Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

Today's Environmental News

Click here to read today's Minnesota environmental news headlines from Environmental Health News.

Erkel:Driving less forces down price of gasoline

Jim Erkel, Land Use and Transportation Program Director at MCEA, was interviewed for a St. Paul Pioneer Press story about how Minnesotans, and Americans in general, have cut the amount of driving they did in June compared to a year ago.

U.S. Department of Transportation figures showed that the high cost of gasoline in June forced Americans to curtail their driving in order to save money. But Erkel told reporter Leslie Brooks Suzukamo that the change in driving habits is affecting the market as well as personal pocket books.

The lower price is no coincidence, said Jim Erkel, transportation expert for the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, also based in St. Paul. As people drive less, they consume less gas, and as demand for gasoline drops, so does the price for gas and for oil, he said.

Here is the full story. The link may expire after a week

Kevin Reuther named new Legal Director for MCEA

Kevin Reuther, who has been a staff attorney since October 2005, was recently promoted to Legal Director at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

“Kevin’s legal acumen, knowledge of environmental issues and demand for excellence will serve him well in his new position,” said MCEA Executive Director Martha Brand.

Do Not Enter: Are Transportation Policies Going the Wrong Way?

A new transportation report suggests that the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Council are not adequately measuring the key indicators that would drive Minnesota to address the challenges of rising gas prices, an aging population and climate change.

The report, Transportation Performance in the Twin Cities Region, is the focus of a panel discussion today at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, featuring MnDOT Commissioner Tom Sorel, Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell and University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies Director Robert Johns.

Transit for Livable Communities, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Surface Transportation Policy Partnership wrote the 32-page report. The report states the two agencies need to spend more time measuring key emerging trends, developing methods to better meld transportation and land use policies and providing greater accountability for achieving goals.

MCEA takes legal step to protect Mississippi, shrink Gulf's dead zone

MCEA and groups from other Mississippi River states call for federal action

Conservation groups from nine states bordering the Mississippi River, including Minnesota, and two national groups petitioned the federal government today to set and enforce numeric standards to limit nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River basin, and to develop cleanup plans for those water bodies.

The petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency follows Monday’s announcement of the Gulf of Mexico’s second largest dead zone to date, measuring 8,000 square miles. Researchers who mapped the dead zone said it would have been substantially larger if Hurricane Dolly hadn’t passed through, churning up the waters and restoring some oxygen to the zone’s edges. The Gulf dead zone, an area of water where oxygen levels are too low to support marine life, is the second largest in the world. It is caused every year by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that flows into the Gulf from the Mississippi River.

The petitioners say the EPA has disregarded its responsibility under the federal Clean Water Act to limit pollution in the Mississippi River. The dead zone will continue to grow, they argue, unless the EPA sets numeric standards for nitrogen and phosphorus pollution and requires all states in the river basin to meet those standards. The EPA is required by law to respond to the petition within a reasonable time frame.

View a map of each Mississippi River basin state's contribution of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution to the Gulf of Mexico and a map outlining the dead zone in 2000 and 2008.

Read the full petition and cover letter or a fact sheet covering the issue.

Jim Hightower to speak at green jobs rally Sunday

Come hear radio commentator and author Jim Hightower of Texas speak at a rally for green jobs Sunday at St. Paul College, 235 Marshall Ave. The event is free and open to the public.
The rally, sponsored by Sierra Club, Blue Green Alliance, United Steelworkers and other labor and environmental leaders, is intended to push for more investment in jobs that produce clean energy and other environmentally sound products. Green jobs will improve Minnesota’s economy and protect its environment. The event will also include the largest human wind turbine in Minnesota.

DNR must stop stalling;new study confirms MCEA shorelands concerns

After a year and a half study led by the University of Minnesota, planners have concluded Minnesota needs to better protect its river and lake shorelands from development. The study simply confirms earlier work done by MCEA and others.

A diverse group of 35 representating county government, developers, lake homeowners, real estate agents and environmental groups worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to develop new, alternative shoreland rules in late 2005. The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy was a major player on that committee.

The DNR took this hard work and made it voluntary for counties and other local governments to adopt. Not surprisingly, 2 ½ years later, no county adopted all of the rules.

Now that the Statewide Conservation and Preservation Plan, prepared at the direction of the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, has been completed, will the DNR finally do what we’ve been urging them to do for more than two years?

Columnist highlights MCEA's water work

Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman talked to MCEA's Kris Sigford and Janette Brimmer on why we are hosting a welcome home celebration for Sean Bloomfield and Colton Witte who canoed from Chaska to Hudson Bay.

Sigford and Brimmer were able to explain our concerns about the Minnesota and Red Rivers and the work we have done. Coleman was generous in his praise of MCEA.

"I was worried that they might fall into the Minnesota and need to have shots," says Kris Sigford, director of water quality programs at the influential and nonprofit Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), which has fought for clean water, wetland preservation and environmental protection since 1974, Coleman wrote in the column.Read Coleman's column. It may not be accessible after seven days

MCEA suprised to be included on Department of Justice partisan list

The staff of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy was surprised to learn that they were on a U.S. Department of Justice list of liberal organizations used to screen applicants for jobs and internships at the department.

The list was included in a report released Tuesday by the department’s inspector general. The report charges that the screening process identified candidates who were affiliated with or held past positions with the supposed liberal organizations and was illegally used to deny them positions they were qualified for.

Asked about MCEA’s inclusion on the list, advocacy director Paul Aasen told the Minnesota Independent, “I’m surprised that enforcing existing law is considered liberal. Conservation used to be a conservative cause.”

The surprise comes because most of MCEA’s work is on state issues. Moreover, MCEA can’t act politically as a non-partisan 501c(3) non-profit and its board has consistently included members from all over the political spectrum.

Read the full article by the Minnesota Independent.

Welcome home Minnesota's ambitious 18-year old canoeists

Sean Bloomfield and Colton Witte return from a 2,250-mile canoe trip from Chaska to Hudson Bay with plenty of stories to share. The boys traveled the same route journalist Eric Sevareid chronicled in his famous 1930 book "Canoeing with the Cree."

Join the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and REI in welcoming Sean and Colton home! Bring family and friends to hear the boys' inspiring tales from the trail.

Welcome Home Party
Thursday, June 26, 7 p.m.
REI, Bloomington
494 & Lyndale Ave. So.

RSVP appreciated to Dave Bach.

Visit Sean and Colton's Web site to learn more about their trip.

Public hearings on new power lines throughout Minnesota begin

CapX2020 project will help put more wind energy on the wires.

Public hearings on an ambitious plan to build new transmission lines throughout Minnesota will begin next week. The CapX2020 plan is the first major expansion of the state’s high voltage transmission system in 25 years.

Several environmental and renewable energy organizations are in favor of the project, although they are looking to add conditions that will ensure renewable energy, such as wind, has a strong presence on the new lines.

The groups—Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Fresh Energy, Izaak Walton League of America and Wind on the Wires—see the proposal by 11 utilities as necessary if the state is to meet its mandate of generating 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.