wastewater treatment facility in the northeast metro, cleaning the water there instead of sending it to the Pig's Eye plant in St. Paul, and pumping it into the aquifer near White Bear. All of them, however, show the scale of challenges facing a region long accustomed to plentiful water. "There are no cheap fixes," Shodeen noted. "They're allvery expensive." Bill McAuliffe' 612-67 3-7646 MARLIN LEVISON 'Star Tribune Communities in the northeast metro have more than doubled the amount of water they pump from the aquífer that feeds area lakes. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm t0/t/2012 Page 3 of4 MARLIN LEVISON '[email protected] Some homeowners have gotten permission to mow the plants growing out of the lake bottom. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 10/U2012 Page 4 of 4 A dwindlineWhite Bear Lake White Bear Lake faces alouble tÌueat: natu¡al seepage undergrorurd, and pumping of grounùrater for everyday use irn neighboring cities. which has been rare in recent The lake rests atop porous layers ofglacial @ .ne.ipttaUo4 months,has limited impact on the lake till sand and gravel" and its bottom is in å - because it is tucked into a small watershed. St.Peter Sandstone Prai¡le duChlen grorp aquÍferfordrirùing Ffl andlordan Sa¡rdstone washing,and one - ÉC{ -o- St. I¿rwence Formation ii*'*trfl;tî- rT :,, .; : weather irrcrcascs :..'. 1 the demancl. Ofhcials,, : lå Gap in St. Peter Sandstone citizenl altl otlìels. .' : water seeps from the lale through areloou¡rfirx wàys' @): l. i the porous layer intothe aquifer. to ¡educc the' :' : '. esbenualty porous rock satuated with wateç slolvly moves wåter 'tÌìi6l¡¿hffi, an¿ ar^râytromttre lete.Invery wetperiods,thatprocesr can reverse, slowlyadding waterto the aquifer and pushingwater intothe lake. MÀRK BO6WEII . Sta¡ Tlibr¡ne YI/HITE BEAR LAKE:WHERE'S THEWÀTER GOING? Overthe mostrecent decade,the level of White BearÞke hasdroppedrapidlywhile a¡mual rainfall has remained fairly steady. Ihe difference: Pwnping of groundwater for residential uses. After a long and steady increase, pumping dropped since 2009 because of some rainy weather, declines in uses other than residential uses, and conservation meafl¡res. PRECIPITATION tAKE TEVELS PUMPING BY WELLS hrinches of rainfall ln feet above standard elerration In billions of gallons 2011:35.13'l Feb. zotz:9t9.71 ft. 2010:4.66billion gal. Sourcer U.S. Geological Survey MARK BOSWEII. Ster Tribune http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribunelPrintComponentView.htm tjlU20t2 News Release re Hil,:1ïåi;:f"'"' For release: Sept. 25,2012 Contact: Cathy Rofshus, 507-206-2608 How's the water? Much better after 40 years of the Clean Water Act St. Paul-- Two massive oil spills into Minnesota rivers devastated fish and wildlife in the early 1960s. At the time, no laws required that spills be reported or cleaned up. By the early 1970s, such catastrophes were becoming common. ln Ohio, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire - for the tenth time. Time Magazine reported that Lake Erie was dying from allthe waste dumped into it. St. Louis took its drinking water from the muddy Missouri River because the Mississippi was far worse. With the publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," an environmental movement swept across the nation to the halls of Congress, which passed the federal Clean Water Act on Oct. 18, 1972. The Act's goal was simple: that all waters be fishable and swimmable where possible. "The Clean Water Act was has forever changed how we monitor and protect our water," says Commissioner John Linc Stine of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). "The Clean Water Act has raised the bar of our expectations. Those expectations are high in Minnesota because 99 percent of the water found here, started here. This means our water protection efforts have an exponentially positive ímpact on the many states to our south, east and west all the way to the Gulf of Mexico." When the Clean Water Act went into effect, Minnesota had already started its water cleanup efforts, having established the Minnesota Pollution ControlAgency in 1967. This agency faced a daunting task in the 1970s with 450 communities failing to adequately treat their sewage or industrial waste. More than 40 percent of industries in the state were simply dumping their wastes into rivers and lakes. ln the past 40 years, Minnesota and other states have made great strides in treating sewage, industrial waste, and other pollutants that damage water resources. The Clean Water Act is the backbone of that work. The Act embodied a new federal-state partnership. The federal government, through the Environmental Protection Agency, established guidelines, objectives and limits. The federal government provided technical and financial assistance, most notably matching grants to local governments to build systems to treat wastewater and stormwater. The states carry out the law with their own monitoring, assistance and enforcement programs. The Act states that all discharges into the nation's waters are unlawful unless authorized by a permit and sets controls for municipalities and industries. This is why wastewater treatment plants in Minnesota are required to have a permit from the MPCA. The Act requires all dischargers to meet additional, stricter pollutant controls where needed to meet water quality targets, and requires federal approval of these standards. It also protects wetlands by requiring "dredge and fill" permits. The Act has robust enforcement provisions and gives citizens a strong role to play in watershed protection. Congress has occasionally revised the Act to address toxic pollutants, stormwater runoff, and groundwater protection. Notwithstanding these improvements, the 1972\aw, along with its regulatory provisions and the institutions that were created 40 years ago, is stillthe framework for protecting and restoring the nation's rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands and coastalwaters. The difference the Clean Water Act made to the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities is profound. Once a dead river from raw sewage, industrial discharges and slaughterhouse waste, this part of the Mississippi now boasts game fishing and a designation as a national recreation area. That progress stems from the Twin Cities' investment in wastewater and stormwater treatment, including grants from the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act remains a vital part of protecting Minnesota's rivers and lakes, which are essential to the state's economy and quality of life. ln spite of 40 years of progress, new challenges to clean water protection arise frequently. Today the challenges include sedimentation of streams and rivers, invasive species, and pollutants from farm and residential runoff. A decade from now new challenges will be uncovered. Before being elected to Congress, former U.S. Rep Jim Oberstar was the lead staff on the committee that wrote the Clean Water Act. Congress was driven to action by the pollution problems threatening unique, finite water resources. "NASA has spent billions over the years sending men to the moon and on dozens of other space missions, and very often the thing they most wanted to discover on these missions was fresh water. That should tell us what we need to know about protecting the fresh water we have here on earth," he said in a recent interview. Throughout the next month, the MPCA will highlight the rippling effect of the Clean Water Act, taking a closer look at the changes in the Mississippi in the Twin Cities, the work of local communities to overcome water pollution, improvements on feedlots in Minnesota, and the historical role of Congressman Oberstar. Visit the MPCA website for details. The MPCA is honoring 40 years of the Clean Water Act. Visit the agency's website at www.pca.state.mn.us for a special series. ## The mission of the MPCA is to work with Minnesotans to protect, conserve and improve our environment and enhance our quality of life. St. Paul . Brainerd . Detroit Lakes . Duluth . Mankato . Marshall . Rochester. Willmar www.pca.state.mn.us . Toll-free and TDD 800-657-3864 MPRNEWS Member Supported . Join Now r Businesses and boaters pinched by low river levels in Minn. by Mark Steil, Minnesota Public Radio September 24,2012 MANKATO, Minn. -- The drought has pushed river levels in some parts of Minnesota to near record lows, forcing the state Department of Natural Resources to suspend water pumping permits for dozens of businesses and other users. Falling river levels also have transformed many streams, including the Minnesota River, which is dramatically low near Mankato, with a daily flow of 265 cubic feet per second, about a third of what it should be this time of year. At about I foot, the water level is the third-lowest on record. Normally the river might be l0 feet deep in spots, and the length of a football field or more across. But near downtown Mankato, the river is now more sand than stream. That troubles North Mankato resident Mark Bosacker, who for years has canoed, kayaked and hiked the waters. On a recent visit to the mostly dry segment of the Minnesota, he pointed what the receding waters have uncovered: piles of rocks and assorted debris. "Ten speed I'd say," Bosacker said of one find. "No, no, five- or three-speed bicycle." Bosacker trudged over sand, mud and rocks that are normally submerged before reaching what's left of the Minnesota River's main channel. Nearby, solid concrete flood walls were warrn and dry in the sun. At the spot where the drought has reduced the span of one of Minnesota's biggest rivers to little more than the length of a school bus, he wondered how deep the water is. Wading into the stream, Bosacker discovered that even though the river is much reduced, it was still powerful. About halfway across the channel, the water was nearly 3 feet deep but with a strong enough current to make him unsteady on his feet, so he turned back to shore. The low levels of the Minnesota and other rivers in the area have reduced recreational use of the streams, practically drying Bosacker's favorite whitewater canoeing rivers. Businesses across the state are also feeling the effects of low water. Some golf courses, tree nurseries, sod growing companies and others have had to stop pumping water from river watersheds because stream levels are too low. In northeast Minnesota, where three months ago the St. Louis River caused a major flood, United Taconite now has to make changes to deal with the shrinking stream. "We worked out a contingency plan with the DNR, that will allow us to continue to operate United Taconite normally," company spokeswoman Sandy Karnowski said. Kamowski