West River Parkway Trail Improvements Open House

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is planning to reconstruct three miles of bicyle and pedestrian trails along West River Parkway from Franklin Avenue south to Godfrey Parkway. The trail will connect to the recently reconstructed section of trail at Godfrey Parkway along the side of Minnehaha Park.

Reconstruction will provide improved trail safety and durability, separated bike and pedestrian trails where possible, and river bluff protection and enhancement. The project may include other elements, such as signage, site furnishings, drinking water fountains and landscaping, depending on available funding. Planning and design efforts are expected to occur this fall and winter. Trail construction is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2009.

The public is invited to comment on plans at an open house to be held at Brackett Park on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 6:30 p.m. Brackett Park is located at 2728 39th Ave. S.

For more information contact Nick Eoloff, project manager at 612-230-6465 or e-mail neoloff@minneapolisparks.org.

It has been a great season for the Gorge Stewards project, packed full of invasive species removals, seed collecting and spreading, interpretive hikes, prairie planting, geology, birding, and more. A big THANK YOU goes out to all the volunteers who worked so hard to care for our precious river gorge this season, as well as to the program funders and sponsors (see the list to the right).

Check out these photos from some of the Gorge Stewards events this season!

Vote Yes on the Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment!

This Tuesday, November 4th you will have the opportunity to vote on Minnesota's Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment.

All is not well in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Forty percent of the waters we have tested are polluted, and most of our lakes and streams have not even been tested. Funding for water, parks, and wildlife habitat remains near historic lows, and we are losing access for swimming, fishing, and wildlife watching. We have to act now, with this amendment, to protect our state's many water sources----for our own health, and for that of our wildlife, before they are lost forever.

The amendment would increase the State sales tax by three-eighths of one percent. This amounts to only about $1 a week and $56 a year for the average Minnesota household - a small price to pay for protecting our clean water, wildlife habitat, and natural areas.

While the latest polls show that Minnesotans are strongly supportive of the amendment -- 59% say they will vote yes -- we also know that many people who haven't heard about the amendment may leave that question blank, and anyone who doesn't vote on this question gets counted as a "no" vote. As a result, it appears the vote will be VERY close.

This amendment is about protecting our WATER RESOURCES, LAND AND NATURAL AREAS.
There is tremendous growth in Minnesota: over 1 million acres of wooded lands, natural areas and farmland will be lost over the next 25 years, as Minnesota continues growing faster than any other state in the Midwest. We want to make sure that while we grow, we are protecting and preserving our natural areas for recreation, which is so much a part of why we love it here, and protecting our lands for game habitat, wildlife, fishing, hunting, and hiking. The amendment will also help to fight global warming by protecting forest lands in Minnesota.

This amendment is about preserving our CULTURAL RESOURCES.
Minnesota has a long and proud tradition and history of arts and culture. Arts and cultural education are critical not only to our children's future but also to our state's economic well-being. Like our natural resources, our states cultural resources are an important part of our tourism industry and our great Minnesota quality of life.

This amendment is about FUTURE GENERATIONS.
Things as important as clean water are well worth protecting in our Constitution, and worth creating a permanent funding source for - especially when future generations rely on our actions today. Acting now to ensure that we properly protect our water, parks, wildlife, and arts and cultural resources for our children and grandchildren is an investment well worth making.

For more information about the the Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment, check out the Vote Yes! website at http://www.yesformn.org. Click on "FAQ's" at the bottom of the page for some great information about the amendment.

Thanks in advance for your help in seizing this incredible opportunity to leave a healthy Minnesota to future generations! Please spread the word!

Tales of Rivalry at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Border

Have you ever noticed those cement structures that poke up on the east side of the river, just north of the Lake St. Bridge? It’s the remnant of a long-fought battle between Minneapolis and St. Paul. No, it’s not some 19th century battalion, although it does traverse the border between the two cities. It’s all that remains of the first lock ever built on the Mississippi River.

The Meeker Island Lock and Dam was built in 1907 and dismantled in 1912. An ironic finale to a century-long quest to tame the Mississippi River Gorge for steamboat navigation.

By the mid-1800s, the City of St. Paul marked the head of navigation on the Mississippi River and Minneapolis was on its way to becoming the milling capitol of the world. But each City envied the others’ glory and hoped to reap its own share of it from the river. Minneapolis’ quest to move navigation upriver was finally realized with construction of the Meeker lock and dam and another low dam and lock at the site of the current Ford dam in St. Paul. But even as they were being built, St. Paul was pushing for one high dam that could generate hydropower, and would flood out the Meeker project as a result. In the meantime, the milling industry was winding down, and the rest is history.

