Rybak calls Climate Change bigger threat than terrorism.

Minneapolis Mayor Rybak calls Climate Change a bigger threat to the city than terrorism. The solution will require more than government but they can lead the way. The city has already pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12% by 2012. Paste the entire URL below into your browser to read the Skyway News article.

But the question is how can be get Bloomington on board to do more NOW. Perhaps city staff or council can weight in on what they are doing now and they figure out how we ramp up. I am not aware that Bloomington even knows what the cites emissions are now to use as a baseline.



http://www.skywaynews.net/articles/2006/09/29/news/news08.txt

Minneapolis ahead of Bloomington

Minneapolis has made some good strides in Sustainability from their city council actions in 2005. I am not sure Bloomington has done an adequate job and perhaps city staff or council will weight in here. Some of the Minneapolis information is listed below and hopefully Bloomington residents will demand the same or more.

From the Minneapolis city web site:

In April 2005, the Minneapolis City Council made several decisions that elevate the role of sustainability in directing city policy and operations. In 2005 they were ranked 10th in the nation < http://www.sustainlane.com/cityindex/citypage/ranking/ >.

Annual Sustainability Report will brought to the city council each June.


http://www.nextstep.state.mn.us/res_detail.cfm?id=1652

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/environment/Sustainability-Initiatives.asp

Envision Minnesota

Envision Minnesota’s challenge to our leaders is to think long-term and make tough choices. A leader’s challenge is to prioritize and develop strategies that address a wide range of complex public policy issues. We need to support them so they can develop these priorities and strategies in a focused, thoughtful and meaningful way. We think that coming together with a simple statement sends a powerful message to candidates for the 2006 election. The Envision Minnesota project is deliberately non-partisan in approach, with the intention to bring together individuals from all ideologies around a consent agenda that all Minnesotans should agree on. By signing on you have joined a diverse group of citizens representing business, political, religious, labor and many other viewpoints.

Although our project is small, this grassroots effort to bring citizens together around the important issues of how we protect and enhance both our environment and the future of our communities has never been more important. We, like you, are aware that there are many competing priorities. Our leaders need us to help them with thoughtful and considerate dialogue. The Envision Minnesota statement can help articulate a few of those priorities and help create that thoughtful dialogue. We think that these broad recommendations can serve as a guide to helping leaders focus and to help citizens articulate their priorities.

What can you do next? Ask your friends and family to sign on as Citizen Visionaries. We need every citizen to take this simple stand. Please send this letter to your friends and family. Ask them to view our website at envisionminnesota.org.

Mississippi watershed degradation and the gulf

Izaak Walton member Gregg Thompson provided this link to a editorial on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's website :

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/679640.html

It gives a good explanation of the condition of the waters, the reasons behind (or a lot of the reason) and how this impact can be reduced (and its importance).

Welcome to Bloomington, MN

This is the Russell A Sorenson boat landing at Lyndale Avenue in Bloomington. Just a fraction of what is there. While it would not solve the issue a trash container there would certainly help. While some might object to this posting for Bloomington regretablly it is reality.

Safe Climate Act of 2006 (HR 5642) in Congress

Urge your representative in Congress to Support the Safe Climate Act of 2006 (HR 5642). The bill sets targets and requires the actions that will be necessary to avoid dangerous, irreversible warming of our planet
As of this writing only Rep. Betty McCollum (MN-4) has cosponsored the bill.



ref:

http://www.house.gov/waxman/safeclimate/index.htm

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR05642:@@@P

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:1:./temp/~c109jBlZNF::

http://thomas.loc.gov/

Hennepin County Voter Ballot

Go to the Hennepin County Online Services for your Primary Sample Ballot customized for your address.


http://www2.co.hennepin.mn.us/voterinfo/options.jsp


September 12, 2006

Raingardens and permeable pavement

In response to a query I had on raingardens and pervious payment
Gregg Thompson (Izaak Walton League- Bush Lake Chapter) submitted
this:

