Environmental News

MPR News is your source for environment news from Minnesota and across the country.

Getting to Green: Minnesota’s energy future

Getting to Green is an MPR News series that shares stories about Minnesota’s clean energy transition, including what needs to be done to get there.

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Invasive lupine, a lovely lightning rod on Minnesota's North Shore
Many people along Minnesota's North Shore eagerly await early summer when huge fields of lupine bloom along roadsides. But the flower is not native to the state, making it a beautiful, but controversial species.
Supreme Court limits EPA in curbing power plant emissions
In a blow to the fight against climate change, the Supreme Court has limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. 
Minnesota given more than 700 acres near the St. Croix River
Hundreds of acres of woods and wetlands, including three miles of St. Croix riverfront, join preserved public land in an east-central state forest, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Trust for Public Land announced Tuesday.
Four Minn. cities get state money to study petroleum leak sites
Paynesville, Alexandria, Blaine and Foley will hire a consultant to analyze whether leaded gasoline contamination poses a risk to their water supply.
Did the historic flooding on Rainy Lake this summer have to be so bad? 
The historic flooding on Rainy Lake this summer has been driven by record-setting spring rains that fell on top of a late-melting winter snowpack. But many residents believe that more could have been done to prevent the worst impacts of the flooding. 
Wind energy is helping fuel rural economies
A recent study found local incomes rise by around 5 percent and home values by 2.6 percent in areas near large wind projects.
North Dakota farmland purchase tied to Gates stirs emotion
The sale of a couple thousand acres of prime North Dakota farmland to a group tied to Bill Gates has stirred emotions over a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms and raised questions about whether the billionaire shares the state’s values.