In 2016 planning partners joined together to submit an application to the Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) to develop One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P) for the Cannon River Watershed. The goal of 1W1P is to align local water planning on major watershed boundaries with state strategies towards prioritized, targeted and measureable implementation plans. In August 2016, BWSR selected the Cannon River as one of seven major watersheds across the state to receive a planning grant.http://www.dakotacountyswcd.org/1w1p.html
Category Archives: Resource
Signs of Progress: The State of the Cannon and Straight Rivers
Dear Reader,
Clean water. So vital to our lives and something we all value. At the Cannon River Watershed Partnership we envision a time when the waters of our area are healthy, when it is safe to swim in all the lakes and rivers, when we can eat fish without worry, enjoy a canoe trip free from garbage
in the river, and all drinking water is clean. In order to achieve this vision, it is important for the people who live and recreate in this area to understand some information about the water, land and wildlife, to get out on the water and to take action to improve the water. This document is our attempt at providing some of that information and sparking your interest in getting involved. Many good things have happened in the last fifty years. In 1958 a memo from the DNR indicated the Cannon River by Faribault was uninhabitable for fish due to industrial pollution of the water. The river has come a long way since then. We no longer discharge raw municipal sewage to the
rivers, industrial facilities treat their discharge to limit pollution, cities are doing a better job with street runoff, and farmers are working to improve their practices to protect the water. There are signs of progress such as the comeback of the Bald Eagle and some of the streams and lakes showing
improvements. There is still a long way to go in some areas and we hope you will be our partner in working toward making the needed changes a reality.
Special thanks to the Water Resources Center at Minnesota State University Mankato for compiling much of this document and to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for providing the funding to make it happen.
Beth Kallestad
Executive Director
Cannon River Watershed Partnership
Northfield Pollinator Friendly Resolution
Adopted May 17, 2016, this resolution commits the city to best management practices for pollinator preservation.
Northfield Comprehensive Plan
MN Statute 462.353 subd. I authorizes the city to adopt a comprehensive plan setting out objectives for the physical, social, and economic development of the community. This plan is due to be updated in 2018.
Papers from Carleton’s Environmental Ethics Course
Professor Kim Smith teaches a course called Environmental Ethics at Carleton College. This course is an introduction to the central ethical debates in environmental policy and practice, as well as some of the major traditions of environmental thought. It investigates such questions as whether we can have moral duties towards animals, ecosystems, or future generations; what is the ethical basis for wilderness preservation; and what is the relationship between environmentalism and social justice. The papers attached here were produced by students in Professor Smith’s course.
Environmental History in Northfield, MN Land conservation: Sibley Marsh, Lashbrook Park, and other spaces
While many people debate over its true meaning, in 1987 the United Nations defined the term sustainable development in the Brundtland Commission Report, Our Common Future, as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” 1 Discussion of sustainable development tends to revolve around issues relating to climate change, renewable energy, and water scarcity. While these issues
are significant, it is important to recognize that other topics must be considered in the conversation. In particular, it is necessary to discuss land preservation.
The preservation of green spaces – marshes, prairies, wooded areas, passive parks, etc. – is vital to sustainable development. For example, in an urban setting, undeveloped green spaces provide ecosystem services, community recreational space, aesthetic value, and biodiversity. This paper seeks to explore the history of green space conservation in Northfield, MN between the late 1960s to
the early 1990s. This paper specifically examines the cases of Sibley Marsh, and Lashbrook Park.
Northfield Green Business Guide
This guide is meant to be a starting point for Northfield businesses that wish to take steps to becoming a greener, more sustainable business. It should be noted that this guide is a work in progress; it was created by St. Olaf students Evelyn Boss and Terese Nygaard in the Environmental Studies Senior Capstone class (Spring Semester, 2016) under supervision of Professor John Schade and Kim Smith, a member of the Greater Northfield Sustainability Collaborative (GNSC). Currently, the guide only presents information relevant for Northfield’s food sector. The intention is for this guide to be elaborated upon by St. Olaf students in the Environmental Studies Senior Capstone class in future years, eventually to include all business sectors, finalized, and distributed to Northfield businesses for their
personal use.Green Business Guide
Factors Influencing Farmers’ Support for the Minnesota Buffer Law
Factors Influencing Farmers’ Support for the Minnesota Buffer Law: A Cross-County Case Study of Rice and Dakota Counties
Vegetative buffers are a Best Management Practice that have been well studied as a regulatory tool for agricultural non-point source pollution control. In 2015, the Minnesota State Legislature passed the Minnesota Buffer Law mandating buffer establishment on all public waterways and ditches. This study investigates farmers’ support for the Minnesota Buffer Law in Rice and Dakota Counties. Our study examines farmers’ support for environmental practices through legally mandated regulation, an area of study that scholars have note addressed in the literature on Best Management Practice adoption. We collected data from interviews with farmers and various stakeholders to address the question: do local situational variable and farmers’ personal attitudes influence support for the Minnesota Buffer Law in Rice and Dakota Counties? We found that the interplay between farmers’ personal values and local situational variables is an important category in our results. We propose a cyclical framework in which the relationship between attitudes and policy is reciprocal and a change in policy may affect attitudes through learning about details of a policy by experiencing it, or through a change in social norms and framing.
An Ethical Analysis of Carleton’s Geothermal Heating and Cooling Plan
This is a paper completed for Prof. Smith’s Fall 2016 Environmental Ethics class. In Fall 2016, Carleton College Board of Trustees approved a plan to replace Carleton’s current steam heating system with a geothermal heating and cooling system supplemented by a hot water boiler. This system will significantly reduce the college’s carbon emissions and put the College on track to meet its Climate Action Plan. However, implementing this new system will require Carleton to retire its steam boiler halfway through its engineered lifespan. This paper analyzes the ethical implications of this plan on both Carleton and its stakeholders.
History of Hatpin
GNSC partnered with St. Olaf professor John Schade’s ENVS capstone seminar and commissioned a history of sustainable development in Northfield. This paper, by Rachel Berg, offers a brief history of an important Northfield environmental group, HATPIN, which was active in the 1970s to 2002.