Your turn: Hennepin shows smart ways to keep waters clean

Reports are coming in from all across southern and Central Minnesota of lakes turning stinky and green from enormous algae blooms. Not only are children refusing to jump off the end of the dock into the pea soup, but unofficial reports are that four dogs died from toxic blue-green algae.

Some of the blame lies with the hot, dry summer we've experienced this year. But a lot of it can be traced to the way we live.

Algae and other aquatic plants thrive on the same nutrients plants use on land. The big one is phosphorous. Two major sources of phosphorous are your local sewage treatment plant discharge to a river or lake and runoff from farm fields.

We know how to fix both problems. They require government actions to protect the public's waters and the money to put the solutions in place. But we believe it will be money well spent. We've made a small start, with the Legislature passing the Clean Water Legacy and putting $54 million into it during the next two years.

A good example of how money smartly applied can clean our waters is the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District in Hennepin County. There are 139 lakes in the district, from Lake Calhoun and Lake Minnetonka to Christmas Lake, as well as the creek itself.

During the past 40 years, the district has documented gradual improvements in every water body but Christmas Lake, which was exceptionally clean to begin with, said Eric Evenson, district administrator of the district. According to Evenson, the improvements came about like this:
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