Turning water into whine

© harrington

Hi! Thanks for coming. Welcome. In my neck of the woods, we've progressed(?) back to substantial portions of mud in our otherwise snow and ice covered roads. The last time local roads looked this good was in early January. Tomorrow, we're supposed to get up to or above freezing, at least for a few hours. The icicles along the roof lines are still hanging in large suspenses and there are increasing concerns about Spring flooding in the Red River valley (while the rest of the state continues to suffer from drought). Today, on another waterfront, Ron Madore at MinnPost had a story about how we've been mismanaging, or at least not managing, our groundwater. I certainly hope we here at My Minnesota provided some encouragement for Ron to use his more bully pulpit to note that we're paying people to do a job and they're not doing it very well. Actually, what Ron wrote was "...this is where you can stop feeling sorry for the DNR's groundwater managers, because they freely admit they don't make use of the information they do have when it comes to protecting this resource." This is a point we've been making for several months. MinnPost also refers to MPR's story about the way DNR has been "overlooking" groundwater permit violations. If you think I'm "piling on" I'm not sure whether to reply "damn right" or "I certainly hope so." Maybe we should ask the State Patrol to enforce water permits. I'll repeat what I wrote some time ago in the same context: I don't want bigger government. I don't want smaller government. I want better government. I also want a chance to vote for politicians who make campaign promises to that effect. Is Minnesota ready (again?) for a good government party? Thanks for listening. Drop in again tomorrow. Rants and raves, sometimes with reflection, sometimes with malice aforethought, served daily.