Karen Terry.

Karen Terry, Extension Educator, Fergus Falls, 218-998-3927

Karen is originally from Indiana and attended both Butler University and Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis. She came to Minnesota in 1988 to attend the University of Minnesota in St. Paul where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Fisheries and Wildlife. For over 14 years, Karen has worked with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource’s Stream Habitat Program as a river ecologist. In this position, she did research, field surveys, and environmental education. She joined Extension in January 2006, as a Regional Extension Educator in Water Resource Management and Policy at the Fergus Falls Regional Center, working with the Shoreland Education Team.

Natural Resources and Environment educators will again be participating in the 2006 Lake Home and Cabin Show, Friday April 21 – Sunday April 23 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Shoreland Education, Septic Systems, Trees and Woodlands, and Housing Technology experts will be available to answer your questions as you check out our hands-on exhibits and displays. This year, we will have a kiosk set up where you can purchase our books, DVDs, and the revised 2006 Lake Home and Cabin Kit. Once again, the 2006 Lake Home and Cabin Show will be a great place to get all the latest information from the University of Minnesota Extension Service.

Val Were, Outdoor Corps Coordinator, 612-624-7430

Since 2003, Outdoor Corps, a University of Minnesota Extension Service program, has been empowering high school students to meet environmental stewardship needs in their communities. Under teacher supervision, students participating in the program sample lakes in their communities and apply the science and math skills they’ve learned in their classrooms to real-world situations. All students and teachers are compensated for their time.

Outdoor Corps services are provided to lake associations and communities for a fee. In 2005, two sampling packages were available. Clients could opt for a basic package including water transparency, dissolved oxygen, and pH profiles, or order a complete sampling package: profiles and chemical analysis of total phosphorous and chlorophyll-a.

Three adult supervisors and ten high-school students worked during the 2005 summer sampling season in Benton, Stearns, Cass, Crow Wing, Kandiyohi, and Meeker counties (Figure 1). Samples were collected at a total of 32 sampling sites on 29 lakes. In addition, water samples were collected at a majority of the lakes and sent for total phosphorous and chlorophyll- a analysis at A.W. Research Lab in Brainerd.

Outdoor Corps will continue in 2006. For more on the program and its activities, please visit them on the web.

Tana Haugen-Brown, Technical Advisor, Sherburne County Extension, 763-241-2723

Sherburne County Master Gardeners, Extension and NRCS staff, a local girl scout troop, and other community volunteers helped create the new rain garden at Orono Park in Elk River last summer. The rain garden, which features 48,000 plants, will serve as a natural infiltration system to catch stormwater and control run-off to Lake Orono, located just to the east.

Rain gardens have been shown to slow and reduce the amount of undesirable run-off reaching our lakes and rivers, capturing pollutants such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and organic matter that can affect water quality in lakes and rivers. Plants in a rain garden help by absorbing the extra water and runoff and increasing infiltration. Varieties native to Minnesota that are able to adapt to periodic flooding and saturation were used in this garden.

Habitattitude logo.

Doug Jensen, Minnesota Sea Grant Program, 218-726-8712

Do you own an aquarium? How about a water garden? In either case, what do you do with unwanted plants and animals? A new national public education campaign called Habitattitude™ can help provide solutions to this problem.

Many of us have done it– it seems simple and kindhearted enough. We may have disposed of aquarium fish, plants, snails, crayfish, frogs, or turtles by releasing them into local waters, flushing them down the toilet, or maybe allowing them to escape. However, such actions can lead to untended and serious consequences. Once released, non-native plants and animals can displace native species, harm habitats, and negatively impact the recreational and economic value of our lakes and property.

Aquarium fish, even if they are not predators like the notorious northern snakehead that has caused problems in the Potomac River, can carry diseases that can kill native fish. Invasive plants can clog waterways and impede recreation by snagging boat propellers. Recent examples of fish and plant releases in Minnesota waters include piranha, pacu, water hyacinth, water lettuce, Amazonian catfish, koi, goldfish, yellow iris, even a cayman!

