Lake Sarah is a regionally significant lake and currently suffers from excess phosphprus levels. Loretto Creek, located partially within the Cities of Medina and Loretto, is Lake Sarah's east tributary carrying approximately 269 pounds of phosphorus to the lake each year. This is a joint project between the Cities of Loretto and Medina developed for the Loretto ballfields to address this problem.
The Lost River requires ongoing protection efforts to reduce harmful runoff entering the watershed. A primary element of this project involves providing project development and technical assistance to a producer who owns approximately 1/3 mile of Lost River frontage. Severe erosion and feedlot conditions compromise water quality in this area. The restoration of this jeopardized area will be accomplished through buffers, streambank restoration and livestock exclusion.
St. Louis County's Comprehensive Water Management Plan Update 2010-2020 identifies providing financial assistance to qualifying homeowners to upgrade or replace failing septic systems as a Priority 2 action. Funds from the FY-16 Clean Water Fund Projects and Practices Grant will be used to provide funding to low-income homeowners to repair or replace SSTS identified as Imminent Threat to Public Health (ITPH) within the following watersheds: Lake Superior South, St.
This project is designed to reduce sediment in the Wild River River based on a state approved plan (TMDL). The estimated water quality benefits completed by this project are 12,980 (120 truckloads) tons of soil saved per year, which will assist in reducing turbidity impairments downstream on the LWRR.
The Master Water Stewards (MWS) program will install pollution prevention projects on both residential and commercial properties and educate citizens in their neighborhoods to reduce urban runoff and nutrient loads. Community leaders who have been identified, educated and certified as Stewards, will lead projects.
It is critical to train new staff, create modeling protocols for new BMPs, refine and calibrate models, and test ever-advancing modeling applications. The Metro Conservation District?s (MCD) Sub-Watershed Analysis (SWA) program provides these capacity-building services and unites efforts across 11 SWCDs. MCD proposes to analyze an additional 15 subwatersheds. The analyses will identify the location and estimated cost/benefit relationship for BMPs, evolve with new technology, and share discoveries metro-wide.
Through a long standing partnership, this project will continue to implement a process formalized with a 2010 Clean Water Fund Grant to conduct stormwater sub-watershed assessments. The goal of the sub-watershed assessments is to accelerate water quality improvements by focusing efforts in high priority areas. Specifically, subwatershed assessments are a tool used to identify the most effective urban stormwater conservation practice by location.
This project will create a culvert inventory database for county and township roads in the southwest portion of St. Louis County that contains the St. Louis River watershed. Data will be used by the County Public Works Department to identify and prioritize stream crossings in need of replacement or increasing upstream storm water retention to reduce the potential for culvert failure during large runoff events, factoring in stream health (fish habitat and passage, sediment transport and hydrologic connection) while protecting infrastructure.
This grant will fund the creation of a new Coordinator position with a primary focus on the Mille Lacs Lake subwatershed. Although not currently impaired, the Lake faces increasing development and land use pressure. Implementation of protection strategies is essential to the Lake's long-term health but current staffing does not allow sufficient time to be spent on project development and outreach to identify interested landowners.
The Miller Hill Mall, a regional shopping destination located in the City of Duluth, is the largest contiguous impervious site in the Miller Creek Watershed. The draft Total Maximum Daily Load Study identified heated stormwater runoff as a major contributor to the creek's excessive heat loading problem, which negatively impacts the creek's native brook trout population. The Mall, along with eight other entities in the watershed, was assigned a reduction goal as part of the effort to address the temperature problem in this creek.
This grant will restore a section of Miller Creek, an urban trout stream located in Duluth, that was straightened many years ago back to its natural channel. The original channel had a lot more sinuosity, or, curviness, than it does now and the straightened creek suffers from erosion and warm temperatures illsuited for trout.
The purpose of this project is to conduct a subwatershed assessment of that part of the City of Minneapolis that is within the Shingle Creek watershed. This subwatershed drains to three Impaired Waters: Crystal Lake, Ryan Lake, and Shingle Creek. The assessment will identify the most feasible and cost-effective best management practices for retrofit in this densely urban, fully developed subwatershed. The project includes workshops with neighborhood organizations to help them educate residents and organize implementation projects.
The City of St. Louis Park, in partnership with the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, is proposing to re-meander a portion of the creek using funding provided through the Clean Water Fund. The affected section of Minnehaha Creek was straightened when development first came to St. Louis Park in the early 1900s. At that time, wetlands were filled and the stream channel was
altered to allow for industrial development around the creek.
Both Minnehaha Creek and Lake Hiawatha are on the State Impaired Waters List and have had Total Maximum Daily Load Studies completed. The proposed work would focus on park land along Minnehaha Creek which is a highly-recreated corridor with public trail systems throughout. In 2014, the District experienced record flooding resulting in substantial erosion and tree loss along Minnehaha Creek. In 2015, the District completed an assessment of flood damage and received FEMA funding for bank repair at 31 sites along the Creek within Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board property.
