Trevor Russell

DuPont recently announced the opening of the world's largest cellulosic biofuel facility in Nevada, Iowa. The plant, which uses corn stover (the stems, stalks, leaves and husks of the corn plant) to produce ethanol, aims to produce approximately 30 million gallons of fuel per year. And it might not be good news.

FMR, along with our friends at Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) and the Lake Pepin Legacy Alliance, will soon file an amicus brief in support of a recent lawsuit charging the state with failing to adequately control pollution to the Mississippi River. The lawsuit, filed by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), faults the state for doing too little to protect the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin, and calls into question the state's plan to allow the "big five" metro-area wastewater treatment plants to increase their phosphorus pollution into the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin by 35%.

One of FMR's top priorities during this year's legislative session was passage of Governor Dayton's much-discussed Buffer Initiative. While a substantially revised (and watered-down) version of Governor Dayton's proposal did become law, implementation of the law will be critical to its success.

Earlier this month, Governor Mark Dayton signed an executive order creating a Governor's Committee to Advise the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). While the new group, which will consist of eight members plus the MPCA Commissioner, won't have the same authority as the recently abolished MPCA Citizens Board, the committee creates an important a forum for public input on environmental decision-making by the agency.

Following the chaotic end of the 2015 regular legislative session, the conservation community rallied to build public support for a veto of a highly controversial environmental bill: the Omnibus Environment and Agriculture Bill.

While Governor Dayton is to be commended for his veto of the original bill, a renegotiated bill surfaced during the recent legislative special session and was passed with many of the same dirty water provisions that were in the original bill.

Overall, the Omnibus Environment and Agriculture Bill remains one of the most anti-clean-water measures to come out of the state legislature in recent memory, and includes an especially egregious repeal of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens' Board.

Send Governor Dayton a message asking him to veto the Environment budget Bill.

Following a disappointing and chaotic end to the 2015 legislative session, the conservation community is asking Governor Dayton to veto a highly controversial environmental bill. The bill makes deep cuts to environmental spending (24.3%), contains numerous rollbacks to environmental policies, and includes last-minute language violating a universal agreement on biofuels policy.

While the legislature's compromise on a modest stream buffer proposal was among several positive outcomes this year, funding for both the buffer initiative and UofM Forever Green cover crop research failed to pass before the clock ran out. As a result, a special session is almost certain to be scheduled in the coming weeks.

Minnesota's recently released report, "Swimmable, fishable, fixable? What we’ve learned so far about Minnesota waters", highlights Minnesota's watersheds at the halfway point of our 10-year monitoring cycle. The results show that about half of Minnesota's waters are unfit for safe swimming and fishing.

Prompted by a federal lawsuit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced plans to review the safety and efficacy of antibacterial products (including environmentally risky antibacterial soap) used in the medical industry.