The Washington Conservation District (WCD) will use this program to engage homeowner associations (HOAs) within Washington County. The project will identify methods and opportunities for HOAs to commit to clean water management practices and prioritize stormwater retrofit projects within partnering HOAs. Project goals include engaging at least 20 HOAs within the county and conducting 2-3 focus group sessions with property management companies and HOAs to identify opportunities for and barriers to adoption of clean water practices.
This project will install nearly 800 linear feet of restored lakeshore with an emphasis on bioengineering techniques, native plants and locating buffers/swales at points of concentrated overland flow into Green Lake. By targeting properties that are eroding and/or with concentrated overland flow to the lake we will reduce suspended solids discharge by 16,697 lbs/yr and phosphorus by 1.3 lbs/yr.
This project is a collaboration between Blue Earth and Watonwan County. The two counties will share information, ideas and resources as they complete mining reclamation and wetland management plans to include in their local water management plans and comprehensive land use plans. Master plans for mining reclamation and wetland management will be used as guidance for planning and zoning decisions and implementing water management priorities that will enhance water quality protection and restoration efforts.
The Halvorson Streambank Stabilization site is located three miles north of the City of Thief River Falls on the Thief River. The Thief River is impaired for low dissolved oxygen and turbidity. A TMDL study began in 2010. These impairments affect fish spawning habitat, recreation and the drinking water supply of Thief River Falls. Studies show that 63% of the sediment in the Thief River is coming from the banks of the river itself. Stabilizing this bank will reduce the turbidity and low dissolved oxygen impairments.
The Hawk Creek Watershed Runoff and Sedimentation Reduction Project will improve and protect water quality through implementation of small-scale conservation practices within the watershed to reduce runoff and decrease movement of sediment and nutrients. Practices include streambank stabilizations, water and sediment control basins, grade/gully stabilizations, side inlets, alternative intakes, and buffer incentives.
This project is concentrated in the Hay Creek Watershed, a 24-square-mile area in Becker County that features several high-quality lakes including Stinking Lake, valued for high-quality waterfowl habitat and flood water storage. Protecting the lake has been a local priority.
The law also included a direct appropriation of $500,000 in FY2010 to Hennepin County for riparian restoration and stream bank stabilization in the county's 10 primary stream systems. The money is funding projects to protect, enhance and help restore the water quality of five streams and downstream receiving waters. Bassett Creek Plymouth Creek Nine Mile Creek Riley Creek Elm Creek
Once known for its clean water, fertile soil, and healthy habitat, in more recent times the Heron Lake Watershed in southwestern Minnesota has been heavily impacted by pollution from intensive agriculture, feedlots, non-compliant septic systems, and urban stormwater runoff. The Heron Lake Watershed District is using this appropriation for public outreach and installation and monitoring of water quality improvement projects aimed at reducing sediment and nutrient loading for the benefit of public health, recreation, and wildlife habitat.
The Hubbard County Community Partners Conservation Program will give community groups the resources necessary to build interest in, and awareness of, the water quality challenges facing their lakes and empower them to make positive improvements in the form of reduced stormwater runoff. Through the design of a collaborative effort, the Hubbard Soil and Water Conservation District and Local Water Plan Task Force will enable Hubbard County residents and lake home owners to work together to address the effects of development with stormwater runoff solutions.
The purpose of this project is to identify effective irrigation and nutrient management best management practices and technologies and the barriers that prevent irrigators, producers, and other agricultural partners from adopting them in Otter Tail County. The primary goal is to reduce nitrate in areas where groundwater is susceptible to contamination as mapped by The Minnesota Department of Health by identifying effective BMPs and addressing the barriers to their adoption.
Mower County has completed the first phase of their county-wide imminent public health threat inventory and are currently in the process of phase two. This project will fund the third phase which will allow Mower County to inventory over 1,400 sites and remove an anticipated total of 230 imminent public health threats from discharging to local waters or to ground surface.
In partnership with the Chisago Lakes Lake Improvement District, subwatershed assessments for the communities of Center City, Lindstrom and Chisago City, all within the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes watershed have been completed. The tourism economy of these communities depends on the Chisago Lakes Chain of Lakes.
