New Approaches Needed for Water Quality Gains in the 1990s

In the land of 15,000 lakes, 91,944 river miles and a trillion gallons of ground water, the summer of 1988 saw the unlikely come to pass. The mighty Mississippi dropped to less than one-tenth of its normal flow. Crops withered, grass turned brown, and well pumps burned out in the most hellish heat wave since the 1930s. While the drought was primarily an issue of insufficient water quantity, it also served to focus additional attention on water quality. Water quality concerns are not new to Minnesota, which has led the nation in protecting the environment for two decades. Nonetheless, the drought has prompted us to take stock of how far we have come in protecting our waters, and where we need to go from here