Watching the tall ships float through the Duluth-Superior Harbor this summer reminded me of how much we depend on our natural environs. The wind that filled the ship’s sails and the water on which they rode are critical but fickle partners in their journey.

The large sailing ships may be no more than a novelty today, but the health of Lake Superior is still critical for our communities.

"As parents’ awareness of potential toxins in the home has grown in recent years, so has their anxiety. Minnesota has helped lead the way to regulate worrisome chemicals, and federal reform may be next."

The article quotes Clean Water Action organizer Kim LaBo, speaking with concerned parents at a recent event in St. Paul. "We're operating in this virtually unregulated environment," she says. " We have 80,000 chemicals put into products, and less than 10 percent have been tested. There is an opportunity coming out that would really change how we do things in the United States. We have a 30-year-old law. It's broken. It's not protecting our health."

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed a hold on approval of a coal-fired power plant in South Dakota, a move environmental groups say indicates increased scrutiny under PresidentBarack Obama.

"This is a signal that the Obama administration is taking a much harder look at coal power from the previous administration," said Darrell Gerber, a program coordinator at Washington-based Clean Water Action, which along with the Sierra Club opposed the plant.

Read the complete article at Bloomberg.com

Ken Bradley
MN State Director

“A web of pipelines has sprouted up throughout the Midwest, following the Great Lakes, moving all the way from the Dakotas to Chicago and Detroit. The Canadians have stumbled upon an estimated 1.75 trillion barrels of crude, arguably the second-largest usable oil reserve in the world.

"But it comes at a heavy cost, a price so large that one environmentalist remarked that in comparison to the nightmarish ramifications of the oil sands, offshore drilling is an 'environmental yawn.'

"‘It's just the most polluting new fuel we could bring into the economy,' says Ken Bradley of Clean Water Action Minnesota. 'It is horrible that we are even considering bringing it to the marketplace at all. We should be doing everything we can to stop it.’"