An environmental engineer working with University of Minnesota-Duluth researchers is looking for a less expensive solution to protecting wild rice from mining pollution in the state's Iron Range.
The Minnesota Senate has voted 38-28 to nullify a water quality standard that's meant to protect wild rice, a food central to the culture and diet of the region's Ojibwe Indians.
Minnesota regulators have asked the state's chief administrative law judge to reverse her rejection of their attempts to change the state's water quality standard for protecting wild rice.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency plans to make preliminary recommendations by the end of February on whether state standards to protect wild rice from sulfates should be changed.