“When I walk around now, I notice all the water moving sideways,” said the retired social worker. Now he sees the rest of the story: sheets of rain rolling off roofs, streaming across parking lots, cascading across sidewalks and driveways, gushing down streets to spill into storm drains. He’s one of two dozen volunteers getting a new perspective on water because of classes to become Master Water Stewards, the first program of its kind in Minnesota. Modeled after the Master Gardener and Master Naturalist programs, it trains and certifies a cadre of people who can advise their neighbors about ways to improve local water quality, one property at a time. Stormwater runoff carries fertilizer, bacteria, salt, dirt, litter, leaves and other pollutants directly into creeks, lakes and wetlands. Water runoff is “a huge problem, and because [it] comes from everywhere, the solution has to come from everywhere,” said Peggy Knapp, director of programs at the nonprofit Freshwater Society near Lake Minnetonka. “What we’re trying to do is develop leadership at the neighborhood level and have those leaders reach out to their neighbors.”
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