A Burnsville project involved the City's retrofitting about 17
raingardens into a two-block residential neighborhood on Rushmore
Drive, north of Crystal Lake. This area of the city, like many,
have no stormwater ponds for settling out sediments and nutrients,
so their stormsewers discharge directly into Crystal Lake. The City
worked with Barr Engineering to do an on-the-ground study on the
effectiveness of strategically-placed raingardens to intercept and
infiltrate stormwater runoff. The project ended up reducing the
neighborhood's stormwater discharge by 90% (they have monitoring
equipment in the stormsewer system). I think their goal is to get a
cost-analysis done on the project, with their monitoring results
(measuring sediment, nutrient and pollutant removal, etc.) to
determine how much this method would cost for a certain level of
sediment/nutrient/pollutant removal. Raingardens (Bioretention /
Infiltration Basins) are being used all over the Twin Cities, with
the exception of Bloomington. The city claims two raingardens in
town, but they're simply wet ponds that they are choosing to call
raingardens because they don't seem to understand the function.
Anyway, raingardens are designed to infiltrate stormwater runoff and
treat that runoff through sediment capture, nutrient capture and
absorbtion, and pollutant breakdown by the soil microbes. These
raingardens can work in a variety of locations, from residential to
commercial areas, with priorities being locations that would keep
stormwater runoff out of the stormsewer systems and our wetlands,
lakes, streams and rivers.

Here's a link that has a photo of one of the Burnsville
raingardens:
http://www.metrocouncil.org/Directions/water/water2006/
raingardensApr06.htm and another good link to an article from the
DNR Conservation Volunteer Magazine:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/volunteer/mayjun04/raingardens.html



Also, regarding water conservation issues, there are a lot of
sprinkler systems in Bloomington (and everywhere else) that will
often be running during and immediately after rain events -dumping
drinkable water onto the ground.

We would also promote rainbarrels and other water conservation,
and measures for the landscape (and maybe have a couple of hands-on
'make your own rainbarrel' workshops). Anyway, getting back to your
question about permeable / pervious pavement, I don't know of any
good examples in our area, but there are installations in Prior Lake
(driveways), Apple Valley (driveway), UofM Landscape Arboretum in
Chanhassen (parking lot), Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District
in Little Canada (parking lot), Schmeltz Volkswagen in White Bear
Lake (huge parking lot), MnDOT-Annandale Roadway Testing Grounds
(interstate road surface) and a few other places. With the
permeable pavements, materials can be special concrete pavers (which
have wider openings between joints), permeable concrete, permeable
asphalt, and some other plastic products that are filled with turf
or crushed rock. The base of these permeable paving systems has
typically been over-excavated and a material with large amounts of
pore-space (like crushed rock or coarse-sand) has been put in to be
able to hold a large amount of stormwater. These systems are quite
interesting. Homeowners could also employ these materials
(specifically the pavers) in patios and sidewalks.

My hope is that eventually Bloomington will follow Minneapolis'
model (slightly revised) that charges people for their stormwater
runoff. If landowners reduce their runoff (and can prove it to the
city) the city will provide stormwater credits to reduce the
stormwater utility fee.

Here's a little on Minneapolis' program that I had previously
sent to another person: The City of Minneapolis has enacted higher
stormwater utility fees. Landowners' stormwater utility fees are
determined by their amount of impervious surfaces. The City is
providing economic incentives to encourage runoff reduction by
offering "credits" for implementing runoff reduction practices
(raingardens, permeable pavement, etc.) along with proof of what
size of storm-event the practices were sized for. Some of the other
cities in the twin cities are in the wait-and-see mode, letting
Minneapolis work out the kinks, but I think this sort of 'pay for
your impact' fee will be utilized by other cities to both reduce
stormwater-runoff from private lands and help them pay for public
runoff-reduction project planning and implementation, as well as
education. Link:
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/stormwater/what-we-do/StormwaterRate
.asp

Normandale Lake Study Area -City Hall-Sept7

Come to the meeting Thursday Sept 7th about the proposed reconstruction
of 84th & Normandale.

Public comment, 6-7 PM
Tri commission meeting 7-?


Residents in the area have only been fighting this for about the last 15-20 years. It goes back to what I think we called Citizens for a Better Bloomington when Kurt Laughinghouse and Jim Andrews among many others were involved. Some have moved but many of us are still here fighting city hall.

Please come and show your support for the neighborhood. Lets make it bike lanes, pedistrian areas, etc. We don't need more commercial development.