National NEMO Network

Northland NEMO in the News

10/05 - NEMO: The New TV Show
10/05 - Northland NEMO Wins Merit in Planning Award
02/05 - Northland NEMO's "View from the Lake" Program is a Success
06/04 - Northland NEMO's New "Natural Resource Information" Educational Materials
03/03 - Northland NEMO Hires New Coordinator
10/02 - Two Minnesota Programs Grapple with Suburban Growth

10/05 NEMO: The New TV Show

Minnesota’s Lakes at Risk is a brand new television program about the impacts of development on lakes and the importance of long term investments to protect our valuable lake resources. The program talks about how increasing development, on the shoreline and in the watershed, impacts habitat and water quality. It goes on to discuss what citizens and local officials can do to restore and protect lakes.

The program (debuting October 30 on PBS’s Minnesota Channel in the Twin Cities) is based on Northland NEMO’s Linking Land Use to Lake Quality presentation.

10/05 Northland NEMO Wins Merit in Planning Award

Northland NEMO’s multimedia Guide to Using Natural Resource Information in Local Decision Making has been honored with a Merit in Planning Award from the Minnesota Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. In addition, the regional planning agency for the seven county Minneapolis/St. Paul area is using the guide to help communities prepare a required update of their comprehensive plans. The idea/inspriation for the guide came out of the NEMO Network’s 2002 Open Space Planning Boot Camp.

View the Guide online at www.dnr.state.mn.us/nrig/index.html.

02/05 Northland NEMO's "View from the Lake" Program is a Success

The Northland NEMO folks launched their “View from the Lake” program this past summer. Through this program they took land use decision-makers and other interested travelers on 21 different three hour tours (minus Gilligan) aboard a 60 foot tugboat. The boat trips provide a great opportunity to demonstrate the impacts of land use on water quality from a different vantage point. The program proved so popular, they are already receiving requests for next summer’s tours.

(bottom) Northland NEMO's Jesse Schomberg speaks with passengers aboard the L.L. Smith JR (Top).

06/04 Northland NEMO's New "Natural Resource Information" Educational Materials

Northland NEMO, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District are pleased to introduce two new products to help local communities incorporate natural resources into their activities:

The Brochure, "A Quick Guide to Using Natural Resource Information" and companion CD-rom "Guide to Using Natural Resource Information in Local Decision Making" are now available in hard copy from the DNR (see below) or in electronic form at the DNR's website: www.dnr.state.mn.us/nrig.

The Guide illustrates how using natural resource information in the local land use planning process can ensure that land use decisions are made in an environmentally sensitive and fiscally responsible way. It outlines a step-by-step Natural Resource-based Planning Process designed to provide planning guidance for people with a wide range of backgrounds and interests, including: local officials, local staff, concerned citizens, developers and other land use professionals.

The Quick Guide brochure serves as an introduction to the much more in-depth CD rom, which provides details about how to do a natural resource inventory, including where to find critical pieces of natural resource data that may already exist for your community.

The CD rom also includes numerous case studies of how communities have used natural resource information in a wide variety of ways.

For more information or to order the guide on CD ROM, contact: Julie Westerlund, Community Assistance Coordinator
e-mail: julie.westerlund@dnr.state.mn.us - tel. 651.772.7938.

3/03 Northland NEMO Hires New Coordinator
Northland NEMO hires new coordinator - Jesse Schomberg has been hired as Minnesota Sea Grant's new NEMO coordinator for the northern Minnesota region. This rock-climbing father of two will work with communities in the Western Lake Superior Basin spreading the NEMO gospel far and wide. Schomberg earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and went on to earn a master's degree studying aquatic invertebrates at Idaho State University. Jesse has already gone through the traditional NEMO initiatory activities (a painful but important team building exercise), being a participant in last fall's ISAT training. Join us in welcoming Jesse to the Network. (Special thanks to UMN Sea Grant Program for the photo and info on Jesse.)

10/02 Two Minnesota Programs Grapple with Suburban Growth
Article from the National Network Newsletter Fall 2002 issue.

When thinking of Minnesota, one's thoughts naturally drift towards sparkling blue lakes, verdant forests, gleaming fields of snow and professional wrestling. But more and more, NEMO is entering into the minds of native Minnesotans, thanks to the efforts of two Minnesota NEMO programs. With one based in the rapidly growing Twin Cities and the other in the Lake Superior region, the programs are focused on stemming the NPS tide caused by urbanization by promoting good land use practices. And they don’t need to wrestle their audience to get their message heard.

Heading the Twin Cities’ Northland NEMO effort is Jay Michels, director of the Minnesota Erosion Control Association. Jay is a veteran of the state Pollution Control Agency and has many years of experience dealing with the natural resource issues coming from land use development. "I was attracted to NEMO primarily because its message is so balanced," observed Michels. "The concept is not anti- or pro-development, but is really all about making good choices when planning for the use of the land."

The Northland NEMO program is made up of more than a dozen project partners who help deliver the message in various regions of Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Through this "network" of statewide partnerships, the program can quickly address the needs and land use issues specific to individual communities. The partners also support Northland's efforts either financially or through in-kind donations of time and resources. "The idea of the partnerships is to bring together other regional, state and private natural resource agencies and organizations to deliver a coherent and consistent message to the decision-makers and citizens of Minnesota," Michels points out.

Funding for this two-year-old project has come from two sources to-date: the Metropolitan Council, a regional planning agency to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and the McKnight Foundation, a philanthropic foundation of the 3M Corporation. In April, Northland NEMO was awarded a Clean Water Act section 319 grant that will take the program from the pilot stage to an expanded focus area 150-miles around the Twin Cities. Funds from the 319 grant will also support a project coordinator and the development of a series of educational modules on topics from low impact development and reducing impervious surfaces to landscape design with native plants.

Minnesota is unique in that there are two efforts in the state carrying the NEMO banner. A sister project, headquartered in the Minnesota Sea Grant office in Duluth, focuses on the bi-state Lake Superior watershed, specializing on the unique issues of lakeside development. The Lake Superior Basin NEMO program is partially supported by NOAA's Coastal Community Development Program. "We work closely with our colleagues in Duluth," says Michels, "to both support and strengthen our individual programs." Both programs just finished a one-day retreat to lay out a strategy to coordinate their efforts. The Lake Superior Basin Group has been working diligently on programs for communities in the Duluth area, Grand Marias, MN and Bayfield and Ashland, WI. They are also taking a new tack with the NEMO message by working closely with the timber industry to determine the effects of timber harvest.

When looking towards the future, Michels' outlook is bright. "We have had overwhelming interest in this program from our target audience. It is all we can do to just keep up with the demand!" But the Minnesota projects are gearing up to meet this demand, and are tracking the success of their work along the way. Already the programs are starting to see changes to local plans and ordinances and requests for more follow up information. Momentum is building, and with the help of their partner organizations and the close collaboration between the programs, NEMO will help Minnesota retain its natural beauty without a fight.