Habitattitude encourages aquarists and water gardeners to help avoid such problems by promoting simple actions when faced with an unwanted aquatic plant or fish.

These include:

• Contact a retailer for proper handling advice or for possible returns.
• Give or trade with another aquarist, pond owner or water gardener.
• Donate to a local aquarium society, school, or aquatic business.
• Seal aquatic plants in plastic bags and dispose in the trash.
• Contact a veterinarian or pet retailer for humane disposal guidance.
• Know state regulations regarding these alternatives.

Habitattitude was launched in fall 2004 to help prevent the release of unwanted aquarium fish and plants. Minnesota Sea Grant is co-leading the campaign on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Sea Grant Network and in collaboration with the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Habitattitude’s logo and ‘don’t release’ message are appearing on fish bags, new aquaria, brochures and other print media, newsletters, and ads in hobbyist magazines across the country. The campaign’s Web site, www.habitattitude. net, provides resources to campaign partners and consumers.

Minnesota Sea Grant is leading efforts to evaluate the campaign. Results of a 2004 pre-campaign mail survey conducted in two communities each in Minnesota and Pennsylvania show that over the last three years consumers released unwanted aquarium fish, plants, crayfish, snails or turtles a total of 43 times. Only 20% of consumers were aware of laws or regulations concerning release of aquarium or water garden species. Importantly, most aquarists and water gardeners viewed releases as preventable and an environmental problem. Congruent with these attitudes, over 90% agreed that the Habitattitude campaign’s logo and messages were acceptable, easy to understand, attractive, positive, and clear. A follow-up survey is planned for 2006.

Campaign partners will continue to staff booths at trade shows, give presentations at society and club meetings, as well as meet with state, federal, and tribal agencies throughout the Great Lakes and beyond to broaden partnerships. This campaign is supported at the highest levels of government: President Bush’s response to the Ocean Commission Report identified Habitattitude as a model partnership between industry, government, and academia. Currently, over 50 entities are partners.

Look for Habitattitude coming to pet stores and nurseries near you. If you are a member of an aquarium or water garden society or club, please consider joining the campaign. To join, visit the Web site above, contact Minnesota Sea Grant, or the University of Minnesota Extension Service.

2005 Gardening Conference.

The 2005 State Master Gardener Conference was held in Brainerd on September 16-17. Three tours highlighting local efforts were offered as part of the conference. Extension Educator Jackie Froeming from Crow Wing County participated in the “Waterside Wonders of Crow Wing County,” a tour that spotlighted four properties where shorelines have been restored.

Jackie Froemming is the new technical advisor in water resource management and policy and horticulture for the University of Minnesota Extension Service in Crow Wing County. Jackie has master’s degrees in biology from the University of Texas at Austin and from the University of Puerto Rico. Jackie will work with shoreland volunteers, shoreland property owners and local lake associations. She will also coordinate the Master Gardener Program in Crow Wing County. You can contact her by e-mail or by phone at 218-824- 1068.

Barb Liukkonen, Water Resources Education Coordinator, 612-625-9256

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is leading revision of Minnesota’s Nonpoint Source pollution Management Plan Program (NSMPP), which identifies needs; outlines technical, regulatory and educational responses; and guides grant funding priorities. This is a revision of the existing plan created five years ago. The goal is to bring it up-to-date, acknowledging new issues and needs, and incorporating advances in management techniques and opportunities. You can find the existing NSMPP on the MPCA web site.

Committees including state and regional agencies, the university, and local partners are working on different chapters in the document (e.g., lakes, rivers, groundwater, etc.), with a goal of having a review draft by late fall and a final draft that will be submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2006. Hopefully, both the EPA and state will approve the plan by summer 2006 so it can be posted on the Web and available for guiding 319 grant funding in autumn 2006.

