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"Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space."

Ansel Adams

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Featured Outdoors Articles

Avoiding Snowmobile Crashes - Safety Tips And Avoiding Injuries
There are approximately 13,000 reported injuries due to snowmobile accidents in the United States each year. Additionally, there are over 100 deaths due to snowmobile crashes each year. Some deaths are the result of the operator being pinned under the ...

Dog Training Tips
Dog Obediance Tips... Training your dog can be time consuming and frustrating at times, but it's well worth it. Here are several tips that should help things go much smoother and faster... plus reduce the frustration both you and your dog feel! Conduct ...

Hobby Psychology
Happiness is the culmination of small amounts of success. You will inevitably not be successful at everything you try to do. Also, if you measure your success by extreme standards, such as accomplishing some great and important task then you will likely ...





The Many Uses Of The Functional Wetland.
 
Article intro: In a recent City council meeting that was held in a small city in northern Wisconsin, a developer was trying to present a plan. This development plan included approximately 16.4 acres of wetland.

In a recent City council meeting that was held in a small city in northern Wisconsin, a developer was trying to present a plan. This development plan included approximately 16.4 acres of wetland. He was trying to sell the development to the City Council with the consideration of recent changes of the Department of Natural Resource’s stormwater requirements.

According to EPA’s National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report, prepared under Section 305(b) of the Clean Water Act, urban stormwater runoff and discharges from storm sewers are a primary cause of impaired water quality in the United States.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources answer was a program called Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (WPDES). The ultimate goal of WPDES is to prevent the transportation of pollutants to Wisconsin’s water resources via stormwater runoff.

Part of the requirements of WPDES is the replacement of traditional curb and gutter that is typical with street construction to be replaced with shallow grass swales and retention ponds. The concept of this plan is to slowly release the stormwater back into the wetlands through the natural soil filtration. Traditional curb and gutter generally takes all the water collected and dumps it into the rivers without natural or synthetic filtration.

Some of the concerns of the City Council about this type of development were children and the swales, mosquitoes, flooding in basements, sidewalk construction and off-street parking.

To the environmentalist, it is a start of water, soil and wildlife conservation. To the city dweller, it


takes them out of a bug free concrete habitat into unfamiliar natural ecosystem. And to the developer it is a double edge sword. One side is that they can’t fill in the wetlands to sell more lots. But then on the other side they reduce development costs by using natural sources instead of expensive concrete stormwater control applications.

The EPA estimates urban storm sewer discharge contributes to 13 percent of impaired rivers, 18 percent of impaired lakes, 55 percent of impaired ocean shorelines and 32 percent of impaired estuaries. With this back to natural water filtration outlook the deteriorating water supply could gradually be turned around.

Sources:
City of Medford Committee of the Whole Meeting Minutes 5/31/05
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources web site.
EPA National Water Quality Inventory: 2000 Report




Outdoors News



Outdoors calendar -- Published May 23, 2012
Stockton Record
By The Record Go Outdoors - Bass Pro Shops at 1356 Bass Pro Drive in Manteca is offering free classes for adults to enjoy the outdoors. At 6 pm, hiking basics; 7 pm, campfire cooking; 8 pm, kayaks and canoes. Information: (209) 825-8400 Festival ...


Outdoors: Minnesota will hold two wolf hunting seasons; 6000 licenses offered
77Square.com
MINNEAPOLIS -- Details of Minnesota's first wolf hunting and trapping season released Monday didn't please everyone. Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, said limiting the season that opens Nov.

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Upgrade your outdoor space and increase value of your home
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By (ARA) (ARA) - Whether you are looking for a way to increase the marketability of your home, or simply looking for a way to make your outdoor space more enjoyable, a deck remodel adds living space to your home and value to your house.

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Outdoors: Walleye fishing aces tackle iconic Mille Lacs in Minnesota
77Square.com
Larry Blaske pulls a keeper walleye from Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota. (Dennis Anderson/Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT) ON LAKE MILLE LACS, Minn. -- The evening campfire had not yet been lit, around which Larry and Griz and a half-dozen others would bask ...

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Celebrate the great outdoors
Payson Roundup
Payson's third annual Arizona Mountain High Games is a celebration of the great outdoors in the Rim Country. It is also part of the state's official ongoing festivities marking the 100th anniversary of Arizona Statehood. The event has been sanctioned ...

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