Green Activity Surges in Eastern SD

Hippie Communes Sure to Follow

Progressives, take heart! As spring begins to bring forth green on the ground and in the trees, it also appears to be eliciting more green behavior from residents of our fair domain.

• Monday's Madison Daily Leader showed a photo of the installation of Madison welder Craig Van Hove's homemade wind turbine on the roof of his shop. Rather than the typical tall tower with three long blades spinning in a verticalcircle, Van Hove has designed a windmill shaped more like an anemometer inside a broad, flat can, which funnels the wind to blades that spin in a circle parallel to the roof.
• The Knight and Carver wind-blade manufacturing company has officially opened over in Howard, promising as many as 50 good green jobs in the next couple of years.
• The Interlakes Water Quality Committee won from the City Commission Monday a resolution supporting the use of zero-phosphorus lawn fertilizer throughout the city. Phosphorus is one of the major causes of the pungent algae blooms our local lakes experience in the summer, and fertilizer is the major source of that phosphorus.

So, potential progressive entrepreneurs and relocaters: don't be fooled by our all-Republican state government or the Fox News feed on our local city-promotion website (yup, it's still there). Lake and Miner County may not be a hippie haven (yet), but there are plenty of folks working to do good things for the earth.