said operations owned by Cliffs Natural Resources will pump water from an inactive mine pit into the St. Louis River basin to replace what it uses from the watershed. Rivers in most of Minnesotaare low. In the southem part of the state the Blue Earth River at Mankato is even lower than the Minnesota, National Weather Service Hydrologist Steve Buan said. "Hasn't seen it this low in September since 1958," he said. Measured in cubic feet per second, the Blue Earth is at about one-seventh its normal flow, Buan said. This is the second September in a row of low stream levels. Last year drought also cut flow rates. "We set some lows last fall, and then the rivers rebounded into the winter and then obviously with the spring rains," Buan said. "But now that the rains have shut off again, the rivers have dropped quicker than they did last year." Buan said that points to ongoing dry soils. He said despite widespread heavy rains last spring, subsoil moisture never recovered from last year's drought. As a result, the soil retained most of the rain that fell this year, leaving little to flow into the rivers. But the conditions are not too bad to discourage anglers. James Martens, who went fishing in the Minnesota River near Mankato, said he has never seen such sharp drops in river levels. "Hopefully this is just a one-year thing, and we'll get back to where we were, normal levels, in the next few years," said Martens, of Mankato. For now at least, anything close to normal river levels appears to be a long way off because only dry weather is in the forecast. Page I of2 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Sep 30, 2012; Section: Twin Cities + Southwest; Page: B.SW6 Sweeping cleanup of St. Croix gets OK ' Efforts to reduce phosphorus will move ahead after approval from the U.S. Envi ronmental Protection Agency. By KEVIN GILES [email protected] Seen from a riverboat that barely ripples the mirrored waters, the St. Croix River lives up to its reputation as a jewel of Minnesota waterways, a sparkling destination to get away from it all. Even in its impaired condition fighting for breath from excessive phosphorous contamination the St. Croix on a bad day is healthier than the- Mississippi River, which takes in the St. Croix near Hastings. - Comparison of the two major rivers was inevitable last week when about three dozen people working to irnprove St. Croix water quality cruised on the river south toward the Mississippi on the Afton Princess to celebrate their latest achievement. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a sweeping cleanup plan for the St. Croix that calls for public activism up and down the river to counter declining water quality. The joint Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCAy Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources plan, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load study, is particularly important since the river flows through the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway, a nationalpark. "lf we don't keep the river clean we might as well all go home because the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act calls for clean, free-flowing rivers," Superintendent Chris Stein said. Cleaner but not trouble-free The St. Croix is "a far cleaner basin" than the Mississippi, said Chris Zadak, a basin project manager at the MP- CA. Cleaner water from the St. Croix and its many tributaries dilutes sediments and contaminants in the Mississippiwhere they meet at Prescott, Wis. Even now, the St. Croix has only one-sixth of the contamination that the Mississippi might have on its best day, Zadak said. But even though the St. Croix remains pristine in comparison with many other rivers in Minnesota and Wisconsin, it struggles with many of the same problems. Encroaching development, fertilizer pollution and storm water runoff from yards, streets and farm fields pushed the wider and deeper portion of the river, Lake St. Croix, onto Minnesota's impaired waters list in 2008. Monitoring of water quality showed that excess phosphorus had created large oxygen-sucking algae blooms that will threaten recreational pursuits such as fishing unless those who depend on the river repair it, the study concluded. The MPCA plan seeks to reduce phosphorous contamination in Lake St. Croix to 360 metric tons a year, the same as 1940s standards. Without corrective action, the study concluded, phosphorous contamination could grow to 540 metric tons a year by 2020. "Now we have the real work ahead of us," Commissioner John Linc Stine of the MPCA told the assembled stewards. Good news for the Mississippi The next challenge for stewards of the river involves work on the 12 major tributaries and dozens of smaller streams that feed the St. Croix, said Chris Klucas, another MPCA basin project manager. The St. Croix collects water from a giant basin that stretches into Anoka County on the west, nearly to Duluth on the north, and far into northwestern Wisconsin. Much of the work to reverse the St. Croix's decline has begun in watershed districts up and down the river. More streams and lakes in the St. Croix watershed have landed on Minnesota's latest impaired waters list in recent years. Forty-two waterways were added earlier this year, bringing the total to 174. http:lle.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm t013l20t2 Page 2 oî2 But the St. Croix's interplay with the Mississippi means that one river's water quality can depend in part on environmental stewardship of the other, said Deb Ryun, executive director of the St. Croix River Association. Findings released Thursday that show a much cleaner Mississippi in the Twin Cities than a generation ago were received with a cheer on the St. Croix boat excursion. "The rivers are connected. Anything that comes up the Mississippi can come up the St. Croix," Ryun said. That can include Asian carp and zebra mussels, and a backwash of contaminaled water from the Mississippi in the spring when flooding causes a traffic jam-like effect where the rivers converge. The St. Croix's deteriorating water quality has inspired a flurry of action up and down the river, with more to come in the wake of EPA approval. Government scientists do some of the monitoring. Trained volunteers do the rest. "People love this river," Ryun said. "How can we not succeed?" Details of the St. Croix study can be read at www.startribune.com/a1761. Kevin Giles' 651-925-5037 Twitter: @stribgiles http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribuneÆrintComponentview.htm I013t20t2 86 EXTRA LOCAL rhenreepress su.,aavseptemuerg.zolø Jlear Amboy, Jack$on Lake ruas wiped off the map By llike lagerquist Blue taûh County Glimpse of tbeþast Histodcal Society pnesident Like much of Minnesota it seémed, was its depth. flood his land. District and its 10,000lakes, Blue Because it was surround- Judge Quinn heard the case, Earth County has been ed by a combination of conside¡ed a petition by blessed with many bodies of marshland and farmland, a several in the vicinity who water that serve as ample natural fight developed were ágainst lowering of the playgrounds for boating and between those who wanted lake level, but n¡led against water sports in the.summer its waters raised to create a them. as well as hunting in the more consistent level for While a dam was built fall. water sports and those who almost immediateþ efforts Until abôut 100 years wanted it drained for better to circumvent this action ago, it had another lake that crop management. in the never ceased. In fact, the has been quite literally winter, it was said, farmers Jan. 27, 1911, Mankato Free wiped -off the map. often cut from the ice Press reported that Peder D. - Jackson Lake, located trapped and frozen carp ancl Pederson and others had east of Amboy in Sterling buffalo fish that were then filed a petition with the and Shelby townships, had chopped up and fed to fowl clerk of court to construct a been a popular spot for and hogs. county ditch three to five hunting fishing and boating In 1909, Thone A. miles in length alongside Photo courtesy of Âl $teinberg since settlement began in Stenberg who owned 100 Jackson Lake. The goal was Former Jackson [ake, which was east of Amboy, triß onæ a populæ spot for fishing and boating since the mid-l9th century.In acres of lowlands adjacent to drain the lake water into fact, it had even become a to Jackson Lake, brought the nearby Maple River and settlement began in the mid 19th century. lt wæ eventually drained to develop æ fæmland. popular resort spot and legal action against Aug. reclaim the land for farm- camping destination. Wendt and W. Tippler to lahd. 3, also known as the 1,600 acres of southern places ani. arcnts, conta.ct Measuring about 2.5 miles halt their efforts to dam the In October 1913, G. E. Jackson Lake Ditch, was Minnesota farmland. the Blu¿ Earth Historí¿al' from north to south and a water's outlet and raise the Gilbertson was awarded the dug and Jackson Lake Sociztg øt 507-345-5566 or quarter mile wide, its most level 18 inches. Stenberg contract to do so for drained, reclaiming some- For more inforrnatinn about uisit the soci¿tEb usebsiie at unpredictable characteristic, contended to do so would $17,150. Judicial Ditch No. where between 1,200 and this topir or oth¿r hístori¿al ururu.bechshistorg.corn. Page I of2 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Nov 6, 2012; Sectiorr: Twin Cities + Region; Page: 83 The ABCs of climate change 'Three speakers are on the bill for the U's annual Kuehnast Lecture, billed "Mini- Climate School." By BILI McAULIFFE [email protected] lf Minnesotans are like their next-door neighbors, they're facing an identity crisis with climate change, says a top Canadian climatologist. "When the Soviet Union lost Georgia and the Balkans, Russia became the coldest country," said David Phillips, author and spokesman for Environment Canada, noting Canada's drop into second place two decades ago. "l thought it was good news, but Canadians were so disappointed. Who wants to be in second place?" Phillips will outline the impact of a warming climate on Canada and, by slight extension, Minnesota as one of three speakers Thursday in the 20th annual Kuehnast Lecture at the University of Minnesota. The lecture is endowed by the family of Minnesota's first state climatologist, Earl Kuehnast. This year's event has been billed as "Mini-Climate School," to capitalize on a topic that, while largely absent from the presidential campaign, has grabbed the public's attention, particularly in the week fol lowing superstorm Sandy. "This program should improve our climate literacy and should improve our understanding of what climate change implications have in store for us," said Mark