A 5.8-mile shoreline assessment completed in Summer 2020 along the Mississippi River shoreline in Brooklyn Park comprehensively surveyed erosion issues and identified numerous riverfronts severely eroding into the river, contributing significant sediment and nutrient loads. The report catalogued these properties and identified a set of properties west of Banfill Island as the most critical and cost-effective for restoration.
The Riley-Purgatory-Bluff-Creek Watershed District and the City of Eden Prairie are working together to implement projects to remove Mitchell Lake from the impaired waters list. One key emerging issue is to evaluate potential internal phosphorous loading within stormwater ponds in the lakes? subwatersheds. This project will also use updated pond data from the city?s intensive pond inspection program to identify other phosphorus reduction opportunities. The proposed assessment will quantify formerly undocumented P loading to Mitchell Lake.
This project will develop a plan that identifies several stormwater best management practices (BMPs) for the City of St. Bonifacius and surrounding rural areas. Implementation of these BMPs will improve water quality in Mud Lake and Halsted's Bay. A watershed model (EPA-SWMM and P8) will be developed to determine existing phosphorus and sediment loading from the City of Bonifacius and adjacent rural areas draining to Mud Lake. Model output will be used to identify several potential locations for stormwater BMPs throughout the city and surrounding areas.
This project will consist of retrofitting a dry storm water basin, constructing a new pre-treatment cell, creating new wetland, and reconfiguring the existing inlets and the outlet for better water quality treatment. This project is specifically identified in the Twin-Ryan Lakes TMDL.
The District is seeking to further its goals of meeting multipurpose drainage management requirements under its obligations as a 103E drainage authority. Judicial Ditch 1 is the largest system in the District, and proportionally one of the largest contributors of sediment and nutrients to the downstream reaches of the North Fork Crow River.
The Nine Mile Creek watershed is a highly developed, urbanized watershed located in southern Hennepin County. The natural infiltration capacity of soils in the watershed has been diminished by significant coverage with hard surfaces such as streets, parking lots, and buildings. This leads to more rainfall making its way more quickly to Nine Mile Creek. As a result, Nine Mile Creek has experienced stream bank erosion and instream habitat loss due to increases in storm water runoff resulting in the creek to be listed on the State of Minnesota impaired waters list for biotic integrity.
This project engages private property owners in a neighborhood scale effort to install up to 180 stormwater Best Management Practice (BMPs) to protect Lake Nokomis, a water body in Minneapolis impaired for excess nutrients. An analysis of the Lake Nokomis subwatershed identified priority areas for BMP installations based on drainage pattern, land uses and presence of previously-constructed BMPs. The project will install 160-180 BMPs adjacent to alleyways to disconnect residential backyards, rooftops and driveways on 15 residential blocks.
The North Fork Crow River Watershed (NFCRWD) is mainly agricultural and has numerous public and private drainage ditches. Sub-surface drainage are major contributors to the sediment and nutrient loading into the North Fork Crow River and area Lakes. This project help reach the Rice Lake phosphorous reductions goals. Local landowners are willing to contribute land on public drainage systems to retain water and restore wetlands at three locations with total anticipated yearly pollutant removals of 200 tons of total suspended sediment and 235 pounds of phosphorus.
The primary land use within the North Fork Crow River Watershed District is mainly row crop agriculture with extensive public and private drainage systems. A large portion of existing tile lines have open intakes that directly transport sediment and nutrients to open ditches leading to the North Fork Crow River (NFCR). The NFCR flows into Rice Lake that is impaired for aquatic recreation due to excessive nutrients.
The North Fork Crow River Watershed planning workgroup has based its comprehensive watershed management plan on seven planning regions. Each planning region has a list of prioritized resource concerns, measurable goals and implementation actions. Implementation actions are targeted in locations within each planning region, prioritized based on local concerns, programs, etc.
The North Fork Crow River Watershed District will develop an inventory and inspection database for 103E ditches under their drainage authority. The district will acquire a database software solution to conduct field inspections and to track ditch maintenance projects throughout the district. This software will be used to facilitate statutory compliance including developing a process for completing annual inspection and reporting requirements.
Northern white cedar wetland plant communities provide unique ecological, economic, and wetland functions, including high value timber, long-term carbon storage, winter refuge for deer and other wildlife, wildlife habitat, and thermal buffering for brook trout streams. However, these plant communities have been declining in Minnesota for decades mostly as a result of development impacts. The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources is using this appropriation to continue efforts aimed at improving the quantity and quality of white cedar wetland plant communities in Minnesota.
The MWMO , City of Minneapolis and Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board are partnering to implement stormwater projects that reduce pollutant loading to the Mississippi River, reduce flooding and improve ecological function. Three regional Best Management Practices are being proposed in the northern portion of Columbia Golf Course, in Northeast Minneapolis, capturing and treating stormwater from 600-acres of mixed urban landuse.
The Northwood Lake Improvement Project will treat storm water runoff from over 110 acres of currently untreated urban land through a variety of practices at two different locations adjacent to the lake. Northwood Lake is an impoundment of the North Branch of Bassett Creek located in the City of New Hope within the Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission (BCWMC). Northwood Lake is a shallow lake with a fully developed watershed of 1,341 acres that provides very little stormwater treatment.
