State asks Minnesota Residents to weigh safety & environment when salting slick surfaces

Slippery roads and sidewalks are a big risk in wintertime, and there’s no better way to deal with them than adding a little salt. But for every action, there is a consequence, and when all that salt is added up, it’s having an impact on lakes and rivers. That’s what our Eastern neighbors in Minnesota

Read & Share   sourced from: InForum

Flaring in North Dakota causes thousands of hospital visits, costs millions in medical expenses, study finds

North Dakota has made improvements in the amount of natural gas flared as a result of oil production, but the impacts on those living closest to the activity are still significant.  Patrick Springer writing at The Dickinson Press has the full story on the down-wind health costs that researchers suggest are tied to flaring.

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For some northern climate greens growers, winter doesn’t halt their harvests

Fresh produce from Minnesota in December? No, it’s not a joke. From passive-solar powered greenhouses to hydroponic container farms, demand for local produce is inspiring small farmers to innovate. And in a place like Minot that has no shortage of cold and an economy built on agriculture, this is a trend we need to watch.

Read & Share   sourced from: Dickinson Press

Does solar power still work in the depths of winter?

When it comes to sunlight hours, Northern geographies tend to get less sunlight hours than places further south, but the colder weather actually benefits energy transmission. Get the full story on solar effectiveness up here in the North at Inforum.

Read & Share   sourced from: Grand Forks Herald

Northern Plains tribes bring back their wild ‘relatives’

When the prairie was plowed up for farming generations ago, there were things lost that we didn’t know we had. Among those was habitat for species like the Black-Footed Ferret and the Swift Fox. Today, it’s the Native American tribes of the Northern Plains that are making intentional space for the reintroduction of these long-threatened

Read & Share   sourced from: Associated Press

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Why Recycling Isn’t the Answer to the Plastic Pollution Problem

Recycling is a juggernaut. It has been so ingrained as the solution to waste management that we’ve failed to recognize that it’s just not very effective. For example, in a typical recycling program, only 15% of plastic actually gets collected for recycling. After collection, about 40% of the collected amount is discarded for poor quality.

Read & Share   sourced from: Nature

Oslo, Norway is Further North Than Us, But Far Less Frigid

WDAY Meteorologist John Wheeler explains it in the Inforum article linked below. But basically, Oslo (and the rest of Western Europe) get that warm Atlantic Ocean air. Here in North Dakota, we get a lot of that air that isn’t warmed up by the ocean. The result: places that are a lot further North with

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The US is about to make opioid addiction treatment much easier

When it comes to opioid addiction, the U.S. has a staggering, heartbreaking problem. In 2021, our nation lost 109,000 people to overdoses. For 2022, the forecast is to see that number go down only slightly. To deal with the issue, Congress is expected to get the red tape out of the way. Get the full

Read & Share   sourced from: Quartz

Army Corps greenlights $2.2 billion plan to stop coastal Louisiana from washing away

The Corps of Engineers working to restore the natural, delta-building characteristics of the Mississippi River. Southern Louisiana is one of the most man-made environments around because for hundreds of years, we’ve been diverting and containing the lower river. It’s an expensive, ambitious project with the goal of righting past wrongs. It’s also not without risks

Read & Share   sourced from: Star Tribune

RAWA Bill Dies Amid Crypto Tax Disagreement

It was known as the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, and it was the first major conservation bill that had traction since 1973. Its $1.7 billion annual funding was to be covered by closing a loophole that allowed crypto exchanges to escape taxes typically paid on other investments like stocks and bonds. Get the full story

Read & Share   sourced from: Quartz

RAWA: If Not Now, When?

Biodiversity on the prairie is on the decline; threats to it are rising. More than 115 species are at risk of extinction. RAWA stands for the Recovery of America’s Wildlife Act, and according to Ricky Klaverkamp, writing at News Dakota, it’s an important bill for North Dakota and the time to act is now, before

Read & Share   sourced from: News Dakota

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Can a vaccine for cows slash methane emissions?

Do cows need a methane vaccine? Probably not. Do ranchers need a methane vaccine for cows? Maybe yes. Cows eat grass and the microbes in their stomachs turn a bunch of that biomatter into methane. It’s a problem because methane is bad for the environment, and there are a lot of cows on the prairie

Read & Share   sourced from: Fast Company

Daycares in Finland Built a ‘Forest’, And It Changed Kids’ Immune Systems

It’s known as the ‘biodiversity hypothesis’. The thought is that environments with lots of living things positively impact our natural immunity. In Finland, researchers took it to the next stage, experiment and testing — they redeveloped daycare playgrounds to include natural green space. Then they sent the kids out to play and tested their markers

Read & Share   sourced from: Science Alert

5 Things Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About Agriculture (and why it matters)

There’s a notion out there that farming is old-fashioned. But just because the vocation has been around for a few thousand years, doesn’t mean it’s opposed to innovation. It’s just the opposite, and we probably wouldn’t have food to eat today if the agriculture sector shunned new technology. But it’s possible Silicon Valley, our current

Read & Share   sourced from: Entrepreneur

Election day is over and guess what?

Tom Dean is a 75-year old physician who practices medicine in rural South Dakota. The virus is raging through his community; it claimed his father and ten others in the local nursing home. It all has him wondering what it will take to bring us together? Read his full commentary on The Washington Post.

Read & Share   sourced from: The Washington Post

Trinity Hospital Costs & Completion Date Updated, Estimated Price Now Above $500 Million

In an internal exchange email sent this morning (included below) to employees of Trinity Health, hospital administrators released revised cost estimates of the new medical campus under construction in Southwest Minot. The project, which is now being managed by JE Dunn Construction, has been plagued by contractor turnover as well as a construction-stopping explosion in

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