Seeley, University of Minnesota Extension climatologist and chairman of the Kuehnast Endowment Committee, who added that pointing to climate change as a cause of Sandy is "an oversimplification." Other speakers will be Harold Brooks, research meteorologist with NOM's National Severe Storm Laboratory, who will speak on climate change and thunderstorms, and Sue Grimmond, a geography professor at Kings College in London who will discuss research into urban climate change. ln a phone interview Monday, Phillips said he doesn't want to worry people about climate change. Because so much warming is already locked in place by long-lasting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, individuals and leaders need to focus instead on how to adapt to it, he said. Tlrat means spending a lot of money beefing up infrastructure and the capabilities to respond to extreme conditions, including both floods and droughts, whìch are expected to occur more frequently, he said. "The truth is, even if we stopped all traffic and grounded all planes, the climate will stillchange," he said. "We need to prepare for it, so that little hit won't become a major blow. You can't prevent the hazard, but you can prevent it from becoming a disaster." Brooks and Phillips will both touch on how while climate "normals" rnay not change dramatically, extremes such as storm or drought frequency and intensities might. Brooks has found, for example, that tornado season in the U.S. starts earlier than it used to, but has been following unpredictable patterns through the spring and summer. Similarly, the trend appears to be toward more bursts oi strong tornadoes - "You may not have as nrany tornado days. but if yor.r have a day, it's going to be huge," he said - rather than seasons that see a steady run of tornadoes of all strengths. Though conventionalwisdom has it that a warmer clinlate, which carries more water vapor, will generate mole and heávier thunderstorms, some research has found that it could also reduce the size of hail, Brooks said. Hail forms as droplets rise in a cloud, but if the ground is warmer, Brooks said, the hail will have to grow at a level higher in the atmosphere, and fall through a greater distance of warm air. That will allow it to melt more before it hits the ground. The "Mini-Climate School" is being patterned after the university's popular "Mini Medical School" a lecture series with medical researchers. Seeley said that, and the climate focus, helped attract Thomson Reuters, the Science Museurn of Minnesota, the Minnesota Regional Sustainability Partnership Program, the UM Extension and the U's Departrnent of Soil, Water and Climate as co-sponsors. They have joined longtime sponsor Sigma Xi, the scientific research society. Seeley said the event will also be live-streamed and recorded for the first time. http://e.startribune.com lolivelodelstartribune/PrintCompouentView.htm t11612012 Page? ofT Bill McAuliffe' 61 2€73-7646 2OTH ANNUAL KUEH}TAST LECTURE The "Mini-Climate School" willfeature lecturers on climate change. Admission is free. When: I to 5 p.m. Thursday \Mrere: University of Minnesota St. Paul Student Cênter Theater, 2017 Buford Av., St. Paul. Who: David Phillips, spokesman for Environment Canada; Sue Grímmond, professor of Geography, Kings College, London; Harold Brooks, research meteorologist with NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory. More info: startribune.com/ a1 871 htþ://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm fi16/20t2 Page I of5 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Nov 4, 20 l2; Section: Front Page; Page: A I 0 DID WE CAUSE THIS? Sandy may be taste of trouble to come amid climate change, scientists warn By JUSTIN GILLIS ' New York Times From the darkened living rooms of Manhattan to the wave-battered shores of Lake Michigan, the question is occurring to millions of people: Did the scale and damage from Hurricane Sandy have anything to do with climate change? fl Scientists offered an answer that is likely to satisfy no one. They simply do not know if the storm was caused by global warming. fl They do know, however, that the storm surge was almost certainly intensified by decades of sea-level rise linked to human emissions of greenhouse gases. And climate scientists emphasized that Sandy, whatever its causes, should be seen as a foretaste of trouble to come as the seas rise faster, the risks of climate change accumulate and the political system fails to respond. "We're changing the environment it's very clear," said Thomas Knutson, a research meteorologist with the government's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics- Laboratory in Princeton, N.J. "We're changing globaltemperature, we're changing atmospheric moisture, we're changing a lot of things. Humans are running this experiment, and we're not quite sure how it's going to turn out." 'Hasn't done its homework' By the time Sandy hit the Northeast coast on Monday, upending lives across the Eastern half of the country, it had become a freakish hybrid of a large, late-season hurricane and a winter storm more typical of the middle latitudes. Though by no means unprecedented, that type of hybrid storm is rare enough that scientists have not studied whether it is likely to become more common in a warming climate. "My profession hasn't done its homework," said Kerry A. Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts lnstitute of Technology. "l think there's going to be a ton of papers that come out of this, but it's going to take a couple of years." Scientists note that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water va por, which in principle supplies more energy for storms of all types. The statistics seem to show that certain types of weather extremes, notably heat waves and heavy downpours, are becoming more common. But how those general principles will influence hurricanes has long been a murky and contentious area of climate science. Most scientists expect that the number of Atlantic hurricanes will actually stay steady or decline in coming decades as the climate warms, but that the proportion of intense, damaging storms is likely to rise. Experts differ sharply on whether such a rise can already be detected in hurricane statistics. Recent decades seem to show an increase in hurricane strength, but hurricanes tend to rise and fall in a recurring cycle over time, so it is possible that natural variability accounts for the recent trends. Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and founder of a popular website, Weather Underground, suspects some kind of shift is underway. The number of hurricanes and tropical storms in the past three years has been higher than average, with 19 named storms in both 2010 and 201 1 and 19 so far this season, which ends Nov. 30. The National Hurricane Center said there are, on average, 12 named storms each season. "The climatology seems to have changed," he said. "We're getting these very strange, very large storms." Hurricanes draw their energy from warm waters in the top layer of the ocean. And several scientists pointed out that parts of the western Atlantic were remarkably warm for late October as Sandy passed over, as much as 5 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. 'A lot of this is chance' Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said that natural variability probably accounted for most of that temperature extreme. But, he added, human-induced global warming has raised the overall temperature of the ocean surface by about 1 degree since the 1970s. So global warming probably contributed a notable fraction of the energy on which the storm thrived maybe as much as 10 percent, he said. - http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentview.htm lus/20t2 Page 2 of5 He said that many of Sandy's odd features, including its large scale, derived from its origin as a merger of two weather systems that converged in the western Atlantic. "My view is that a lot of this is chance," he said. "A hybrid storm is certainly one which is always in the cards." Globally, the ocean rose about 8 inches in the past century, and the rate seems to have accelerated to about a foot a century. Scientists say most of the rise is a direct consequence of human-induced climate change. Ocean water expands when it warms, accounting for some of the rise, and land ice is melting worldwide, dumping extra water into the ocean. Scientists say they believe the rate will accelerate, so that the total increase by thé end of this century could exceed 3 feet. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm tU5/2012 Page 3 of5 H 'r\ '¡a i*''¡; ;? ni-, ,; 1., .t .d a I I f t!,t'-âFú ";rt-l -la Ès',.¡" ,ç1'l !S\ Çl , r\ http://e.startribune.com /olivelodelstartribune/PrintComponentView.htm tt/s/2012 Page 4 of 5 ALEX BRANDON 'Associated Press The remains of an amusement park in Seaside Heights, N.J., was seen last week during a flight by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to document coastal changes after the storm. REPORT WARI\TED OF COASTAL FLOODI}TG Five years ago, a report called "Nation Under Siege" illustrated the vulnerability of 31 U.S. coastal cities to flooding. But not just to any kind of flooding - to the flooding of a permanent kind from sea level rise. What will happen to these cities, the report asked, as sea levels continue to increase from global warmíng? The study provided answers in a series of 3-D maps constructed using data from federal science agencies and the United Nations'climate panel. The maps provide an uncanny prediction of what happened last week when Sandy engulfed 1 ,000 miles of Atlantic coastline. Most striking is a map of New York that shows what could happen with a 9.8-foot rise in sea level: Lower Manhattan, the East Village and the FDR Drive undenrvater. That's exactly what Sandy's storm surge delivered. Was superstorm Sandy a preview of what sea level rise will bring permanently to New York and other coastal cities by century's end?"This was essentially what we thought- of as the once-in-a-100-years- event,"said Radley Horton, a NASA scientist specializing in climate projections at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University."As sea levels rise, we'll see these types of events more often." According to figures from the U.N. lntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, oceans have risen on average by about 7 inches since 1900. And a report by the New York State Sea Level Rise Task Force said sea levels along New York's coast have increased 9 to 11 inches in the past century. And consequences of rising seas would reach far beyond those 31 cities, climate experts have warned. More than 50 percent of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas. A2011 