Today is: World Water Day and, at the Minnesota Legislature, it's Protect Pollinators Day. Without clean water and healthy food, we humans wouldn't be around for long. Will common sense ever become common? The graphic below is a screen capture from the Minnesota Pollution Control Ageny's Impaired Waters List map viewer. Water that fails quality standards is red. What does it say about how much Minnesotans value clean water?
Meanwhile, Minnesota's regulatory agencies have had several permits, needed for unproven copper sulfate mine projects, suspended or overturned by the courts. [Full Disclosure: we'd rather support nonprofit environmental agencies than pay taxes to fund dysfunctional (regulatory capture) state "environmental protection" agencies.]
There's a current proposal to reduce existing water quality standards, which would make it easier to get a permit to discharge pollutants. Loosening standards might even make some of those red waters go away. They wouldn't be less polluted, you understand. The amount of pollution allowed before they're coded red would simply have been increased. Is that really what Minnesotans want as a "strategy to protect the environment?" You can follow the MPCA rule-making process at this page. You can also learn what the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy thinks about the proposed revisions at this page. Next election, you might want to ask if the candidate you're thinking of supporting really supports clean air and clean water and healthy Minnesotans.
Water
The water understandsCivilization well;It wets my foot, but prettily,It chills my life, but wittily,It is not disconcerted,It is not broken-hearted:Well used, it decketh joy,Adorneth, doubleth joy:Ill used, it will destroy,In perfect time and measureWith a face of golden pleasureElegantly destroy.
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