Recently, I went to Belle Plaine to help with a Minnesota River cleanup effort. The DNR and the city of Belle Plaine along with other organizations worked all morning to pull old tires, scrap metal and other items out of an old junk yard site. Paul Nordell of the 
DNR, seen in the photo on below, directed the effort on Saturday.
Over the last fifteen years the DNR along with the help of volunteers has pulled hundreds of thousands of tires and tons of material out of this abandoned junk yard in effort to clean up the river valley. In addition to being unsightly the scrap is dangerous and continues to be a concern for mosquito control. I enjoyed working with the volunteers from Belle Plaine, New Ulm and other communities who care about cleaning up the Minnesota River Valley