Freshwater Society

Read about a Community Clean-up for Water Quality in White Bear Lake that collected 97 bags of leaves and other organic debris - material that could have carried phosphorus into the lake and promoted the growth of unsightly and unhealthy algae. That is the lead article in the latest issue of Facets of Freshwater, the Freshwater Society's newsletter. To download a PDF of the entire issue, click here. To read individual articles from the newsletter, click on the links.

• Hedrick Smith, the producer of "Poisoned Waters," a powerful documentary about water pollution, will speak April 27 in St. Paul.

• Jonathan Foley, the director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, talks, in an interview, about what he calls "The other Inconvenient Truth," the conflict between a growing world population and agricultural systems that already over-use and pollute water.

• Gene Merriam, Freshwater's president, writes about his vision for reaching sustainability standards for agriculture.

• Freshwater's Water is Life high school art contest is nearing completion.

• Freshwater founder Dick Grays writes about three immutable laws of "Aquadynamics."

• Phenology, the science of recurring plant and animal life cycles, is attracting new interest in an era of climate change.
• If you live in Minnesota and you are interested in nature, you probably have read or heard Jim Gilbert talk about his passion for phenology.

• A partnership of government agencies, universities and non-governmental organizations has created a new national phenology network.