University of Arizona study identified 180 U.S. cities that would be at risk from rising sea levels. Said Horton: "l hate to say there's a silver lining, but if there's any positive it's that we can use this to learn and get a better opportunity to prepare for the future." MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE HOW CLIMATE CHANGE MAY AI\{P UP STORMS With every degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 4 percent more moisture. As a result, Sandy was able to pull in more moisture, fueling a stronger storm and magnifying the amount of rainfall by as much as 5 to 10 percent compared with conditions more than 40 years ago, said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federally funded research and development center. Coupled with higher sea levels since 1992, satellites have observed a 2.25-inch rise that means more water to surge onshore and penetrate- farther."That may not sound like a lot," he said. But "a small- increase in sea level can actually make a big difference." MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 1v5t2012 Page I of2 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Nov 4, 2012; Section: Editorial; Page: A.OP2 Sandy sounds alarm on climate change ' Storm should mark the end of America's risky complacency. Call it a hurricane, a superstorm, Frankenstorm or just plain Sandy. We'll call the epic meteorological sock to the nation's populous central Atlantic seaboard last week an agenda-changer. Climate change is suddenly more difficult for Americans to deny or ignore. The nation has seen plenty of other signs that the climate is changing in ways consistent with scientific projections of a rapidly warming planet. This year alone has produced the warmest U.S. summer on record, the nation's second-largest wildfire by area, the biggest drought since the 1930s, the smallest expanse of Arctic Sea ice ever recorded, and ferocious mega-thunderstorms in places ranging from Duluth to Washington, D.C. Still, climate change was held in such low regard among Americans that GOP presidentialcandidate Mitt Romney made President Obama's attention to the planet a laugh line at the Republican National Convention. The issue barely surfaced in presidentialdebates last month, and a Washington Post-Stanford University poll in June found climate change receding among Americans'concerns. That changed with a whopper of a storm that took particular aim at the nation's largest and most iconic city. As was true when a different sort of tragedy occurred 11 years ago, when New York is stricken, the whole nation feels the pain. ln the days since Sandy made landfall, climate change conversations have popped up everywhere. Was this storm caused by global warming? Not directly, scientists say. But an Atlantic Ocean 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal this fall and New York area sea levels already a foot higher than a century ago are conditions that favor bigger, more frequent and more northerly hurricanes. ls human activity causing this change? That's been the touchier question for politicians in the face of concerted efforts to discredit the conclusion that human-generated carbon emissions are a culprit. But the question is nearly settled in the scientific community. An overwhelming consensus points to human-generated greenhouse gases as a major driver of global warming. Those who would base this nation's policies on the credibility of the tiny minority of dissenters are taking a perilous risk as Sandy's U.S. death toll, nearing 100 at this writing, and its estimated $50 billion cost attest. - An election comes hard on Sandy's heels. As Romney himself acknowledged with his backhanded swipe at his party's convention, Obama has tried to advance policies that respond to climate change. Romney's 2011 suggestion that some portion of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ought to devolve to cash-strapped states seems almost silly today. Tuesday's winner will be compelled to look anew at the natíon's response to climate change. The policy considerations must have two aims: Carbon emissions into the atmosphere should be reduced, and defenses against weather extremes should be bolstered. Energy policy willfigure large in these conversations. A reexamination of nuclear power is in order to determine whether 21st-century technology can make it a safer and more sustainable option. So is a push for more renewable generation of electricity. A tax on carbon emissions ought not be dismissed out of hand. ln addition, government can encourage faster development and deployment of energy-saving technologies in transportation, heating, lighting and manufacturing. lnviting energy-saving lifestyle changes makes sense, too. At the same time, America must get serious about upgrading its infrastructure to withstand harsher weather and higher sea levels. One intriguing idea is the creation of a public-private infrastructure bank, funded in part by an earmarked federal income tax surcharge and dispensed according to need-based criteria to shore up vulnerable places and critical services. Before Sandy, such ideas may have been deemed radical. ln the storm's wake, they're looking increasingly prudent. CALLTOACTION "Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be - given this week's devastation - should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action." http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentview.htm tU5l20t2 Page2 of2 New York Mayor MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, in a statement endorsing President Obama for re-election. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm tUsl20t2 MPRNEWS When Heat Kills: Global Warming As Public Health Threat by Richard Harris, National Public Radio September 10,201 The current poster child for global warming is a polar bear, sitting on a melting iceberg. Some health officials argue the symbol should, instead, be a child. That's because emerging science shows that people respond more favorably to warnings about climate change when it's portrayed as a health issue rather than as an environmental problem. Epidemiologist George Luber at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the most obvious risk from a warming world is killer heat. A deadly heat wave that struck Chicago in 1995 made many people aware of how disastrous sustained high temperatures can be. About 750 people died from the heat in Chicago, "and that was amplifred by the European heat wave of 2003, where we had over 70,000 excess deaths attributable to the heat wave," he says. Today, Luber's job at the CDC is to deal with health issues relatecl to climate change. And heat waves are just part of his portfolio. Hot air causes more smog, which in turn causes more asthma. Also high on his list are deadly storms, which are likely to become more po\ /erful as the world warms. Infectious diseases can also increase their ranges as the climate changes. "This is a new topic for public health," Luber says. "This is emerging largely as a result that the scientific evidence around climate change has evolved to the point that public health feels confident engaging the science - that this is a credible threat." And health officials are messengers with special credibility. They're trusted far more than politicians, journalists, environmental activists and other widely heard voices on this topic. Luber and his colleagues may not wade into the contentious issue about the role that human beings play in warming up the planet, "but when we show the evidence that a changing climate does affect their health, people become very concerned and believe it ought to be addressed." In the past few years, social scientists have been exploring this issue. Matthew Nisbet, an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University, and colleagues have found that people who are indifferent, or even hostile, to climate change are more receptive to the issue when it's talked about as a health issue. It has far more appeal than when it's frarnecl as an environmental issue - or as a matter of national security. "Not only does it lead to emotionally engaging responses among a broad cross section of Americans, it also helps to localize the issue for people and to view the issue as more personally relevant," Nisbet says. It resonates with conservatives and liberals, and even among the broad segment of the public that just doesn't think about climate change. The so-called disengaged segment of the population "found the public health frame about climate change the most engaging and the most emotionally compelling," Nisbet says. He thinks these findings could define common ground, on an issue that has become deeply politicized and polarized. "The idea of protecting people, the innocent especially, from harm, and caring for the innocent, is a value that's widely held across the political spectrum," he says. But George Marshall, at the Clirnate Outreach Infolmation Network in Oxford, England, has his doubts. His nonprofit has also been trying to figure out how to build public consensus on the issue. "The whole issue of climate change is now so intensely politicized and so intensely fought over, if you put a foot wrong in any regards, if you make a claim that can't stand up, it then becomes ammunition in this intense culture battle that we have," Marshall says. For example, some people have been tempted to draw a connection between this year's big outbreak of Wcst Nile disease and climate change. But the link isn't nearly as direct as, say the link between smoking and lung cancer. Scientists will tell you that warmer conditions favor West Nile, but it's hard to pin a specific outbreak on changing climate, just as it's hard to blame climate change for any given storm. And Marshall says worries about disease won't necessarily motivate people to take action against climate change. "There's areal danger people will just hold their hands over their ears and say, 'I don't want to hear this! I don't want to hear there's going to be more malaria, there's going to be more West Nile virus, or worse ozone or there's going to be more asthma,'or any connection you might be able to make for climate change." He says people will respond to ideas that help them personally, help their families, and help their communities. And there's clearly a role for talking about health and climate change in that context. "What we do know, though, if you go a step further and say, 'Hey it's everybody's responsibility to give things up and cut down in the interests of saving the planet,' then you're really in for trouble." He says to look at what happened during the Republican National Convention. