High and Dry

During March, I spent a week in Tucson, Arizona, where a 20-minute rain shower was celebrated as remarkable; the only rain the family we were visiting had seen in over a month.   Every river and stream bed lay dry and waiting.  Plants, although well-adapted to dry climate, were beginning to show signs of stress after a long year of drought and heat.  And although many irrigation systems were still in use, we heard the concerns over water use and low ground water levels, so we did our best to conserve water.  Then as we began driving home after listening to fears of another summer of wildfires on the local news, we sadly could see the smoke from grassfires already happening.

In mid-May, I travelled to our northern border, to Seagull Lake, to spend a weekend volunteering for Wilderness Canoe Base and help open their camp for the summer.   The weekend that we arrived, shortly after ice-out, the water level was the highest they had experienced in nearly 50 years.  Peaking at 6 feet over normal lake height, the camp's docks had all flooded, creating a creative challenge for accessing the island camp.  With snowfall of over 12 feet this winter, heavy rains in the spring, and a cold spring, ground in the area was saturated, and runoff was filling lakes and streams to their brink.  It was the first time I had experienced waters this high and it was especially impressive to witness the amount of water flowing through North Shore rivers that only last July were nearly dry.

Such extremes.

Living within this wild swing of a pendulum is a little unsettling.  I'm the kind of person who'd love to come up with a way to divert all that excess water in Seagull Lake to the people of Arizona to help fill Lake Meade perhaps.  I'm all about sharing. 

Even if we were able to keep the water here in Minnesota, where much of the state was under drought conditions last summer and we found ourselves in Minneapolis rationing water and watching the spread of forest fires, couldn't we come up with some ways to store all this excess water for use later in the summer?

As I worked my way through Freshwater Society's Minnesota Water Stewards course this past winter and spring, I dove a bit deeper into the hydrologic cycle, into groundwater and aquifers, as well as the impacts our built environment and human use has had on our access to fresh water.   80% of Minnesotans get their water from community sources such as aquifers and surface water (lakes and rivers). These sources are feeling more stress from increased use, and clean ground water is getting scarcer, requiring us to treat more water for our drinking water purposes.  Until we stop drawing more water from our aquifers than they can replenish naturally, we will continue to have water conservation and reuse needs.

Within Minneapolis itself, there is so much hard surface from our built environment that we end up with lots of issues from storm water runoff.  Not only do we not have ways to redirect the water back down into the ground to restore our aquifers, the runoff picks up pollution and brings it straight to the Mississippi River, our main source of drinking water, requiring even more treatment for cleanup.

So, any efforts to contain stormwater on our yards, or to slow it down and help it get cleaned up before it ends up in the river, or even to capture and store it for reuse when dry conditions arrive, are all great ways to be a water steward yourself. 

As a business owner, I've taken water conservation seriously, especially since the food industry is such a heavy user of water.  We've installed low-flow filter for faucets, chosen water-conserving equipment, and instilled habits for water conservation as a part of our staff training.  We've made an effort to use our boulevards for native plantings, whose deeper roots can help the soil hold more water and slow down stormwater runoff.  This summer, we're exploring how we can store and reuse rainwater on our site for our gardens and plantings.  With the support of the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, I'll be working on a project on Butter's site and then taking what I learn up and down Nicollet Avenue to meet with other business owners and help them make changes to their front streetscape to help manage stormwater runoff as well.

It all begins during a lively open house event on June 8, called Water Works @37TH and is being co-hosted with Jim and Faith Kumon of Heirloom Properties with support from the Kingfield Neighborhood Association through the Great Streets Program.  Jim and Faith's apartment building under construction just to the west of Butter has several water conservation features including a massive storage cistern that will help them put capture water to reuse inside and outside the building.

I've learned a lot about caring for our water resources during my Water Steward course work but what has really stuck with me is that small impacts can lead to larger ones.  It's that ripple effect that water is so good at presenting for us.   We are all learning from each other, finding inspiration that guides us along the way, and then having that spill over to others. 

As you walk this Green Path, may you find inspiration to wonder about the ways you can help conserve and steward the water that comes your way!