Interesting. One of my first introductions to these induced swamps was doing a site for a retail building in Moose Lake, MN. The city required a ‘rain garden’ be part of the plan, and the state DOT had volumes of plans and specifications for rain gardens...which I thought was very odd, considering Minnesota’s reputation for lakes...but somewhat expected given the strangely liberal (Hubert Humphrey etc) slant of Minnesota.
So to hear that they are spraying for mosquitos still is quite surprising.
I grew up in the deep south, and thought we had a lot of mosquitos...but one year we took a month long camping trip through Michigan and into Canada, and back down through Minnesota. I learned real quick that mosquitos thrive up north...but I would have to say, during that particular summer, Michigan had Minnesota beat in the Mosquito misery index. It was awful.
I was surprised myself when we first moved out to the west metro. I’m in the most conservative part of loony MN which was planned on our part. I guess some sanity still reigns in our area. Good, common sense people live here and everyone lives near a body of water. It’s beautiful but the skeeters are BAD!