Well actually it’s all history, and I and 50 other folks were lucky enough to get the complete tale last weekend during the Meeker Island Lock & Dam Ruins Interpretive Tour led by Dr. John Anfinson. John is a Historian for the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area – a unit of the National Park Service that runs through the Twin Cities. If you missed the Meeker tour, look for it again next Fall. John also gives a presentation about the Meeker story called “Rapids to Reservoirs,” with lots of great photos from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Of course it’s also a great time of year to explore the area on your own. The ruins can be accessed from East River Road at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Border. There is an old wagon road on the St. Paul side that was recently converted into a new trail, and there are iron steps that lead down from the Minneapolis side.

It’s also pretty cool to see the site from the water – sign up for FMR’s Gorge Fall Colors Paddle on October 11th and you can take it in riverside!

The Mississippi River Gorge Stewards Leadership Team

Volunteers have been working in the gorge for several years now, and while there are always some new faces at events, we definitely had a group of "regulars". We started thinking about how to put the knowledge, dedication, and experience of these seasoned volunteers to the best use in the gorge, as well as how to offer them greater opportunities for learning, greater responsibility, and a richer volunteer experience. With funding from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, the Gorge Stewards Leadership Team was formed!

Members of the Gorge Leadership Team were asked to commit to volunteering at least 25 hours in the gorge this year, including attending a 2-hour indoor and 3-hour outdoor training, and participating in at least 4 of the 6 team outings. The rest of the hours can be completed a variety of ways, such as participating in and assisting with public events in the gorge, tabling, speaking, or otherwise assisting with outreach. The team outings combine training with restoration work, and are directed by ecologist Carolyn Carr. The subjects Carolyn chooses vary, but there is an underlying focus on phenology and how things progress and change over the growing season. Team members are also helping to monitor different sections of the 36th and West River Parkway site, and contributing to written and photographic documentation of species and conditions present.

From the very first training session and at every team event since, this group has proven to be quite the inquisitive bunch! Full of great questions, and noticing even the tiniest bugs or weird bumps on plant leaves. One of the most exciting things about the team for me has been watching the interactions and overhearing tidbits of conversations, where folks are sharing the different knowledge, skills and experiences that they each bring to the team, and learning from each other as well as from Carolyn.

This is the first year for this exciting project, so we are learning as we go and tweaking little bits here and there. We have accomplished quite a bit so far this season, and hope to continue the project in years to come. Thank you to all of the Gorge Leadership Team members for all your hard work and dedication to the river, for keeping us on our toes, and for being such an inspiring group of people to work with!

Photos courtesy of Hillary Oppmann

Summer Blooms

The gorge is blooming! Check out these photos from dedicated long-time volunteer and Gorge Leadership Team member Tim Boyle. Can you identify these native plants? See even more great photos here.

This is an exciting and colorful time of year to go for a hike in the gorge, or have a picnic up at Giggly Hills and check out the prairie plantings.

New Prairie at Crosby Park!

There's a new prairie in town! Crosby Park in St. Paul now boasts a beautiful new interpretive prairie, thanks to the hard work of many volunteers last Saturday, May 31st.

These hard-working folks planted, watered, and mulched almost 1000 native prairie plants as part of a restoration project in partnership with St. Paul Parks & Recreation, funded by Capitol Region Watershed District.
This semi-formal section of the prairie planting will hopefully provide visitors with an opportunity for education about prairies and native Minnesota plants. To that end, name markers bearing the name of the species were placed by several plants, and new signage about this project and the importance of Minnesota's prairies is in the works.

The group was such a bunch of rock stars that we finished early with the planting, mulching, and watering, but many volunteers stuck around to remove invasive weeds (like giant ragweed and Canada thistle) from the adjacent area.

Volunteers will be needed throughout the season to help care for this new planting by weeding and other tasks, and to help prepare the rest of the site to be seeded in the fall. If you are interested in helping out with this project, contact sue through our contact form or at 651-222-2193 x14.

Photos courtesy of professional photographer Rikk Flohr, www.fleetingglimpse.com. For more photos from this event, click on this link.

Prairie Burn at Crosby

Thanks to a grant provided by Capitol Region Watershed District, FMR will be working with St. Paul Parks & Rec and lots of volunteers this year to plant an interpretive native prairie at Crosby Farm Regional Park.

The first major volunteer-powered effort will be to put in about 1000 native prairie plants in one section on Saturday, May 31st from 9:00 a.m. - noon. Several volunteer events will be held throughout the growing season to weed around the new plants. The remaining area will be seeded with native prairie seed in the fall. There will also be a guided hike in late summer to offer participants an interpretive look at the work that has been done, the different species that were installed, and the other sections of this beautiful park.