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney got a good laugh from the audience when he declared, "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet." Obviously, a deeply environmental message doesn't resonate with a large segment of the American public. Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Broadcast Dates . All Things Considered, September 10,2012 As Temps Rise, Cities Combat 'Heat Island' Effect by Richard Harris, National Public Radio September 4,2012 '------=:=-=:'---1 :_,, ,__-----_- __--._J More than 20,000 high-temperature records have been broken so far this year in the United States. And the heat is especially bad in cities, which are heating up about twice as fast as the rest of the planet. High temperatures increase the risk of everything from asthma to allergies, and can even be deadly. But a researcher in Atlanta also sees this urban heat wave as an opportunity to do something about our warming planet. The story starts at Ebenezer Baptist Church, arguably the most famous place in Atlanta; it was Martin Luther King Jr.'s church and the heart of the civil rights movement. It's now playing an unexpected role in a new movement: the struggle against rapidly rising urban temperatures. Cities are literally global hot spots. Brian Stone Jr., director of the Llrban Clilnate Lab at Georgia Tech, leads us into a huge green space next to the church. The two-block community garden is leased out by Wheat Street Baptist, another nearby church. "The impetus for this was to have local food production, as we see in a lot of communities," Stone says. "But the centralization of this, literally less than a mile from downtown Atlanta, is unique." And it's not simply a garden. It's a summer camp at the moment, and an urban farm brimming with okra, onions, tomatoes and arugula, among other vegetables. It's an island of calm that actually helps offset some of the heat that builds up so dramatically in the concrete all around us. That's not to say it's actually cool on a midsummer day. "You know, it feels good here," says Amakiasu Ford-Howze, who works at the garden. "People come here and they go,'Ah,'because you do see green, and you see flowers. We have a lot of flowers. So it just feels good here. It helps." Stone says it actually accomplishes much more than meets the eye. Open, vegetated space like this helps water evaporate throughout the day. And evaporating water carries away heat. Like sweat, it's nature's air conditioning, but we've managed to interrupt that process in cities. The result is called the urban heat island effect, and it's adding to our warming woes. "In addition to having increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases globally, which are driving warming at the global scale, at the scale of cities, we have changes in land use that are also contributing to rising temperatures," Stone says. The Problem Is Now Cutting down trees is a big factor. Pavement also stores heat during the day and makes cities hotter at night. And as cities heat up, air conditioners run harder. Their exhaust heat also pushes up the temperature. It all adds up - a lot - according to Stone's research on American cities. "Not only are most cities heating up more rapidly than the planet, they tend to be heating up at double the rate," he says. (This is detailed in his book, The City and the Coming Climate.) And if this trend continues, if the planet heats up 4 degrees in the coming decades, cities will heat up a blistering 8 degrees. "That raises some significant public health issues, significant infrastructure issues," he says. Extreme heat is potentially deadly to vulnerable populations. And it can cause infrastructure headaches ranging from power outages to warped rail tracks. "This isn't just a problem for 100 years from now; this is a problem for today," Stone says. But he isn't all gloom and doom, because there are ways to ease this. His own lifestyle is at the extreme end of what you can do: He has solar panels on his roof, and he commutes on an electric scooter, which he charges off his solar cells. His car is powered by biodiesel, and he drives with the windows down. It doesn't have air conditioning, which is especially noticeable when we pull up next to an accelerating bus - a blast of hot air comes into the car. Stone says about 80 percent of the fuel that vehicles burn simply turns to heat. And that turns out to be another important element of the urban heat island effect. "ln some cities, 20 to 25 percent of the total heat load is from engines," he says. What Cities Can Do But Atlanta residents don't have to be as dedicated as Brian Stone to make a difference. We pull up to a beautiful new park behind one of the city's defining avenues, Ponce de Leon. Stone walks past grassy areas toward a large pond with a fountain in the middle aîar cry from Ponce de Leon's fabled fountain of youth, but still beneficial. - "This is a good example of what cities should be doing to deal with climate at the urban scale," he says. "Not just thinking about energy efficiency, which we need to think about, but we need to be bringing in this green space and even more surface amenities like this pond here, within the city itself, which will directly contribute to cooling benefits for the neighborhood." Water evaporates from the pond and cools the area. But that's not why the city built it. It's part flood control, part neighborhood beautification, part recreation site. But Stone says if you just plan with a little care, those softs of amenities can also counteract urban warming. Trees can help more than anything else, both by providing shade and by evaporating water through their leaves. But Stone has no illusions that this will be a simple task. "We will need to plant millions of trees around Atlanta to measurably reduce temperatures around the city, and that's a tremendous challenge," he says. "But what's advantageous is that's fully within the control of the city itself." You don't need an international agreement on climate change or even consensus that humans are causing climate change. And if you can reduce urban heat, you can reduce- demand for air conditioning, which in turn lowers energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. So cities can help themselves and the globe at the same time. Preserving Trees, Planting New Ones Tackling this problem requires some creativity. Across town in a 58-acre swatch of urban forest, the challenge isn't simply to plant trees, but to preserve the ones that are already here. This is where a flock of sheep and goats comes in. "The sheep out here are eating kudzu right now; of course, kudzu is the most invasive plant in the Southeast," says Greg Levine, with a nonprofit called Trees Atlanta. Kudzu vines can climb trees and kill them. So his organization has hired an urban shepherd to fight back. It's an uphill battle not only against kudzu, but with developers who, in boom times, chopped down 50 acres of trees a day around Atlanta, according to the U.S. Forest Service. "'We're one of the most forested states in the country," Levine says. "We have beautiful forests. But we're also known for having the most tree removal in the country, as well." A thick canopy of trees can easily drop air temperature by 20 or 30 degrees, compared with a paved parking lot, Levine says. His small organization can manage to plant 3,000 trees and 3,000 saplings ayear. That's far short of the millions that urban planner Brian Stone says the city could ultimately use, but it's a start. Neighbors wander down to see the sheep and goats, which are guarded by dogs and corralled by a portable electric fence - turned off at the moment. Levine grabs a doughnut that they've laid out for the gathering and tries a gentle fundraising pitch. "Sheep are adoptable, everybody," he announces. "Pick out a sheep. Donations for Trees Atlanta!" Here, in the humid grips of a midsummer Atlanta day, the expression "think global, act local" doesn't seem quite so wom. Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Broadcast Dates . Morning Edition, September 4,2012 and what counts as hellish is a matter of judgment, but United Nations climate negotiators have settled on a goal to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million, which would cause the global mean temperature to peak no more than 3.6oF above preindusttial levels. Ifit gets much hotter than that, we will most likely be confronted by levels of dtought and severe storms for which humanity has no precedent. That sounds bad enough-and indeed, postindustrial temperatures have already risen by as much as 1.6o-but there's increasing reason to believe, as fames Hansen and many other climate scientists do, that severe effects will arrive welt below 450 ppm, and possibly below today's level of 396 ppm. Danger is much closel' than we thought. We will almost certainly blow past 5.6" in any case. One recent study found that the average global temperature would rise another 3.2' by the end of the century even if human carbon emissions dropped to zero tomorrow, a scenario that is, of course, extremely unlikely. Simply limiting the temperature rise to twice the "safe" level would require heroic, sustained global effort, a level of ambition that appears nowhere in evidence. And if humanity does nothing to restrain climate pollution, the trajectory it's on right now could carry the rise to as much as 10'within the century, We no longer have a choice about whether to confront major changes ah'eady in the works. By the end of this century, sea levels will rise, drought will spread, and millions of animals, human and THERE IS NO LONGER any question of preventing climate otherwise, will be driven from their homes. Scientists call the change. Some 98 percent of working climate scientists agree process ofpreparing for these changes "adaptation," but a more that the atmosphere is already warming in response to human apt term can be found in the tech world: ruggedizing. Greater greenhouse-gas require tougher, more resilient societies, emissions, and the most recent research suggests :_":l"r.t that we are on a path toward what were once considered "worst case" scenarios. In 2009, researchers from the University of Oxford, the Tyndall How much warmer must it get before things really go to hell? Center for Climate Change Research and the U.K. Met Office "Climate sensitivity" remains a subject of intense investigation, Hadley Center organized a conference on what a change of â. .,! i;È .ti,i; .:j ri:r t :l r:r ¿1..r tÁ pOpvtea SCTENCE ¡: lULyZOtz 7.2o or greater might look like-oddly, one of the first concerted on the "long tail" of the probability curve, there are small but scientific examinations of the impacts of temperatures that high. not inSignificant chances for damages that