Steve Heiskary and Pam Skon are leading revision of the lakes chapter. I am serving on that committee, together with Dave Wright, Department of Natural Resources; Dan Steward, Board of Water and Soil Resources; Pat McCann, Minnesota Department of Health; Paula West, Minnesota Lakes Association; Randy Anhorn, Metropolitan Council; Mark Zabel, Minnesota Department of Agriculture; and others. In addition to updating existing sections, we’ll be adding material on nutrient standards, advances in remote sensing techniques, toxic algal blooms, volunteer monitoring, bacteria, phosphorus fertilizer requirements, and several case studies. Our Big Sandy shoreline revegetation project will be included as a case study. It was originally funded with 319 funds and has been in place for nearly eight years, so offers a good opportunity to assess the longer-term success of revegetation projects.

From 2002-2004, Mary Blickenderfer and I received 319 funds to train volunteers to initiate and maintain revegetation projects; we were able to apply for those funds because the need for increased shoreline revegetation was prioritized in the NSMPP. With the $48,000 grant, 1,128 people from 41 different Minnesota counties attended 51 workshops during the three-years. Over 65,080 square feet of shoreland were revegetated through local projects or as part of a hands-on planting workshop.

Ron Struss, Regional Extension Educator, Farmington, 651-480-7708

Have you bought your first bag of phosphorus-free lawn fertilizer? Was it easy to find, or was the store clerk befuddled when asked for lawn fertilizer with a “zero in the middle?”

Since January 2004 in the Twin Cities metro area, and January 2005 in the rest of Minnesota, the use of phosphorus lawn fertilizer has been restricted. For everyone except sod farms and golf courses the law is straightforward: Do not use lawn fertilizers containing phosphorus unless your soil is low in phosphorus or you are seeding a new lawn. The law is for water quality protection; the nutrient phosphorus spurs growth of algae in lakes and rivers.

The new law presents two challenges for those caring for lawns: 1) Finding phosphorus-free lawn fertilizer, and, 2) knowing whether your lawn is low in soil phosphorus. The first challenge of finding phosphorus-free fertilizer has been solved in the Twin Cities metro area. It is difficult to find a store selling lawn fertilizer that does not offer a good selection of phosphorus- free products, including “weed & feed” combinations. It is anticipated by next season the same will be true state-wide after old fertilizer stocks are depleted and new orders are adjusted for 2006.

As for knowing whether a lawn is low in soil phosphorus and in need of phosphorus fertilization, soil testing provides the best answer. Both private laboratories and the University of Minnesota offer soil testing for lawns. Contact your local agricultural supply store for laboratory names, or the University of Minnesota Soil Test Lab at 612-625-3101. A soil test costs about $15.

For additional information on the Minnesota Phosphorus Lawn Fertilizer Law, go to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Web site look under “Lawn Care and Water Quality.” Also, educational material on lawn care and water quality is available in the “Tools” section of http://www.cleanwatermn.org.

Barb Liukkonen, Water Resources Education Coordinator, 612-625-9256

Our Shoreland Education Program was presented as part of a special session on Great Lakes outreach at the International Association of Great Lakes Research conference held in Ann Arbor, MI, May 23-27. Our talk entitled, “University of Minnesota Shoreland Education Program - Creating Shoreland Stewards,” summarized our workshop offerings, educational materials, research and demonstration sites, highlighted the work of shoreland volunteers, and summarized the accomplishments and impacts of the program over the past several years. Cindy Hagley submitted the abstract and Barb Liukkonen prepared and gave the presentation; Eleanor Burkett and Mary Blickenderfer were co-authors.

While at the conference, Barb and Cindy attended many talks that gave us new insights and ideas for shoreland work in Minnesota. There were concurrent sessions on toxics, aquatic invasive species, bacteria monitoring and contamination, cormorants, blue-green algae and botulism, land use impacts, remote-sensing, and other outreach programs. It was an educational and energizing three days!