Fish Lake Tile Outlet Mitigation

Fish Lake is a headwater of the Watonwan River. The lake is a regionally known fishery due to its unusual depth >20', lack of a mud bottom, and a naturally reproducing smallmouth bass fishery. The watershed has many tile drainage systems that are a source of nutrients to the lake. Woodchip bioreactors will be installed to reduce nitrogen from all tile outlets entering Fish Lake. This will help achieve the goal of a 40% reduction in Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) in the Minnesota River.
In addition to bioreactors, the project will install rock intakes on all open intakes in the watershed. This will provide initial filtering of the surface water and reduce sediment and phosphorus. Both practices can also provide limited water retention. Three grade stabilization projects will be installed to halt active gully erosion.
The Cottonwood and Jackson SWCD and county staff have held meetings to discuss timelines, drainage structures, volume of wood chips, and other engineering requirements. In addition to landowner meetings the project was presented at the Fish Lake Association annual meeting.
Engineering was completed in the summer of 2011 with implementation scheduled for the spring and summer of 2012.