To prepare the site for this planting, St. Paul Parks & Rec conducted a controlled burn early last week. Controlled burns help manage and remove weeds, reduce the duff or plant litter layer, and return nutrients to the soil.

Keep watching the Events and Activities page of the FMR website for more info on all of the upcoming events at Crosby Park!

Spring at Crosby Park

Last Saturday morning I woke up and immediately looked outside, expecting to see an inch of snow on the ground and more on its way down. But there was no snow, no precipitation at all, and the sun looked like it was fighting to peek out! Good thing, since we had a birding hike at Crosby Park in St. Paul.

We had a fairly small group (I suspect because of the forecast), but a nice size for birding, and the good fortune of 3 guides. We saw about 40 species, including lots of warblers (yellow-rumped,
black-and-white, and palm to name a few), a ring-necked duck, a green heron, a broad-winged hawk, and a blue-winged teal.

In addition to the birds, spring woodland wildflowers were everywhere! I was thrilled to see lots of Dutchman's breeches in bloom. They are a small spring ephemeral with flowers that look like upside down pants hanging on a clothes line. There were also tons of marsh marigolds surrounding the pond, large-flowered bellwort on the hillside with their pretty yellow droopy flowers, and bloodroot back in the forest.

Later in the week I pulled garlic mustard with a group from Aveda at a site upriver from the marina at Crosby. The area we worked in was full of trout lilies, jack-in-the-pulpits, and wild ginger, as well as other beautiful little native wildflowers.

Native woodland plants complete their entire life cycle in the spring before the trees and shrubs really leaf out, and spring ephemerals then disappear entirely for the rest of the year. These plants are up against several formidable threats: garlic mustard, earthworms, and deer among them. So every plant I see in the woods seems like a sign of hope, a tough survivor fighting for life and winning - so far. It also is a reminder of why we and hundreds of volunteers work so hard to help them in their fight.

Drawdown Tours Revisited

On February 20th John Anfinson and David Wiggins of the National Park Service led several tours of the St. Anthony Pool of the Mississippi River after it had been drawn down 13 feet. If you weren't able to attend a tour, or if you did and want to relive it in a much warmer environment, check out these wonderful videos of the tour, provided by Andrew Busam of the Mill City Museum. The videos are full of beautiful footage, fascinating facts, and river lore, not to mention that seeing all those bundled up folks sure will make you happy it's finally spring!

First Garlic Mustard Pull of the Season

Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday afternoon for the Garlic Mustard pull!

An awesome group of 43 people turned out despite the rainy forecast and pulled a LOT of Garlic Mustard. We saw a few signs of spring too! The trees are starting to bud, there's a lot of bird action going on, and there's green peaking out from underneath all of the leaves on the ground as well.

A few of our volunteers took some Garlic Mustard home to test out some of the recipes we had available on site. If you took some home and missed out on the recipes, they can be found on the Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council's website.

Not all of us are fabulous chefs, and you don't have to be to help eat away our invasive species! The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden is partnering with Heartland Restaurant and Lucia's Restaurant and Wine Bar to give the Twin Cities a taste of Garlic Mustard. Throughout the months of April and May, both restaurants are featuring selections on their menus made with Garlic Mustard provided by Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden-- just be sure to call ahead to make sure it's on the menu.

For anybody who missed out (or those of you who made it and had so much fun that you can't wait to do it again), there will be another pull on Wednesday May 21st from 6-8pm. For more information or to register please visit Friends of the Mississippi River's events page.

Photos courtesy of Hillary Oppmann.

Earth Day Clean-up in Numbers

The numbers are in! The 2008 Minneapolis Earth Day Clean-up, which was held on Saturday, April 19th, was a huge success! There were 36 clean-up sites throughout Minneapolis, and 2859 volunteers came out and picked up about 22,500 pounds of trash!

FMR coordinated the site at West River Parkway and East 36th Street, and we had an incredible turnout - 370 volunteers! That's almost twice as many as last year!

The good folks at Peace Coffee provided us with some delicious coffee to start the day off right. Parkway Pizza generously provided a reward for the hard-working volunteers at the end of the event in the form of free pizza. Thank you, thank you, thank you to these wonderful sponsors!

The Minneapolis Rowing Club gave us a big hand by picking up trash bags and large pieces of trash from volunteers at the river so they didn't have to carry them back up the steep hill to the parkway.

We also had a great art activity provided by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Kids (and plenty of adults too!) could make their own butterfly, paint it with watercolors, and add little wire antennae.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this event happen, including MPRB staff, FMR staff and interns, the many sponsors and partners, and most of all, the volunteers!













Photos (except 2 of my own) courtesy of Peter Kastler.

