City Water Education Partnership – Carver County Water Management Organization
April 2025 Water Education NewsLink
Clean up after your pets!
Always pick up after your pets, whether on a walk, at a park, or in your own backyard.
Pet waste can contribute to poor water quality and human health issues. In fact, pet waste is one of the leading causes of pollution in urban watersheds. Also, many cities have ordinances making it is unlawful not to pick up pet waste.
The Environmental Protection Agency classifies dog poop as a pollutant, and for good reason. As carnivores, dogs have diets rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen is commonly used as a fertilizer for our plants, but the concentration of nitrogen in dog poop is so great that it can damage plant roots and stunt their growth. If dog poop gets into lakes and rivers, the high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus can also cause algae blooms, which suffocate other aquatic life and make our lakes, streams, and ponds unhealthy and unenjoyable.
Pet waste is also a haven for dangerous pathogens and parasites, including E. coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Giardia, roundworms, and tapeworms, and may contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which can spread to humans and are much more difficult to treat.
If left on the ground, pet waste can make its way into storm drains during rain storms. This water does not go to wastewater treatment facilities for decontamination. Anything that gets into stormwater runoff has a direct path to our waterways, including all those excessive nutrients and nasty pathogens.
March 2025 Water Education News Link
Rain barrel and compost bins available! Rain barrels must be ordered online from the Recycling Association of Minnesota. Select Carver County as your pickup location and use code “carver20” to receive $20 off. Rain barrels will be ready for pick up in May.
Compost bins are available at a discounted price of $56 from the Carver County Environmental Center now.
February 2025 Water Education News Link
The sun in out and the pavement is warming up.
If you have leftover salt sitting on bare pavement, sweep it up. Salt on bare pavement isn’t doing any work. Sweeping it up prevents it from getting blown, washed, or tracked elsewhere and ending up in our lakes, rivers or groundwater causing chloride pollution. Save the salt in a container to be used in the future.
In Minnesota, 68 lakes and rivers are over the state standard for chloride and 75 more are at risk. In Carver County, staff are seeing increasing trends on chloride concentrations in 19 lakes monitored. High chloride levels are toxic to fish, aquatic insects, and amphibians, and harm the aquatic ecosystem. It doesn’t take much – just one teaspoon of salt contains enough chloride to permanently pollute five gallons of water!