are, for all practical Here are some of the results: 7,2", which could conceivably purposes, unlimited. For instance, if several of the world,s major arrive as earþ as 2060, would mean a planet that was hotter land-based ice sheets melt, we could see a 4O-foot rise in sea than at any time in the past 10 million years. By 2100, sea levels levels within centuries. would rise by as much as six feet, leaving hundreds of mitlions of These are stark and discomfrtíng findings. Above all, they suggest the world's coastdwellers homeless, even as huge swaths of the that global temperature should be held as low as is still possible, at ocean itselfbecame "dead zones." Glaciers and coral reefs would virtualþ any cost. But they also make clear that some changes are largely vanish from the planet. inevitable. We no longer have a choice between mitigating climate It may be possible to weather this onslaught if we begin adapting to climate change. We must do both. preparing now, by building low-carbon, high-density cities away :|,:.Tt"."0 from the coasts, radically improving the efficiency of water and When we talk about adaptation, we often imagine accommodating energy systems, boosting local and global emergency-response a specific new set of conditions; a temperate place gets too hot, capacities, and adjusting to a less consumption- and waste- a cold place gets temperate, so we move our farms around and oriented lifestyle. But although humans are an ingenious species, get on with it. But we simply do not know, and most likely will some changes simply exceed any realistic capacity for adaptation. not for some time, what particular temperature we are bound The real threat, the existential threat, is that climate change will for, or whether there will ever again be a stable temperature. It gain so much momentum that humanity loses what remaining is not a specific set of conditions but uncertainty itself to which power it has to slow or stop it, even by reducíng carbon emissions we must adapt. to zero, If change becomes self-sustaining, our chíldren and Even as we remain flexible, we will have to think and work grandchildren will inherit an atmosphel.e irreversibly out of on a ve¡y large scale. Major inflastructure projects-highways, control, with inexorably rising temperatures that could, according dams, levies, electrical transmission lines, trains and subways- to one recent study, render half of Earth's currently occupied represent investments meant to pay off over generations. The land uninhabitable-literally too hot to bear-by 2J00. New York City subway system is more than 100 years old. Today These are only scenarios spit out by climate models; there's there's a nontrivial chance that much of Manhattan will be no way to predict exactly what will happen. It might be tempting under water in 100 years. How do we invest in the future when to seize on uncertainty as reason to wait and see. Why prepare it has become so cloudy and threatening? As the stories in the íf we don't know exactly what we're preparing for? But the pages ahead report, scientists and engineers already have many uncertainties in the science of climate impacts-and they are excellent (and some less than excellent) answers, It can be done. legion-make the future more perilous, not less. Things look But the time to do it is now. bad, and if there's a chance they could turn out better than expected, there's also a chance they could turn out worse. Out David Roberts ís a senior staff wríter for Grist.org. He lives ín Seattle. Scientists caII the process of preparíng for a changing enu¡ronment'adaptation,' Iiut a more apt term can be found ín the tech world: ruggedízing. luL,{ 2or2 r. PopuLAR scltr.¡ce 45 Clímate change will make drg places drier, utet places uretter, and storms more íntense. 70 years and making shipping difficult. Already Lake Mead is dropping so quickly, as a result of increased evaporation and reduced inflow, that the Hoover Dam could quit generating electricity by 2024-a potential disaster for the 1,3 million people who rely on its power. Climate change will make dry places drier, wet places wetter, and storms more intense. Heavy rainfall in mountainous areas will cause landslides, debris flows and llash flooding. Seasonal monsoons may start sooner and last longer, and those monster storms will increasingly reduce crop yields and sluice contarninants into waterways and soil. They'll also wreak havoc in urbanized areas, shifting soil, cracking pipes and overwhelming wastewater- treatment plants, backing up disease-causing sewage into homes, streets and waterways that provide drinking water. The Army Corps of Engineers reports that flooding around the world claims the lives of about 25,000 people and causes economic losses of as much as $60 billion annually, How will we adapt? For thousands of years we have built levees, dams and ditches. This is the "hard" approach, and it will continue to play an important role. Today engineers are moving or elevating roadways and other crucial infrastructure away from coastlines and flood-prone rivers. They're enlarging storm drains and floodwalls, and armoring wastewater-treatment plants against rising water. In Chicago, they are excavating two of the largest catch basins the world has ever seen, which together will prevent 15 billion gallons of polluted runoff from entering waterways. But more recently, a softer approach, one that relies more on policy and behavioral shifts than concrete and dynamite, has come to the fore, Cities are upgrading building codes to require greater structural resiliency, developing better warning systems so people can evacuate sooner, or simply buying out property owners and restricting development in bottomlands. In both the developed lF YOU COMBINED all of the water in the planet's ice caps, and the developing world, planners are adopting "ecosystem- glaciers, rivers, lakes, aquifers and oceans, it would fill a sphere based" responses to flooding that include restoring wetlands, 860 miles in diameter. That volume, some 366 million trillion planting native vegetation to buffer the worst impacts of floods, gallons, hasn't changed in millennia, nor will it change in the reconnecting rivers with their flood plains, and paying landowners foreseeable future. What will change, as the planet becomes to preserve forests as a way to protect water quantity and quality. hotter and more crowded, is where this water appears and in Communities challenged with too little water, meanwhile, what stage ofthe hydrologic cycle. And those changes will present are finding "new" supplies through conservation and efficiency us with many oddly conflicting challenges. schemes that feature better metering and smarter pricing of Even as rising sea levels threaten coastal cities, for instance, water, restrictions on outdoor water use, retrofrtting with water- reduced ice cover on Lake Erie-as winter weather starts later miserly appliances and frxtures, and reusing "gray water" (from and ends earlier-will allow more water to evaporate, lowering showers and washing machines) to irrigate gardens. Orange the surface level of the lake by as much as six feet in the next County, California, is capturing sewage fìow, microfiltering and 52 populen scrENcE . IvLv 2otz purifying the watery palt, and injecting it back underground to remains perhaps the most audacious trausfer scheme of all. By mingle with fieshwater belore it's drawn into tâps. Los Angeles diverting the flow of Alaskan rivers through Canada and down and other cities are considering similar systems. to the lower 48 states, the North American Water and Power Instead of overpumping theil groundwater-a practice that Alliance would double the amount of freshwater available to has in many places signifrcantly lowered water tables, dried up falmers and glowing cities in the west, The scheme fell out of wetlands and pullecl saltwater into aquifers used for drinking- political favor but was latet' adopted and tweaked by Lyndon scores ol municipalities are augmenting their lreshwater supplies LaRouche, the once-pelennial presidential candidate. Legal, z by capturing rain on roofs and in swales, and plivate developers political, economic, social and envit'onmental considerations 9 ale replacing asphalt rvith permeâble pavement, which funnels aside, the ptan is highly complex and, if history is any guide, i rainwater to underground cistertrs for use in landscaping and would precipitate more problems than it solved. (An ovelview on toilets. Instead ofrvhisking seasonal floods down concrete rivers LaRouche's website says it "signifres a change in the organization Y= to the sea, utilities are diverting this bounty into earthen basins, of the planet as a whole.") I rechalging aquifers they can later tap. LaRouche's plan is loopy, but humans have, in fact, already t'eorganized the planet's hydLological regimes by mainlining o z As the consequences of climate change become more sevcre, calbon dioxide into the atmosphete. We can try to cope by movirrg the hard apploach will become increasingly tenrpting. China is water around, changíng it from salty to fiesh, or conjuring it o folging ahead with a $62-billion project to pump nearly a tenth of from thin air using chcmical reactions. These manipulations will o physical I the nation's water from its wet sor.rth to its dry north. Elsewhele, become more difficult as we hit economic and limits. But o entrepreneurs âre eager to tow icebergs from the Arctic to warmer with smart management, coopel'ation and planning, we can ñnd o o climes, to build pipelines that connect the Pacifrc Northwest to a way to live within these lirnits and to share the planet's water Los Angeles, or to hat¡l millions of gallons of freshwatel frorn the equitably with people and with nature. o o same region to arid cities across the ocean in 23O-foot-long fablic tubes connected by the world's strongest zipper. Elizabeth Royte is the author o/ Bottlemania: How Water Wenl The Army Corps of Engineers, in the 1950s, proposed what on Sale and Why We Bought It. lvLv 2ot2 PoPULAR SCrtruCe 53 Page I of2 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Aug 17, 2012; Section: Front Page; Page: A2 In surprise, U.S. carbon dioxide emrssrons drop to a 2o-year low ' Experts credit the drop to power plant operators switching from coal to natural gas. By KEVIN BEGOS 'Associated Press ln a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal. Many of the world's leading climate scientists didn't see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government actíon against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that "ultimately people follow their wallets" on global warming. "There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado. Low-priced