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Mercury accounts for one-third of the “impaired waters” listing for Minnesota—1,670 of the 4,603 lakes and rivers. As the word “impaired” implies, it is defined as body of water that is not meeting state water quality standards. Elevated exposure to mercury can harm the nervous system (brain, spinal cord and nerves) and the kidneys. It can cause illness or, in extreme cases, death, and it is a special concern for fetuses, infants and children, according to the Minnesota Health Department. Exposure to mercury during the time the nervous system is developing can affect a child’s ability to learn and process information.

Early on an unseasonably hot September morning, Master Water Stewards from south Minneapolis were hard at work, weeding a massive rain garden that runs alongside Highway 55. While the steamy weather might’ve suggested otherwise, these seasoned Minnesotans realize that winter is on its way. Before the snow falls, there’s work to be done prepping rain gardens for winter.

A 20-foot-wide buffer of pollinator-friendly plants greets visitors to Roots Return Heritage Farm and separates it from the highway’s rolling hills. This swath of milkweed, goldenrod, wild aster, and countless other prairie plants buzzes with bees, beetles, moths, and monarchs. It’s just one indicator of the environmentally-friendly approach behind this small-scale farm.

On a sunny day in June, National Park Service rangers Rick Damstra and Sam House drop anchor close to Nevers Dam on the Saint Croix River. They scoop long tubes and jugs of river water to collect samples for the Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Service, one of many efforts along the historic riverway that keep the Saint Croix remarkably clean.

Rick Groger and Don Yager are a retired couple that has been together for 40 years, and for the last decade their daily routine has included battling litter in their neighborhood. While you’re biking along the Hiawatha trail or enjoying Minneapolis’ riverside parks, you might bump into these two kindly gentlemen armed with a trash picker and plastic bags.

Students at Maplewood Middle School turned part of their school’s lawn into a blossoming rain garden. Now, every time a shower passes, students can observe three rain gardens on the grounds doing their job, capturing runoff. “When it rains, it fills with water. It’s very obvious the water is staying there versus running into the parking lot and down the street,” said eighth grade teacher Julie Cazett.

Minneapolis-area congregations work together to make clean water a tenet of safe and healthy communities.

Along a unique stretch of East 50th Street in Minneapolis, the Adirondack chairs, pink flamingos and screened porches nestled into the mid-winter snow hold promise of impending spring. Beneath the blanket of snow lie a series of dormant boulevard pollinator gardens dubbed the Monarch Mile, waiting to emerge for their first full growing season. As the community project literally blossoms this spring, the beauty and life above the ground will serve as a poignant reminder of the unseen water quality effect of the native pollinator plant roots below the soil.

By mid-winter in Minnesota, roadways, sidewalks, and cars all sport a veneer of road salt. From home-owners to professional salt applicators, cautious Minnesotans don’t just use the recommended 1-3 cups of sodium chloride per 1,000 feet of pavement to get rid of ice, they over-salt. On parking lots and sidewalks, piles of de-icing salt collect from excess application.

​For practically-minded farmer Wayne Kieffer and farmer sons Kevin and Tim, water and soil conservation are essential to the sustainability of their fifth-generation operation — the Kieffer Dairy Farm — on the “variable soil” of the country near Hastings, Minn.