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| © harrington |
Lake Pepin is disappearing from the bottom up, as it fills in with excessive sediment that belongs on farm fields. DNR is being sued for allegedly permitting the withdrawal of too much groundwater from the Jordan and Prairie du Chien aquifer, causing White Bear Lake to disappear from the top down or, more accurately, the edges in. Minnesota's impaired waters list is growing because a number of rivers and lakes can't support wild rice growth. My Minnesota is a water rich state. Perhaps that's been the problem. We haven't been good stewards of our resources because there seemed to be more than enough to go around. I worked on protecting and improving water quality for many years. The issue then, as now, it seems to me is that we keep thinking there really is a free lunch and someone else will get more of it than we will. Washington isn't the only part of the country suffering from gridlock (iced in?). The Clean Water act Amendments of 1972 became law 40 years ago. Although we've made much progress in reaching the goals of "fishable, swimmable" water, it becomes increasingly clear to me that we haven't begun to do enough. There could, and should, be much more emphasis on resource conservation, especially water conservation. These days I'm working on environmental protection through green building. The technology is there and relatively inexpensive to reduce water and energy consumption. It seems we'd rather spend out money on granite counter tops. In My Minnesota, we can and should be wiser than that. Only magpies and pack rats are easily distracted by bright shiny objects. Look again at the photo above. Isn't it too valuable to lose through selfish indifference?
One of the Twin Cities' newspapers had a long article yesterday about Paul Gruchow and his recently published memoir, Letter to a Young Madman. I've read most, if not all, of his previous work: Journal of a Prairie Year, The Necessity of Empty Places, Boundary Waters, Worlds Within a World and Grass Roots. At the time I was reading his words, which magically brought me once again emotionally close to so many of the places that I love, I wasn't aware of Paul's demons and the way he would eventually lose his struggles with them. I was, however, able to grow increasingly envious of his ability to write the way I wished I could. He always seemed to have an amazing ability to be anchored in place, often a prairie place. I still remember skating the line between wishing I could write like Paul and wishing I were Paul so I could learn from the inside how he did it. It was only a little bit later I learned he tragically had taken his own life. Paul is among a handful of writers who have inspired me to try to emulate writing about places in My Minnesota and how special they are. I am, and always will be, in his debt. I'm looking forward to reading his memoir to learn more about how to live graciously under duress. Last spring, I finished a suite of poems, dedicated to Paul, about prairie grasses. They turned out well enough that they were winners in the Prairie Sampler contest for which I had written them. Thanks, Paul. I couldn't have done it without you.
