News from October, 2009

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News Archive
All Months in 2009

Nature Shapes The Course Of Storm Drainage

Even now, with fall rushing toward winter, the handsome gardens along Rushmore Drive in Burnsville draw the eye with their maroon sedums, purple asters and waving ornamental grasses.

All the gardens are near the curb, and all drop a foot or two below street level at their lowest point.

They're rain gardens.

Since they were planted in 2003, they've attracted national attention for their success in diverting storm water that would have gone directly into a local lake. About 90 percent of the water that flows off Rushmore Drive now filters into the ground instead, trapping debris ...
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Three West-Metro Lakes Are Targeted For Cleanup To Reduce Their Pollution

To meet federal clean water standards state officials are considering ways to keep runoff and the pollutants it carries out of the lakes.

By LAURIE BLAKE, Star Tribune Last update: October 7, 2009 - 12:05 AM

Storm water carries so much phosphorus into a chain of lakes in Maple Grove and Plymouth that it may take 20 years to get the three lakes off the state's impaired waters list.

That's the finding of a new report to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency which describes the extent of the pollution in each lake and what can be done ...
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Specially Designed Gardens Treat Parking Lot Runoff

Stillwater, MN - October 15, 2009

It’s a good thing I don’t melt in the rain like the bad witch from the Wizard of Oz. This October has been rough on all of us Minnesotan’s, but especially so for whiny people like myself. I’ve got a month to go in training for a triathlon that takes place next month in Arizona and biking outside is quickly progressing from unpleasant to miserable.

Two weeks ago, a torrential downpour overtook me out in the country, ten miles away from my office in Stillwater. (Apparently the hour-by-hour weather forecast is not ...
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Flutter By, Butterfly

Stillwater, MN - October 29, 2009

It seems almost obscene to talk about butterflies at a time of year when, short of a winter vacation in the tropics, most of us have no hope of seeing one of these fluttering beauties for the next six months. If you’ve been out walking or biking though, on one of the rare days this fall when it wasn’t raining, sleeting, snowing or just plain freezing, you may have noticed a tiny parade of furry, orange and black caterpillars moving slowly across local roads and trails. As strange as it may seem for ...
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She’S Got It Made In The Shade

Stillwater, MN - October 9, 2009

Local watershed educator Dawn Pape speaks to hundreds of people each year about landscaping for clean water. The mastermind behind the Blue Thumb program and a Master Gardener herself, one of Pape’s biggest pet peeves is when people complain that nothing will grow in their shady yards. “Here!” she’ll say, thrusting a colorful brochure into their hands, “This is a list of 40 plants, all native to Minnesota and half of which grow perfectly in the shade.”

As Pape and many other gardeners have discovered, the trick to landscaping a shady yard ...
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