NewsIssue2July15,2005B

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News from the Rum River Watershed

Volume #1 Issue #2July 15, 2005

Letter from the Editor

As the river slips by, so does the summer. Upon casual reflection I’ve decided to make thisnewsletter something that comes out every other month. Right now I may have time to bring itout monthly, but that won’t be the case come fall.In this issue I plan to concentrate a bit more on the importance of considering the watershed asa whole, instead of just the entity of the river itself. No system stands on its own, all things areinterconnected. Not only do birds, beasts and plants depend on the water and soil and theimpact of weather on the flow of water through the local system, but adjacent watersheds affecteach other, as all eventually flows towards the oceans, then cycles back. In fact, one couldalmost think of our planet as a living organism in itself. As we view all the parts of our ownbodies as important to the health of the whole self, the Earth can be viewed and analyzed in thesame way.If you have received a hard copy of this newsletter, you will see a watermark behind this textdelineating the Rum River watershed. Take a look at the same map on the following page, andhave fun discerning new things…Kriste

Mission Statement:

To provide a base of knowledge that we can use to help make wise decisions concerningthe Rum River watershed.

Vision Statement

To improve our ability, both as part of the private and as part of the public sector, to care forthe Rum River watershed and all of the associated watersheds that make up the MississippiRiver system.

Contents:

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Map of the Rum River Watershed

•

Natural resource concerns in Mille Lacs County

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Feature article by area hydrologist Mike Mueller: “Watersheds: Part 1”

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Adding/removing names from RumRiverWatershedNews@yahoo.com list serve

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To be addressed in our September 15 issue:



Are the waters of the Rum River impaired?



Natural Resource Concerns in Sherburne and Anoka County

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Map of the Rum River Watershed

From “The Streams and Rivers of Minnesota” 1977 by Thomas F. Waters.University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis(Used with permission of author and publisher)

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Natural resource concerns in Mille Lacs County Feasibility Study for Wild Rice Restoration at Lake Ogechie

•

The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Department of Natural Resources/Environment hascontracted with Houston Engineering and St. Cloud State University to conduct a feasibilitystudy to evaluate the options available to restore wild rice in Ogechie Lake. Updates andadditional information will be included in following newsletters. For questions about theproject please feel free to call Scott Hansen at 320-532-7445 or Perry Bunting at 320-532-7442.

A note of explanation on the following article:

Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc. (SEH

)

is an engineering consulting firm with headquartersin Minneapolis. The

Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

is a statewide,nonprofit environmental group that “is the legal and scientific voice protecting and defendingMinnesota’s environment.” (See

www.mncenter.org

for more information.) We will look furtherinto the impaired water status of the Rum River in our September 15

th

issue.

City of Princeton to begin sampling of Rum River in answer to lawsuit

Used with permission of the Princeton Union-Eagle. Posted 6-9-05.By Joel StottrupThe city of Princeton has decided to hire someone to take water samples in the Rum Riveras part of dealing with a lawsuit by an environmental group. The group opposed the way thestate had offered a permit for expanding the city's wastewater treatment plant, sued in courtand won.The city has been working for the past two-plus years with the engineering consulting firmSEH to set up a plan for expanding the mechanical wastewater plant that began operatingabout 10 years ago. At first the city considered doubling its size but then decided to tripleit, reasoning the cost would be cheaper than if it doubled it now and later expanded.The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), after long deliberation and meeting withSEH engineers, agreed last year to a plant general design and granted the permit to beginthe expansion.But then the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy challenged the MPCA giving thepermit in the Minnesota Court of Appeals. A few weeks ago the appellate court ruled in favorof the challenge.The court did not grant a contested case hearing that the group asked for but said theMPCA had erred in what it said the city had to do in tripling the plant's capacity.At issue in the lawsuit is the plan to discharge treated wastewater into the Rum River oncethe expansion is completed.The environmental group said that it wants less discharge into the Rum River than what theplanned expansion would do.The group also said the city should have first studied more the possibility of reducing thesize of the expansion. One way the environmental group suggested was to study thefeasibility of having wastewater treatment setups on the sites of large new developments.Five MPCA officials met with the City Council for about two hours during the council's studysession last Thursday. A sixth MPCA official listened to the meeting over a speakerphoneand made some comments during the meeting. Some of the MPCA officials said that the

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