By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
This summer as I flew over Minneapolis, I looked down fondly at the chain of lakes that beautifies this tidy, progressive city. My second hometown.
I noticed the surrounding land was lush and green. And so were many of the lakes. Wait a minute: The lakes themselves were more green than blue, ringed in pea-soup of algae that was closing in fast on the open water at the middle. This algae-green, sickly green mess set off alarm bells.
I suspected that all those lake-dwellers residing on their hard-fought real estate were sullying the waters by collectively dumping tons of fertilizer on their neat green lawns, which created a super-rich, even toxic runoff. This was hugely ironic, because these striving homeowners had moved there so they could boat, swim and engage in the state sport, fishing fer walleye. Yet their pursuit of the picture-perfect lake house retreat was poisoning the natural environment.