In partnership with the Washington Conservation District and City of Woodbury, this project will improve water quality in Colby Lake through implementing 30 priority small-scale water quality conservation practices. Projects may include bioretention, vegetated swales and pond modifications. Priority projects were identified as part of the Colby Lake Watershed Retrofit Assessment and represent the most cost-effective means to reduce excess phosphorus loads that have impacted Colby Lake.
Green Lake is a popular and regionally significant lake. Monitoring data collected on Green Lake indicates that the lake's water quality is declining. Over recent decades, development in the City of Spicer and around Green Lake has increased dramatically, resulting in much higher percentages of impervious surfaces such as parking lots, driveways and roads. The resulting increase in runoff velocities and volumes require the incorporation of stormwater infrastructure to accommodate water that previously infiltrated soils.
This water quality improvement project involves the retrofit of county ditch #31 also known as Connelly Ditch. The capacity of the ditch is inadequate and there is a need to reduce sediment and peak flows to it.
The Crow River is known to be one of the highest nutrient loading watersheds in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. Years of water quality monitoring confirm a variety of water quality issues in drainage ditches. These include high nutrient loading and delivery of high levels of suspended solids to downstream receiving waters such as Diamond Lake which is negatively impacted for elevated phosphorus levels.
Agricultural drain tiles with surface intakes are considered a significant delivery mechanism of nutrients to Minnesota River. Protecting those surface water inlets can reduce the direct path those nutrients have to the river. In addition, in agricultural fields with subsurface drainage, leached nitrate creates elevated nitrate levels in tile drainage water. These high nitrate concentrations can cause algae blooms that remove oxygen. To help remove nitrates leached into tile drains, wood chip bioreactors can be installed to remove nitrate from the tile water before it enters surface water.
As the City of Wadena is being re-built after an EF4 tornado, it has become evident that more needs to be done to reduce runoff by retaining or diverting stormwater. The purpose of this project is to provide subgrants to citizens to install various conservation practices on their properties including grassed waterways, rain gardens and tree plantings. Through this subgrant program the citizens of Wadena will have a greater understanding of the importance of stormwater management.
The proposed project will be in conjunction with an improvement project to the 103E County Ditch 63 Lateral N (CD 63) system. The project will accomplish the construction of five water and sediment control basins (WASCOB) and five alternate intakes to replace open intakes within the CD63 system, which is the headwaters of Beaver Creek East Fork. The construction and installation of the conservation practices will achieve a reduction of sediment, provide temporary water storage, and reduce peak flows that allow sediment and phosphorus to directly enter impaired Beaver Creek East Fork.
Agricultural drainage is very prevalent practice in Dodge County and there is a need to implement practices to that will better manage flow and pollutant loads that are being contributed to nearby surface waters. This project involves the installation of a woodchip bioreactor on a tile-drained agricultural field, which will feature improvements in design, and monitoring scope, as compared to a previous bioreactor constructed in Dodge County in 2007.
Pasture and hayland account for 62% of the agricultural land use in Clearwater County. In 2012, it was the 12th largest producer of beef cattle in Minnesota. In a county where 22% of pasture/hayland acres are within 300 feet of riparian areas, management practices need to be introduced that enhance rather than restrict the farm operations that use these zones for their livelihood. Clearwater County's Silver Creek and Ruffy Brook are currently listed as impaired by fecal coliform.
Demand for Engineering services in Northeast Minnesota's nine-county Area III Technical Service Area is exceeding the capacity to deliver the needed services. There are increased requests from Soil and Water Conservation Districts for engineering needed to design and install Best Management Practices in part due to requests related to Clean Water Fund projects. These funds will be used to hire an engineer, which will increase engineering capacity and result in the completion of at least five additional projects per year.
The north-central Minnesota counties of Cass and Hubbard share large portions of the Crow Wing River, Leech and Upper Mississippi Watersheds, all of which play an important role in providing clean drinking water to over one million Minnesota residents. Each county assumes the responsibility of inspecting and evaluating the judicial and county ditch systems that drain directly into these watersheds. The two counties together share two judicial ditch systems and combined have an additional 42 ditches within their borders.
