freshwater | The Freshwater Society

Catch up on the news

Every week, the Freshwater Society publishes a digest of regional, national and international news about water and the environment. Read it here, or go to our blog: FreshwaterSociety.org.

Read about Lake Pepin clean-up plan,

law funding sustainability study

Read about the Minnesota Legislature's approval of $151 million in water protection, water clean-up and water research projects -- including a long-term sustainability study inspired, in part, by a Freshwater Society report.

The June Facets of Freshwater newsletter has that news, plus a preview of a clean-up plan for Lake Pepin, an article about the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's summer-long water festival, an article about evaluating the health of wetlands by listening for the calls of the frogs that inhabit them, and a two-page spread on Freshwater's high school art contest. There also are columns by Gene Merriam and Dick Gray. Click the link to download a PDF of the newsletter. It's a big file -- give it a minute to download.

Freshwater joins Check My Lake effort

Is the water in the lake you often visit safe for swimming? Are there invasive species there you should worry about spreading with your boat and trailer? Finding the answer to those questions now is as easy as typing the lake's name. The Freshwater Society is partnering with Conservation Minnesota in sponsoring a search engine that provides extensive information on the water quality in many of Minnesota's lakes.

Go to Conservation Minnesota's Check My Lake search engine by clicking on the logo, at right. Choose a lake, and the search engine will take you to a map of the lake, tell you if the water quality is safe for swimming and list known pollutants or invasive species affecting the lake.

As part of the partnership, the Freshwater Society has created web pages on:

Ten ways to keep lakes clean .
What is polluting our lakes?
The most common, and most serious, invasive species .
Mercury , one of Minnesota's most widespread pollutants, and its sources.

Read about citizen water monitors,

new proposed state water-quality standards

Read about citizen-scientists who monitor water quality in lakes, streams and wetlands -- even in the Boundary Waters. Learn about the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's proposals to adopt new water-quality standards for phosphorus, nitrate and turbidity. Those articles and more are in the March Facets, the Freshwater Society’s newsletter. Click here. Be patient -- it will take a moment to download.