COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2017
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
VOL. 34 NO. 30 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
TRUTH IN TAXATION: Marine on St. Croix meeting set for Dec. 6. PAGE 6
Scandia student debuts in Guthrie Theater’s 'A Christmas Carol' Scandia Elementary sixth grader Ben Ross is making his Guthrie Theater debut during this year’s performance of “A Christmas Carol.” The play opened Nov. 14 and will continue through Dec. 30 with Ross playing the roles of Peter Cratchit, School Boy, Fezziwig Dancer and Street Boy. Ross auditioned for the play in August and received a call back for the various roles.
Up against 50 other boys ages 7 to 13, Ross completed the process and was selected for the part of Peter Cratchit. “When I got the email saying that I got into the Guthrie, I was so incredibly happy and then when I found out my roles I was thrilled, thankful and tickled,” Ross said. Melanie Ross, Ben’s mother, was also excited to find out Ben had SEE ROSS, PAGE 2
JENI O’BRIEN
All the lutfisk they could eat Dan Lee, left, won the lutfisk eating contest at Elim Lutheran Church Thursday evening. The pile of fish left on the plate of Mayor Christine Maefsky, right, serves as a reference for just how much he managed to put away. The Lutfisk Dinner, which also boasts meatballs, lefse and other traditional Scandinavian fare, is a fundraiser for the Gammelgärden Museum.
At St. Croix Watershed Research Station, questions lead to answers — and action BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
Ask why. And when you’ve found your answer, dig deeper. That’s the path that leads scientists at the St. Croix Watershed Research Station, slowly and methodically, to answers. Their work on the sediments of Lake Pepin, for example, has revealed the story of modern Minnesotans’ impact on waterways. “All the materials being flushed down the Mississippi as well as the St. Croix and Minnesota all end up meeting together
in Lake Pepin,” explained director Jim Almendinger, who took the helm at the research station in August. “Because it’s a lake with low flows, all that sediment — and materials attached to that sediment — fall out into the lake sediment.” To find a record of environmental history for the Upper Mississippi Basin above Pepin, they cored the lake sediment. “It showed indisputably the large impact we’ve had on the ecosystem since urbanization and agriculture,” said Almendinger. “We could go back in time far enough to get to pre-set-
tlement times, the early 1800s, and compare what the natural rate of sediment accumulation was then with what it is now and realize we’ve impacted erosion by at least a factor of 10. So the lake is filling in 10 times faster than it would naturally.” The next question, of course: Where is the sediment coming from? To answer that, Shawn Schottler, a scientist at the St. Croix Watershed Research station, learned to fingerprint sediments using radioisotopes. SEE WATERSHED, PAGE 7
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Scandia Elementary sixth grader Ben Ross makes his Guthrie debut in “A Christmas Carol.”
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