Clean air, clean water, and land free from toxic substances are keys to quality of life and fundamental to the health of our citizens, especially children. As a Green city, St. Paul will work to reduce all local sources of air pollution, including automobile traffic and coal-burning power plants. It will eliminate lawn chemicals that poison the Mississippi and will follow up on the great step it made in separating the storm and sanitary sewer systems by constantly monitoring and upgrading its waste-treatment facilities. But there are factors that St. Paul alone cannot wholly control: agricultural chemicals from upstream farms pollute the Mississippi, while mercury and fine particulates from unregulated power plants to the west contribute to its increasing number of air-quality alerts. These will require active work on the state and national level.