DNR Aquatic Habitat Restoration and Enhancement - Phase 7
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) will complete one fish passage project to reconnect reaches of habitat for fish and other aquatic life and restore reaches of two rivers, creating over nine miles of diverse habitat. The footprint of fish passage projects is small, but the Bucks Mill project will reconnect 6,200 acres of lake and river habitat. Stream projects were selected from a statewide list, prioritized by factors such as ecological benefit, scale of impact, urgency of completion, and local support.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MNDNR) annually updates a statewide list of stream habitat projects. Submissions come both from MNDNR staff and from partner organizations. Projects are prioritized based on scale-of-impact, urgency, local support, and critical habitat for rare species. Based on this list, MNDNR and our partners are proposing to complete one fish passage project and one channel restoration, leveraging $1,615,100.
Access to different habitats is critical for fish and other aquatic organisms to complete various life stages. The habitats they use to spawn, live as juveniles, over-winter, and feed as adults may all be different. These habitats can be fairly unique, such as high-gradient riffles favored by many spawning fish and may be miles apart. When dams or other obstructions prevent aquatic life from reaching ideal habitat, they are forced to use less optimal locations that can reduce their success. In some cases, this leads to the complete loss of sensitive species upstream of a barrier. Modifying or removing the barriers through our proposed fish passage project would have a footprint of one acre but create upstream access to 6,200 acres of lake and river habitat. This will benefit fish such as Walleye, Northern Pike, and Lake Sturgeon present in these rivers, as well as five mussel species classified as threatened or special concern.
Streams naturally form habitat through the meandering of the river. Deeper, slower habitat is created by scour into the bed of the river around the outside of bends, while faster water and a rockier bottom is found in the straight sections in between. Wood, overhanging vegetation, and boulders serve as cover and current breaks for fish. In degraded sections of river, these natural processes are disrupted. Some reaches have been artificially straightened, preventing the meandering that forms diverse habitat. In other places, streams have become surrounded by tall banks that prevent high flows from spilling out onto a floodplain. When floods are trapped within the stream channel, the river erodes the banks. This not only mobilizes tons of sediment that degrades downstream habitat, but results in a wide, shallow channel during low-flow periods that is avoided by adult fish. Working with partners, we will restore over 9 miles of habitat in two streams. These restored reaches also will connect reaches of quality habitat.
Department resources for stream habitat work falls short of the need; funding from the Outdoor Heritage Fund has been critical to an acceleration of stream habitat work by the department and partners. Funding for two stream habitat specialist positions are included in this proposal. These positions provide critical technical assistance, and construction oversight to partners working on Legacy-funded stream restoration and enhancement projects. These two positions focus on partner led projects and rarely work on projects funded through this proposal. The remaining positions included in this proposal work directly on projects funded through this request. These positions improve coordination efficiency by providing single points of contact and enhance outcomes of aquatic habitat projects through technical expertise.
$4,206,000 the second year is to the commissioner of natural resources to restore and enhance aquatic habitat in degraded streams and aquatic management areas and to facilitate fish passage.
Improved aquatic habitat indicators - For the Boy River Dam project, warmwater fish communities will be assessed before and after project completion.
Rivers and streams provide corridors of habitat including intact areas of forest cover in the east and large wetland/upland complexes in the west - The Roseau River channel restoration project in this region will improve in-channel and riparian habitat. We will use metrics that evaluate instream and floodplain habitat to assess our success. For the Bucks Mill Dam project, we will compare warmwater fish communities before and after project completion. We will also compare catch rates for critical species before and after project completion as indicators of population density changes.
Rivers, streams, and surrounding vegetation provide corridors of habitat - The Cascade Creek channel restoration project in this region will improve in-channel and riparian habitat. We will use metrics that evaluate instream and floodplain habitat to assess our success.
The South Branch of the Buffalo River and Lac qui Parle River channel restoration projects in this region will improve in-channel and riparian habitat. We will use metrics that evaluate instream and floodplain habitat to assess our success. For the Northcote Dam fish passage project, we will use routine fish surveys to gauge changes to the fish community, and compare with pre-project data
Red River Watershed Management Board, Buffalo Red River Watershed District and Watershed Management District Funds