naturalgas ln a little-noticed report, the U.S. Energy lnformation Agency, a part of the Energy Department, said this month that total U.S. CO2 emissions for the first four months of this year fell to about 1992 levels. While conservation efforts, the lagging economy and greater use of renewable energy are factors in the decline, the drop-off is due mainly to low-priced natural gas, it said. AÍrenzy of shale gas drilling in the Northeast's Marcellus Shale and in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana has caused the wholesale price of natural gas to plummet from $7 or $8 per unit to about $3 over the past four years, making it cheaper to burn than coal for a given amount of energy produced. As a result, utilities are relying more than ever on gas-fired generating plants. Both government and industry experts said the biggest surprise is how quickly the electric industry turned away from coal. ln 2005, coal was used to produce about half of all the electricity generated in the United States. The Energy lnformation Agency saíd that fellto 34 percent in March, the lowest level since it began keeping records nearly 40 years ago. The question is whether the shift is just one bright spot ín a big, gloomy picture, or a potentially larger trend. Coal and energy use are still growing in other countries, particularly China, and CO2 levels globally are rising. Moreover, changes ín the marketplace a boom in the economy, a fall in coal prices, a rise in natural gas could stall or even reverse the shift. - - Also, while natural gas burns cleaner than coal, it still emits some CO2. And drilling has its own environmental consequences, which are not yet fully understood. "Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the CO2 problem," Pielke warned. 'lt's been a real surprise' The lnternational Energy Agency said the United States has cut carbon dioxide emissions more than any other country over the past six years. Total U.S.carbonemissionsfromenergy consumption peaked at about 6 billion metric tons in 2007. Projections for this year are around 5.2 billion; it was about 5 bíllion in 1990. lt accounted for about 16 percent of the global total. China's emissions were estimated to be about 9 billion tons in 2011, accounting for about 29 percent of the global total. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 8lt7l20t2 Pæe2 of 2 "The trend is good,'said Jan-íce Nolen, an American Lung Association spokeswoman. "lt's been a real surprise to see thiE." Power plants that burn coal produce more than 90 times as much sulfur dioxide, five times as much nitrogen oxide and twice as much carbon dioxide as those that run on natural gas, said the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress Jason Hayes, a spokesrnan for the American Coal Council, predicted cheap gas won't last. He said, "Coal ig going to be here for a long time. ... Even if we decide not to use it, everybody else wants it." http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 8n7120t2 Page I of2 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Sep 22,2012; Section: Twin Cities + Region; Page: B I Plug-in car owners to share info, tips By MARIA ELENA BACA [email protected] Here's a car event that might give a charge to the green, the frugal or the techie among us. A couple of dozen early adapters of plug-in electrical vehicles will gather at the Como Park Pavilion in St. Paul on Sunday for one of 60 events nationwide marking National Plug-ln Day. The occasion is part meet-up for a small but passionate community of electric vehicle (EV) users and part educational event for curious observers. As of Friday afternoon, about 65 people had RSVP'd on the St. Paul event website. That's more than greener- than-thou Portland, Ore., had registered by the same hour. Organizer Jukka Kukkonen, of St. Paul, will be there with his Nissan Leaf. He expects to be joined by owners of Chevy Volts, a Tesla Roadster, a Transit Connect utility van, electric motorcycles and boats, among other e- vehicles. Como Park was selected as the site partly to showcase its solar-powered double charging station in the parking lot. Although Kukkonen had been studying and planning to acquire a plug-in vehicle for years, he's a relatively new user. The Leaf became available in Minnesota last April (it was on the road earlier in other parts of the country), and logistics prevented him from getting his car untiltwo months ago. Already, it has become the commuting car for his wife, Susie, and the fanrily car on weekends. Ïheir second vehicle, a 2006 Toyota Prius, a gas/electric hybrid, spends a lot of time parked in the driveway, unless the family plans an extended trip. Their Leaf has a 9O-mile battery capacity. The Leaf necessitated some changes, including the addition of a charging station in the driveway. lt's really just a 240-voll outlet the same as what you'd have for an electric stove or dryer mounted in a shelter on the fence. Though Susie's- 3O-mile daily commute isn't a stretch for the car, it can take- some planning if weekend errands and visits near the 90-mile threshold. Kukkonen figures that it will cost about $40 a month in additional electricity to power the car. Charging it takes about three hours, he said. Derek Hester of Minneapolis, who hopes to be at the Plug-ln Day event, charges his Leaf about every third day for a daily round-trip commute of 17 miles. He created an exhaustive spreadsheet documenting his use in June, July and August, his first three months of ownership. He reported driving 1,806 miles and spending about $42 for additional electricity, a little more than 2 cents a mile. The savings are the equivalent of more than 150 gallons of gas, he said. At $4 a gallon for gas, that's saying something. "lt's honestly been an íncredible urban commuting car," he said. "l'm glad I made the conversion." Still, he said, he's entering the winter months with his eyes open. "lt was tested in California and Florida," Hester noted. "lf there's something wrong, l'm not going to be bashful to say it." No impact on grid to date Although solid figures aren't available on the number of electric vehicles currently in Minnesota, Xcel Energy is planning for a hundred-plus plug-in vehicles in its west-metro service area by the middle of next year, said spokesman Tom Hoen. "As far as the impact on the grid, there are so few of them. they're not making any impact," said Xcel Regional Vice President Laura Mc0arten. "We have no issue or concern at this level." The electric utility already has done a lot of outreach to plug-in owners and plans more, including possible incentives for off-peak charging. Burning gasoline or using electricity both are forms of energy consumption, but Mc-Carten noted that about 46 percent of the power Xcel sells comes from wind power and other non-fossil fuels. Compared with internal combustion, she said, "lt's still an environmental improvement." http://e.startribune.com lolivelodelstartribune/PrintComponentView.htm 9t24/2012 Page 2 of2 The cars tell you everything about your energy consumption, Kukkonen said, adding that he's heard that adopting electric cars can have a further impact. "You start to learn so much more about your energy consumption when you're driving," he said. "lt makes people more aware of how we are consuming energy and what kind of effect that has." ,Je *]¡r¡¡tl. MARLIN LEVISON' [email protected] Jukka Kukkonen of St. Paul charged his all-electric Nissan Leaf at a station in a parking lot at St. Paul's Como Park Pavilion. He expects about 65 owners of electric vehicles to gather at the park for a meet-and-greet from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. MARLIN LEVISON 'mlevison@stañribune.com Jukka Kukkonen is organizing the event, which is open to those who are curious about electric cars as well as those who already own one. He bought his Nissan Leaf in April. His other car is a Prius. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm 9/2412012 Common-sense steps can cut home f,wr,RGY BILLS By 0iana llarszalek ïB Assodåted Pnss * a nearlv 90- LL- -ithvear-old hóuse in vv u:.*:i'$åiå: a large part of every winter being cold. The temperature inside usually drops right around Thanksgiving, and Cadenhead pulls out her sweaters. Having shelled out about $1,000 a month last winter trying to warm up the place, she does not plan to cnnk the heat any higher this year. "l'lljust sleep in one of those Daniel Boone hats with the èar flaps," she says. "Winter is not my friend." Modern living does not have to be that hard, energY efficiency experts say. They cite a host of simple ways to cut energy consump- tion without sacríficing com- fort or lifestyle. From sealing air leaks to unplugging cell- phone chargers, these recom- pires" that suck up electricity even when mended improventents don't require big- ihey're not being used, says Ken Collier, purchases ticket like windows or air or editor-in-chief at The Fanlily Handyman. (although heâting systems those may A tvoical American home has 40 be necessary in some cases). deviðès,eviðès, including TVs, cell'phone charg'char¡ are so Many energy-saving moves ers and computers, that còntinually inexpensive, relatively speaking, draw power even when they seem to quickly pay that they for them- be turned off, according to the selves. Environmental Protection Agency. yriu're Unless living in an U.S. households spend approximately ultra-energY-effi- ultra-modern, $100 per year roughly 8 Percent o{ cient home, the only way to reign househol The Free Press, Monkqto Wednesdov, Ocîober 17.2012 Page I ot'l Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Sep 30, 2012; Section: Editorial; Page: A.OP3 'silent Spring' gives way to mere silence 'The dignified debate that surrounded that book is hard to imagine today. bonnie blodgett contributing writer I live in an old house with a huge garden. ln late summer and fall, nature begins its annual migration indoors mice and spiders mostly, though some years we take in squirrels, too. The discovery last week of inch-long droppings in a kitchen cabinet did we have an infestation of (heaven help us) rats? prompted a call to the exterminator, who recommended- various traps and baits and said that for another $25 he'd- also eradicate all those spider webs suspended like fairy hammocks about the basement a nd any flies, wasps, moths and carpenter ants held captive therein. I declined the ofier when he couldn't come up with a reason why the spiders were anything more than a housekeeping nuisance not like some other bugs, he admitted. Bedbugs would be long gone if DDT hadn't been banned. "That's how- they handled things in the old days," he added. His admiring tone told me he wasn't referring to the ban but to the