The new executive director of the Cannon River Watershed Partnership (CRWP), Gordon Cumming, will address our next General Membership meeting on Tuesday, May 4, at 8 a.m.

Open to the public, the meeting will be held in the lower-level conference room of the Archer House at Third and Division streets downtown. We’ll have the coffepot on and treats available.

Cumming, a 1995 graduate of St. Olaf College, lives in Rochester, Minn., where he worked most recently for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. He earned his master’s degree in environmental policy, regulation, environmental sociology and environmental ethics at Oregon State University.

Founded in 1990 by local citizens, the CRWP works with many agencies, organizations and individuals to protect and improve the water and natural resources of the Cannon River watershed.

If you’re wondering what CRWP has to do with downtown, this is what Ross Currier will tell you, “People may not think about the health of the Cannon River as a ‘downtown issue,’ but we believe that good parks, a clean river and low levels of pollution are as essential to the well being of downtown Northfield as a strong business climate is.”

Board members on the CRWP include citizens from Northfield, Dundas, Randolph, Faribault, Owatonna, Red Wing, Waterville and Waseca. The Cannon River watershed is 1,462 square miles and includes all of the land, lakes, rivers and streams that drain into the Cannon River. The largest tributary to the Cannon is the Straight River.

Join us on May 4 and bring lots of questions. Northfield began on the banks of the Cannon and it’s still the heart of our town.