Happy Earth Day!

The bloodroot are up in the gorge! Elizabeth Storey took this photo on Saturday about 200 paces south of the Oak Savanna interpretive sign along the Winchell Trail. I somehow managed to walk right past them without noticing! I was hoping to find some Dutchman's Breeches in bloom, but didn't see any. If anyone sees them, or has any other spring wildflower sightings in the gorge, let us know!

Top 10 Reasons To Come To The Earth Day Cleanup

I'm sure none of you need more of a reason to participate in the city-wide clean-up than celebrating Earth Day or caring for our community gem, the river gorge, but in case you did need a little extra incentive, here you go:

1. The forecast for Saturday is 65 and sunny! It's actually starting to feel like spring, and this is a great way to get out there and enjoy it!
2. A delicious caffeinated kick start will be provided for the early birds by the good folks at Peace Coffee!
3. You can join artists from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in making a miniature painting to honor the Earth! Images of plants and animals from the museum will be on hand for inspiration. Add a wish for the future, along with a postcard stamp to share it with your friends and family afar.
4. Those who stick it out until noon will get to chow on delicious Parkway Pizza!
5. Volunteers from the Minneapolis Rowing Club will be helping us out again this year, so you won't even have to haul your trash bags up the hill - they'll pick them up from you right at the bank of the river.
6. No pre-registration required! You just have to show up!
7. April 19th is the birthday of two FMR employees, and their birthday wish is for a clean river!
8. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board will have a free surprise for each participant. I don't even know what it will be - that's how much of a surprise it is!
9. Everybody is doing it! This year's cleanup has a whopping 36 sites - that's more than ever before!
10. Did I mention that it's an Earth Day celebration??

Let's give this gorge a good spring cleaning!

Spring Events

Spring time to a lot of people says tulips and daffodils, or perhaps baseball, or rain showers. To me, it says garlic mustard, and birding!

• Help remove garlic mustard from the river flats and the oak savanna in the Longfellow neighborhood in the Minneapolis River Gorge on two dates this spring: Sunday, April 27th from 1-3pm, and Wednesday, May 21st from 6-8pm. Garlic mustard is an herbaceous exotic plant invading many River Gorge areas and out-competing native spring plant species.
• There's still room available on a couple of our popular birding hikes in May! On Saturday, May 3rd from 8-9:30am, FMR is partnering with the Ramsey County Bird Festival on a birding hike at Crosby Farm Regional Park. No registration is required for this hike. FMR's own Land Conservation Director Tom Lewanski and Hastings Park Superintendent Kevin Smith will lead participants on a birding hike at Old Mill Park in Hastings on Saturday, May 10th from 7-9am .
• Also on Saturday, May 10th, from 10-11:30am, hydro-geologist Craig Larson and National Park Ranger Lyndon Torstenson will guide a geology hike through the river gorge in the Seward and Longfellow neighborhoods of Minneapolis to explore how this beautiful wonder, the only true gorge on the entire length of the Mississippi River, was formed.

For more details or registration information for these events, see our Events & Activities page on the FMR website, or contact sue rich at 651-222-2193.

Winter Watershed Workshop: Recap

With the snowflakes flying yet again today, it seems an appropriate time to do a recap of our recent workshop: Winter home and watershed care: Tending your house, yard, and river.

About thirty citizens gathered on an almost spring-like evening at St. Paul's Saint Anthony Park Library to discuss the environmental impacts of snow and ice removal, as well as plan for watershed-friendly lawncare with native plants, rain gardens, composters, and more.

Katie Schonhorst and Connie Fortin of Fortin Consulting, Inc. explained the variety of products and chemicals used to remove snow and ice, and the environmental impacts of each. They then offered tips for the least harmful ways to deal with snow and ice.

If you weren't able to make the workshop, or were there but want some refreshers, here are some resources on the information they covered:

• The MWMO's educational page on winter snow removal for homeowners
• Info on different types of deicers
• Environmental impacts of road salt and salt alternatives
• Effects of road salt on groundwater

Then we started thinking spring! We talked about a variety of things homeowners can do in their yard and garden to protect water quality, including lawncare, rain gardens, rain barrels, native plants, composting, and more.
Some great resources covering these topics include:

• Wisconsin DNR's Rain Gardens - A how-to manual for homeowners (PDF)
• The Blue Thumb program, and particularly their Plant Selector
• Reduce.org's page on lawns and gardens, which includes info on composting, fertilizer and pesticide use, mowing, and landscaping
  

Thanks again to the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization and the City of St. Paul's Department of Public Works for making this workshop possible!


Photo courtesy of Katie Schonhorst, Fortin Consulting, Inc.