In collaboration with the University of Minnesota St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, City of Stillwater and MN DNR Waters and Fisheries an iron-enhanced sand filter will be designed. This filter will remove approximately 118 pounds of total phosphorous per year from an area of Stillwater that ultimately drains to the St. Croix River, a national Wild and Scenic River that has a decling water quality trend.
This project builds upon the success of the Minimal Impact Design Standards (MIDS) Community Assistance Package by working hands-on with up to 13 communities in the St. Croix River Basin to adopt ordinance and code revisions to incorporate MIDS stormwater quality and volume standards for new development and redevelopment.
The Middle Fork Crow River Watershed District will conduct a river assessment to determine the scope of eroding riverbanks and a stormwater modeling project to identify targeted locations for stormwater management. The river assessment will: 1) verify that streambank erosion is the major contributor of pollutants, including sediment, Phosphorus, and Nitrogen; 2) catalog and quantify the erosion, and; 3) provide an assessment of reductions that could be achieved using specific solutions.
Funds for RIM conservation easements build on Clean Water Fund (CWF) investments for restoration and protection projects that "stack" habitat and clean water benefits. Projects will be identified in watershed plans developed through BWSR's One Watershed, One Plan program, in which local governments strategically set priorities for clean water and habitat, target implementation, and set measurable goals. BWSR currently distributes CWF dollars to partnerships with approved plans for water quality projects.
Funds for RIM conservation easements build on Clean Water Fund (CWF) investments for restoration and protection projects that "stack" habitat and clean water benefits. Projects will be identified in watershed plans developed through BWSR's One Watershed, One Plan program, in which local governments strategically set priorities for clean water and habitat, target implementation, and set measurable goals. BWSR currently distributes CWF dollars to partnerships with approved plans for water quality projects.
This project will develop an inventory of the Chisago County public ditch system and significant tributaries, including record searching and field verification to identify and confirm locations of existing public ditches. This project will also identify, inventory and evaluate functions, purpose, and necessity of the Chisago County ditch system and determine legal status of ditches, rights, and responsibilities as defined in Minnesota Statutes 103E.
Project will focus on BMP's that reduce runoff and/or keep water on the land. The establishment of 8 native plantings on 153 acres using an approved 15 native species mix on marginal farm fields will significantly reduce runoff of sediments and nutrients, and act as a filter to remove nutrients and sediment from fields upslope. Based on RUSLE2 estimates, 336.6 tons/yr of soil will be saved, and 202 lbs/yr of phosphorus and 3,336 lbs/yr of nitrates will not runoff the fields and/or leach into the ground water.
The project involves installation of a number of stormwater best management practices in the road right-of-way and on adjacent public property during reconstruction of Johnny Cake Ridge Road and installation of the Dakota County North Creek Greenway. Practices implemented will include boulevard raingardens, tree trenches, and underground sediment collection practices.
Otter Tail County will partner with the Buffalo-Red River Watershed District and the West Otter Tail and Wilkin SWCDs to stabilize the outlet of Judicial Ditch No. 2 which has become the most critically eroding gully contributing sediment to the Otter Tail River. When stabilized, sediment to the river will be reduced by 988 tons per year, and total phosphorus will be reduced by 840 pounds per year. The sediment reduction associated with this project is 7 percent of the 6,868 tons per year goal set by the Lower Otter Tail River Total Maximum Daily Load.
In October 2018, a petition for improvement of Lyon-Redwood Joint Judicial Ditch No. 15 (JD15) was accepted by the Lyon-Redwood Joint Drainage Authority. To control gully erosion and improve water quality, four water and sediment control basins are being proposed in the JD15 Final Engineer's Report. The basins will temporarily store overland runoff from within the watershed, allowing sediment and nutrients to settle out during dewatering. Clear Creek headwaters reach 07020006-567 is listed on MPCA's 2022 impaired waters list for impairments due to total suspended solids.
