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VADNAIS HEIGHTS: Events scheduled for April PAGE 13
Ramsey County opens new environmental center for residents BY MADELINE DOLBY EDITOR
Ramsey County, residents will be able to utilize a new environmental center located in Roseville beginning on Tuesday, April 1. Beth Carreno, environmental health program supervisor for Ramsey County, recently provided residents with information about the new environmental center. An environmental center is a facility used for the collection of recyclables, food scraps and household hazardous waste. The Roseville location will accept household hazardous waste and electronics, household recycling and scrap metal, food scraps and plastic bags and plastic wrap. It will also include a free product reuse room for residents to utilize and a space for community education. “We want it to be a ‘one stop shop’ CONTRIBUTED for recycling The new Ramsey County and disposal Environmental Center will be located at 1700 Kent St., services,” explained Roseville. Carreno. “It does include food scrap and electric waste. I will say, however, it’s not going to be a yard waste site.” She added that the new environmental center will also serve as the permanent location for the county’s Fix-It Clinics. Ramsey County has actively incorporated sustainable, energy efficient and eco-friendly features to the site and building. These efforts include geothermal and solar energy features, native plantings throughout the site, and recycled materials to help create landscaping features such as a paved walking trail around the on-site stormwater management point. “We are using both geothermal energy and solar energy,” Carreno explained. “The building is about 92% net energy, so 92% of our SEE ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER, PAGE 10
Council moves forward with parking lot project BY SHANNON GRANHOLM MANAGING EDITOR
WHITE BEAR LAKE — If the project continues to move forward, visitors to downtown may have to find a new spot to park starting in August. “We are at the dropdead date. If we don’t move forward now, it could not be a 2025 project,” said Public Works Director/City Engineer Paul Kauppi. Mayor Dan Louismet said he was eager to get
going on the broader downtown reconstruction project. “We have been limping it along for a long time. I want to move forward with (the parking lot project), and I see this as a necessary predicate to doing that, hopefully in 2026.” The City Council directed city staff to order the plans and specifications for the downtown parking lot reconstruction project in 2025. The downtown street project is expected to take
place in 2026. The projects came out of the downtown parking and mobility study (See “Steering committee will present parking, mobility study to council” Jan. 8, 2025.) Four parking lots are proposed to be included in the project, including Lot 1 (Third Street and Banning Avenue), Lot 2 (Fifth Street and Banning Avenue), Lot 3 (Fifth Street and Cook Avenue) and Lot 4 (Fifth
ERIK SUCHY | PRESS PUBLICATIONS
The revised layout for Lot 2 would gain approximately 15 stalls but would require the removal of the four mature oak trees. New trees will be considered.
SEE DOWNTOWN PARKING, PAGE 7
Finding lake ice openings
PAUL DOLS | PRESS PUBLICATIONS
A pair of swans recently found some open water near remaining ice cover on White Bear Lake near the Matoska Park shoreline and Manitou Island bridge.
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