Does anyone remember the days of "good governance?"

The Minnesota legislative session begins today. According to the Minnesota Constitution, this year's session should end on Monday, May 18. So, for about  the next three months, according to folk wisdom,  people should "keep their hands on their purse or wallet" until the session ends. Since this is an election year, and  the legislature is divided, with the House controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans, keep your expectations in check for the enactment of bills that actually make sense. However, you probably want to keep an eye on your local legislators so you'll know for whom to vote come November 3.

is this St. Croix tributary clean enough? how would we know?

Photo by J. Harrington

Back in 1973, a few years before I moved here, Minnesota was known as "The State That Works." Of course, back in those days, the United States were know as responsible world leaders. How times have changed. In 1971 the Minnesota legislature enacted the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act [MERA]. The Minnesota Environmental Policy Act [MEPA] came in 1973. There's a nice article in Minnesota History magazine that provides a history of Minnesota's environmental protection. You should read it. Then you can wonder how we can get "back to the future" while we still have one. The fact that Minnesota was committed to protecting its natural resources played a significant role in my decision to consider coming here  to work for the Twin Cities Metro Council. In those days, up until 1991, we also had a state planning agency, which became the Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning until 2003.

Today's post has been prompted by my growing concerns that we've become too dependent on what's legal and lawful and insufficiently concerned with what's right and ethical. It was many years ago that I decided that it was unlikely that environmental agencies would ever be authorized to spend enough on permit enforcement to be successful with a strictly "law and order" strategy. Of course, once upon a time, I also believed that areawide water quality management planning, such as called for by Section 208 of the Clean Water Act (1972), could actually reduce non point source pollution, like that from urban and agricultural runoff. See, for example:

(F) a process to (i) identify, if appropriate, agriculturally and silviculturally related nonpoint sources of pollution, including return flows from irrigated agriculture, and their cumulative effects, runoff from manure disposal areas, and from land used for livestock and crop production, and (ii) set forth procedures and methods (including land use requirements) to control to the extent feasible such sources;

If Minnesota has any approved areawide water quality plans, I can find no reference to them online. Perhaps that's one of the major reasons the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, a few years ago, published an opinion piece by a former official with the Pollution Control Agency and Department of Interior entitled Water quality: A Minnesota maelstrom. All of this takes me back to my younger days and a Pete Seeger refrain that goes

When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

New Water

By Sharon Chmielarz

All those years—almost a hundred— 

the farm had hard water. 

Hard orange. Buckets lined in orange. 

Sink and tub and toilet, too, 

once they got running water. 

And now, in less than a lifetime, 

just by changing the well’s location, 

in the same yard, mind you, 

the water’s soft, clear, delicious to drink. 

All those years to shake your head over. 

Look how sweet life has become; 

you can see it in the couple who live here, 

their calmness as they sit at their table, 

the beauty as they offer you new water to drink. 

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