Content Type: Blog Post

Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum)

Plant of the Month: Joe Pye Weed

By Marcy Bean For this month’s featured plant, I’d like to showcase Joe Pye Weed — one of my summer favorites. Before it blooms, the foliage has nice color and […]
August 8, 2016
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A Mississippi River Green Team member holds a dragonfly.

Catching Dragonflies with the Mississippi River Green Team

A typical day of a Mississippi River Green Team member consists of working in locations full of fearsome predators: dragonflies! Dragonflies are insects belonging to the order Odonata, meaning “toothed […]
July 26, 2016
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A dog owner picks up after her dog.

Why You Should Always Pick Up After Your Pets

Of all the pollutants that we find in our watershed, few are likely to provoke as much visceral disgust as E. coli bacteria. It’s easy to understand why: E. coli […]
July 20, 2016
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A rain garden in front of the East Side Storage and Maintenance Facility.

Watch Volunteers Build a Rain Garden in 79 Seconds

’Tis the season for building rain gardens — those bowl-shaped landscape features filled with native plants that help stormwater runoff soak into the ground. Rain gardens are an increasingly popular […]
June 30, 2016
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A Monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed

Plant of the Month: Milkweed

By Marcy Bean You’ve probably heard the buzz about planting plants that are good for pollinators. Milkweed plants are important because they provide nectar and food for larva of a […]
June 29, 2016
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an interpretive sign explaining one of the stormwater BMPs at the Columbia Heights Library

At the New Columbia Heights Library, a Stormwater BMP Showcase

Managing stormwater runoff used to be a rather unimaginative affair. You dug a hole in the ground, graded the land around it and — presto! — you had a stormwater […]
June 28, 2016
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A bee collecting pollen from a flower.

Gardening for Pollinators: Six Questions for Heather Holm

Pollinators are in the news — partly because it’s National Pollinator Week, but more importantly because whole populations of bee and butterfly species are in decline. Our food chain depends […]
June 23, 2016
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MWMO monitoring team members scout for erosion along the Nicollet Island shoreline.

How We Monitor Water Quality at the MWMO

Here at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, one of the most common questions we’re asked is, “How’s the water quality in the Mississippi River?” It’s an important question, and one […]
June 17, 2016
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Tamarack trees in the MWMO's tree trench.

Plant of the Month: Tamarack

By Marcy Bean Our front yard at the MWMO Stormwater Park and Learning Center is home to a tree that I had always heard of, but had never seen up-close. […]
May 19, 2016
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