Editorial: Thumbs

To the quick cleanup and melting following this week’s snowstorm.

Nobody was happy to look outside Thursday morning and discover several inches of snow fell on the Albert Lea area. While we’re lucky we didn’t get as much as some forecasts called for, it’s still rough at this time of the year to see the grass in our yards get covered by more of the white stuff. Keeping that in mind, we’re glad the snow was cleared off quickly by city and state crews, and luckily, much of the snow has already melted. Hopefully by the end of this week, it will be gone for good. It’s too soon to say if that will be our last snow of the year though. Afterall, we do live in Minnesota.

 

To the purchase agreements approved for the dewatering site for the Fountain Lake dredging.

We are excited to see the dredging of Fountain Lake get a little closer this week when the Shell Rock River Watershed District’s board of managers approved separate purchase agreements with farmland owners Richard Stadheim and Larry Wangen for land north of Interstate 90.

The land will be used for what is termed a confined disposal facility. When dredging takes place on Fountain Lake, there will be a mixture of water and sediment pumped to the disposal site, and the CDF will be used to settle the sediment and siphon off the water.

Getting all of the pieces in place for the dredging is a long process. Though there are still several key steps remaining, we’re glad to see the district take a major step ahead with this purchase.

 

To new U.S. Census estimates for the state.

New U.S. Census estimates released this week show there were 185,669 more Minnesota residents in 2015 than there were in 2010.

Much of the growth is coming from the Twin Cities metro area. In fact, the Twin Cities’ population is growing significantly faster than other Midwestern metropolises, including St. Louis, Chicago and Cinncinati, according to a Minnesota Public Radio News article.

According to the figures, the seven-county Twin Cities area exceeded 3 million for the first time.

State demographer Susan Brower said much of the growth is coming from births, while only a fraction of the growth is coming from new people moving into the state.