DDT. I stifled an urge to delíver a lecture on how in the really old days, back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people didn't assume that it was their job to control nature. That's a relatively modern notion, and not a healthy one, as Wílliam Souder points out in his book "On a Farther Shore: the Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson." Carson's most enduring legacy is a critique of pesticide overuse in America called "Silent Spring." Published 50 years ago this week, it ís why bedbugs are still with us as well as the American bald eagle. Carson came of age just after Darwin's theory of natural selection turned human exceptionalism, an l Bth- century Enlíghtenment idea, on its head. Neo-Darwínist biologísts like Aldo Leopold saw nature as a system kept in balance by the not-so-peaceful coexistence of predator and prey. Diversity supplies a cushion, or hedge, against one plant or animal getting too much power and upsetting the balance , which is what happens when purple loosestrife clogs a wetland and what would happen were an herbicidal equivalent to DDT deployed to get rid of it. The species most likely to disrupt nature's never-ending pursuit of íts own sustainable future, according to this view, is us. The 2Oth century served up plenty of challenges to Leopold's theory of nature. After Hitler's fascism came Soviet communism, two sides of the same coin hierarchical and rigidly ideological and just the opposite of democracy, whose checks and balances in some- ways mimic the forces governing the- natural world. The deployment of wartime technologies for peaceful purposes worried Rachel Carson not just the chemical poisons but also the nuclear testíng that allegedly kept the Cold War from turning hot. Moreover,- as a field biologist, Carson had observed firsthand subtle changes in aquatic life being linked to rising temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels. "silent Spring" sparked vigorous debate on the first of these worries, which persuaded public officials to curb pesticide use (Car-son never supported an all-out ban). She prevailed for several reasons: Back in what my exterminator calls the old days, corporations and the religious right had yet to form theír unholy alliance against any scientifíc finding that threatens economic growth, and politicians weren't held hostage by big-money contributors. Also, and maybe more important, the print and broadcast media made a fair fight of it. Time magazine criticízed the book for being too hard on pesticides. The Economist didn't much care for "Silent Spring," either. On the other hand, the New York Times joined most other major dailìes (but not all) in robustly supporting Rachel Carson. At the height of the controversy, CBS ran an hourlong news show airing both sides of the debate in depth. Millions of Americans tuned in. Carson handled herself with a quiet authority that disarmed everyone, including her opponent, whose claim that the balance of nature was an outdated law she demolished in a single sentence: "You might just as well assume that you could repeal the law of gravity." She went on: "This doesn't mean we must never interfere, never tilt the balance in our favor. But when we make the attempt we must know what we're doing. We must know the consequences." It's hard to imagine this level of discourse on any of today's broadcast networks. Which makes me wonder if Carson was wrong about the balance of nature. Maybe we can repeal it. Maybe we have. http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentView.htm t0lIl20t2 Page I of5 Publication: Star Tribune; Date: Sep 12, 2012; Section: Sports; Page: Cl OUTDOORS: FALL SPOTLIGHT HU}TTERTO HU\TTED Once despised by most, wolves now are revered by many. A November hunt has provoked both sides. By DENNIS ANDERSON' [email protected] "What we most feared had happened. Only the fat of the entrails had been eaten. They were already killing for fun." - Sigurd F. Olson, "The Poison Trail." Sports Afield, 1930 Now 75 years old and living in Harris, Minn., John Kullgren was a teenager when he shot what he and others believed was a wolf, which he dropped with a single slug while hunting in Coon Rapids with his dad. World War ll had recently ended, and Minnesota was one of the few states that still harbored remnant populations of Canis lupus - gray wolves - or what many people called timber wolves. With poison, airplane shooting, trapping and night gunning a real smorgasbord of killing opportunities long aided and abetted by the state and federal governments Minnesota- had tried to rid itself of these marauding predators. - But it never could: Wolves that were dispatched were replenished by packs filtering down from Ontario and Manitoba. "We lived in Fridley, and hunted wolves in Coon Rapids and also in Brooklyn Center," Kullgren said. "We'd walk the woods, and when we pushed them into the open, we'd shoot. Also we ran them with hounds. We'd hold the hound until we saw a wolf, then set the hound free to run the wolf down." A hunter lucky enough to kill a wolf in Minnesota in the middle of the last century often would transport the carcass to a newspaper office to be photographed for publication to wide public acclaim. Fast forward to 2012, as Minnesota prepares for its first managed wolf hunt in history. No longer universally condemned as vermin, wolves still the same killing machines that Sigurd Olson once condemned today have been upgraded to firslclass- game status, no different in many ways than ducks, pheasants and- deer. ln fact, in a societal twist that defies easy understanding, the wolf today is so revered in some quarters of Minnesota, particularly in and around the Twin Cities, that tens upon tens of thousands of advertising dollars have been spent urging the Department of Natural Resources to stop its wolf hunt highly regulated affair that it is, with a limited number of hunters and a 40O-animal quota. - Shouts one billboard to passing motorists along lnterstate 94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul: "Stop DNR Torture. Now or Never." Transformation in thinking Sigurd Olson, who died in 1982 at age 82, is remembered worldwide as a groundbreaking standard-bearer for wilderness preservation. ln his wildly popular books, in his role as president of the Wilderness Society and as the longtime leader of a still -vítal movement dating to the 1940s to protect the boundary waters, Olson is recalled today for his view that all plants and animals in an ecosystem are critical to the integrity of the whole. But Olson didn't achieve this mindset overnight. ln the mid-1920s, when he was a young canoe guide living in Ely, hís disposition toward wolves reflected the nation's at large; generally, that the best wolf is a dead wolf. "Such jaws and teeth," he wrote in Sports Afield about a winter trip he took with government trappers to pick up dead wolves they had snared. "lt was little wonder that they could hamstring moose or deer and drag them down." http://e.startribune.com/olive/ode/startribune/PrintComponentview.htm 9lt2l2012 Page 2 of 5 Already the federal Bureau of Biological Survey was on the tail of these miscreant canines, ln 1915, it had been given $125,000 by Congress to hire trappers and hunters to target wolves and other predators. Soon thereafter followed the slaughter of tens of thousands of bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes, as well as wolves. Not everyone agreed with the policy. As David Backes recounts in "A Wlderness Within," his biography of Olson, at the meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in 1923, questions were raised about the important - but at the time, largely unknown - role predators might play in the larger scheme of things. Unimpressed, the Biological Survey charged ahead. ln '1930, it asked Congress for $10 million to begin a long march toward the extinction of many of the nation's wild pillagers. The conflict was predictable. Vilified since biblicaltimes in lore, legend and writing, wolves in North America had relatively recently lost their primary prey, bison. Now in increasing measure they turned to deer, moose and elk, and also cattle and sheep as people and their livestock moved ever further into rural America. ln return, government "wolfers" extinguished entire packs of wolves, often with strychnine, a brutal poison that was dumped onto sheep and cattle carcasses and hauled into forest and field, where it subsequently was carried by adults to their dens and pups. Then, for Olson, times changed. Frustrated with his early attempts to support his family as a writer, he returned to graduate school. A reluctant student but an expansive reader, he found himself subsequently converted to the ecologist's viewpoint that recognized the value of predators to the broader landscape. Olson's mentor had been Aldo Leopold, whose similar conversion arguably set the stage decades later for a wholesale rethinking about predators. ln 1949, Leopold wrote: ln those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kìll a wolf ... When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg ... We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because- fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. Modern times Paradoxicaily, were Olson and Leopold alive today, they might support the limited wolf hunt that begins in Minnesota on Nov. 3. They knew well that all wildlife depends for its continued existence on at least nominal public support. Protected since 1974 by the Endangered Specìes Act, the wolf has boosted its numbers in Minnesota about threefold, to an estimated 3,000. But tolerance for wolves here always has balanced on a knife's edge, and still does, as conflicts anew have followed their population increase. Northern Minnesotans, for example, complain that cattle and sheep are attacked regularly, costing the state record sums in depredation claims. And whitetail hunters grumble that the region's deer herds are thinned or put to flight. Generations-old as these grievances might be, total extirpation of the wolf has been tried and failed, and also total protection. This retooled hunt with its fair chase rules will be something in between. "No one wants to see the wolf gone," said retired state Sen. Bob Lessard of lnternational Falls, who has shot three wolves, one each when he was 15, 16, and 'l 7 years old. "Most people in the north respect the wolf. But there are too many of them." Maureen Hackett, founder of a Twin Cities group called Howling for Wolves, sponsor of the "stop the torture" billboards, disagrees. "The DNR has no business having a hunt for these animals for sport," she says. http:/ie.startribune.com/olive/ode/starlribune/PrintComponentview.htm 9lt2l20t2