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NEWSLETTER / MAY 2022
 This month, the MWMO welcomed Kevin Reich, former Minneapolis City Council member and long-time MWMO board chair, as its new, permanent executive director.
Reich brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in land use policy, innovative infrastructure investment, and community empowerment to his new role at the MWMO.
Reich is ecstatic about his new job:
- “To again serve this incredible organization is deeply gratifying, and to do so even more closely with those who directly deliver the realization of MWMO’s important mission is truly inspiring,” he said.
Learn more in our news release.
 A pair of intersections in South Minneapolis will be getting some green upgrades, thanks to a grant from the MWMO.
The MWMO awarded a $210,000 grant to the City of Minneapolis to help rebuild the intersections of Franklin Avenue and Minnehaha Avenue, and 21st Avenue South and Minnehaha Avenue, with pollinator habitat and green stormwater infrastructure.
Both intersections are located within one of the cities designated Green Zones — areas that face “the combined impacts of environmental pollution and racial, political, and economic marginalization.”
The project will also create a unique opportunity for training and green jobs by using the vegetation installation and maintenance as a learning lab for local youth and nonprofit programs
Learn more in our news release.
NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center is having some unique landscape features installed this month: Modular subsurface flow wetland systems (MSFWS). These engineered wetlands will help capture and clean stormwater runoff at NorthPoint so that it can be stored underground and then used for irrigation outside the building as well as flushing toilets and urinals inside. See photos and learn more on our website.
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Children's Dental Services held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new expansion project in Northeast Minneapolis on April 26. The MWMO is providing funding for a permeable paver parking lot to capture and clean stormwater runoff. The ceremony featured children in adorably oversized construction helmets. The MWMO funded a similar project at another CDS location in 2016.
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Dudley Edmondson, author of Black & Brown Faces in America’s Wild Places, led a delightful MWMO-sponsored birding event at North Mississippi Regional Park in North Minneapolis. Participants were lucky enough to see a great-horned owl as well as goldfinches, warblers, tree swallows, an eastern Phoebe, and more. Check out our photos of the event and learn more about Dudley on his website.
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Mississippi River Stories, an art exhibit created as part of a collaboration between the MWMO, the University of St. Thomas Sustainable Communities Partnership and the Natural Heritage project, opened at the MWMO on April 23. A total of 16 visual artworks created by different artists and inspired by real-life river stories, it is currently on display at the MWMO and also available online as a virtual exhibit. (You can also see some photos from the open house.)
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 If you have a raingarden or native plant garden, now is the time to do your spring garden cleanup and prepare for a successful growing season.
We’ve created a blog post and a how-to video that cover the basics of spring maintenance for native plants. These will help answer questions like how much dead plant material to trim, how to identify and remove weeds, and how much new mulch to add.
If you’re a first-time gardener and feeling truly lost, you might also want to check out this clip from a new video demonstrating spring maintenance for tree trenches. It features some good tips for figuring out which plants are supposed to be in your garden and which ones aren’t.
 For this month’s installment of Meet the Commissioners, we sat down with St. Anthony Village Mayor and MWMO Board Vice-Chair Randy Stille.
Stille has decades’ worth of experience with land use issues — first in his private career in commercial real estate, then in his public service at the city, and now at the MWMO.
Read our full profile to learn about the MWMO’s groundbreaking projects in St. Anthony Village, the special partnership between the MWMO and the city, and why it doesn’t bother him when residents don’t know he’s the mayor.
MWMO Welcomes Projects and Planning Specialist Shawn James
The MWMO is pleased to welcome Shawn James to our team. As our new projects and planning specialist, Shawn will assist with managing our capital grant projects as well as our long-range planning initiatives.
Shawn was most recently a planner with the City of Bloomington. His previous employers include Landbridge Ecological, Pacific Community Design and the National Park Service. He also served in the Peace Corps.
You can learn more about Shawn on his bio page.
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Meet the Interns: Chloe Kahn
Summer interns play an important role at the MWMO, helping perform the day-to-day work of water quality monitoring while learning on the job. This summer, the MWMO is excited to welcome Eva Hanson, Chloe Kahn, Josephine Khan, and Wyatt Schulman as interns. We’ll be profiling one of them each month here in our newsletter.
Monitoring Intern Chloe Kahn is actually returning from a previous internship at the MWMO. She signed on to help our monitoring team fill in some gaps while we hire new permanent staff members. Chloe has a B.A. in Geology from Macalester College and is soon moving on to pursue a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design.
During her past internship at MWMO, Chloe was introduced to landscape architecture and found the field to be the perfect intersection of artistic creativity and sustainable action that her training and interests naturally led her.
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Personal Watersheds: Show Opening and Felting Event
 Saturday, June 18 at 10 a.m. - Noon — MWMO Stormwater Park and Learning Center
Join us for the opening of Personal Watersheds, an interactive fiber art exhibit and installation that celebrates the Mississippi River and our personal connections to it. Artist Sarah Nassif will share more information about upcoming workshops and open studio events, and attendees can participate in wet felting a life-size vagus nerve.
On view from June 18, to September 16, 2022, Personal Watersheds features artist Sarah Nassif’s solo work in fiber and video, her Weaving Water community collaborations and a working indigo dye and fiber art studio.
Please register in advance.
Share the River Nordeast
 Wednesday, June 22 at 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. — MWMO Stormwater Park and Learning Center
Join us for an evening of community, canoeing and cookies! Share the River Nordeast is back. Stop by anytime between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. for a free introductory canoe ride on the Mississippi River, then grab a free cookie and enjoy a variety of fun and educational activities at our Stormwater Park and Learning Center.
This family-friendly event is great for kids and adults of all ages. (Please note that you must weigh at least 30 lbs. in order to fit the provided life jackets.) In addition to learning to paddle on the river, participants will also have opportunities to learn about the Mississippi River’s history, water quality, plants, animals and more.
Find Out More
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