News Topic: John Helland

News Topic(s): What's New  News!  John Helland  Environmental Education  

09/03/2010 - John Helland worked on environment and natural resource issues for the legislature, and now writes, blogs and enjoys leisure while watching from afar. He is now a proud grandfather, too.

I should have furnished this post two months ago, when a great exhibit at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum opened on famed artist Francis Lee Jacques.  I only had the chance to see it recently and, unfortunately for those that may want to visit, it closes at 5 p.m. this Sunday on campus.

News Topic(s): What's New  Water  News!  John Helland  Conservation Heroes  

08/16/2010 - One of Minnesota's finest environmental teachers, Cal Fremling, an emeritus professor of biology at Winona State University, unfortunately passed away last week.  He spent his lifetime learning and teaching about the Mississippi River, and was called one of the leading experts in the world on large river systems.

News Topic(s): Water  News!  John Helland  Events  

08/04/2010 - Minnesotans who value the outdoors and recreational options have a grand opportunity to help shape the Obama Administration's outdoor emphasis in a listening session here today from 4-7:30 p.m.  It will be held at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on the University of Minnesota campus as an outgrowth of this past Spring's national Great Outdoors Conference.

Our lakes and streams start three of the world's major watersheds - the Mississippi, the Red River of the North flowing to Hudson Bay, and the Great Lakes.    As an important headwaters state, we take seriously our responsibility to protect our waters, both for our own citizens, and our neighbors living outside our borders.

Although we are leaders in protecting freshwater, we also have miles of impaired waters in our rivers and streams.  We need to stress at the listening session that rivers and streams are the lifeblood of planet earth, and we cannot continue to have them clogged by pollution.

News Topic(s): What's New  Water  News!  John Helland  Climate  

07/12/2010 - It was most interesting to learn last week that the landmark Great Lakes Restoration Act passed out of an important senate committee in Congress, while at the same time researchers at the University of Minnesota - Duluth Large Lakes Laboratory found that the top layer of Lake Superior is twenty degrees warmer this July than in normal years.  This is a huge jump in warmer lake temps, a trend that has been occurring for at least a decade, and the congressional bill can't pass fast enough in order to curb continued threats to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

News Topic(s): What's New  News!  John Helland  

06/22/2010 - As a headwaters state, with the great Mississippi River flowing south to the embattled Gulf of Mexico, and the Red flowing north into Canada, we have a responsibility to be good neighbors by keeping our waters as pristine as possible.  Minnesota Public Radio had an excellent two-part article last week on the pollution of the tenth largest freshwater lake in the world - Lake Winnipeg - caused by Red River pollutants. Next