I'm really glad Steven Anderson raised the point that leaves in the street
are more than just messy: they eventually get into the lakes and are major
contributors to algae blooms.
I've also had trouble figuring out how to tactfully tell a neighbor that
raking leaves into the street is wrecking the lakes. In that twisted
Minnesota-nice sort of way, I've found it a lot easier to write an email to
a big group, or a letter to the editor, than to lay a guilt-trip on my
otherwise eco-friendly neighbor.
The best approach I came up with was to get down in the
gutter....literally.....clean out the leaves in front of my house and then
just start working my way down the block in front of the neighbor's
house....Picking up a few piles in front of his house usually gets the point
across. (I don't think they worry about stuff like this in New York.)
But that illustrates the bigger problem of protecting the lakes from our own
yard practices. For years we have been hoping that public information
campaigns would be enough to stop people from raking leaves into streets,
and stop putting phosphorous on their lawns. Let's face facts: It hasn't
worked. If the City of Lakes is going to protect it's lakes...and the
river, and creeks...it's time for outright bans on harmful lawn chemicals
and fines for raking into the streets. We don't have a voluntary ban
against burning leaves in the street so why do we stand by year after year
and allow practices that are choking the lakes. This is especially damaging
for lakes like Powderhorn, which are not spring fed and are even more
dependent on water from their watershed.
(It would be nice to hear from someone in the city about why all these
leaves are left around this time. It seems to be until now the city has
been much, much better about cleaning the gutters in the Fall.)
R.T.Rybak
from down in the gutter
