Minnesota’s use of groundwater has increased over the last two decades. An increasing reliance on groundwater may not be a sustainable path for continued economic growth and development. The DNR is establishing three pilot groundwater management areas (GWMA) to help improve groundwater appropriation decisions and help groundwater users better understand and plan for future groundwater needs associated with economic development.
The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe is working within the Leech Lake Reservation boundaries to address loss and degradation of aquatic habitat for wild rice and waterfowl. Efforts will include regulating water levels on shallow lakes by controlling beaver activity and conducting periodic water level draw-downs, reseeding of approximately 200 acres of wild rice, and implementing adaptive management based on analysis of wild rice productivity.
With this appropriation, the Minnesota Land Trust plans to protect approximately 500 acres of critical shoreline habitat along Minnesota's lakes, wetlands, rivers, and streams by securing permanent conservation easements and dedicating funds for their perpetual monitoring, management, and enforcement. Lands being considered for permanent protection in this round of funding are located in Becker, Beltrami, Blue Earth, Itasca, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Le Sueur, Otter Tail, Pope, and Wabasha counties.
This project constructed a new group camp at Lake Bemidji State Park that features an area for tent camping, an area to accommodate RV units, a large fire ring, and a large screened picnic shelter equipped with electricity.
After a century of industrial use, the project brought Lake Bemidji's South Shore to its original state. The city removed 1,144 tons of contaminated soil and sediment, 9,400 cubic yards of woody debris from the lake-bottom and planted native vegetation on the shoreline to restore and enhance aquatic habitat.
At the LaSalle Lake SRA, this project constructed a day use area (parking, picnic shelter, restrooms, boardwalk to fishing pier), campground vault toilet, carry-in boat landing, and a pedestrian bridge that leads to other recreation features.
This Phase 6 request for Ducks Unlimited’s Living Lakes program will enhance 1,000 acres of shallow lakes and restore 50 acres of small wetlands by engineering and installing water control structures for Minnesota DNR and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on public lands and wetlands under easement. Structures will be used by DNR and Service partners to restore wetland hydrology and actively manage shallow lake water levels to enhance their ecology for ducks, other birds, and hunters in the Prairie Region of Minnesota.
Ducks Unlimited successfully enhanced 3,437 wetland acres and restored 83 wetland acres through this grant, which significantly exceeds our grant acre goals of 2,000 acres of wetland enhancement and 50 acres of wetlands restored for this 2017 OHF appropriation.
The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association (MDHA), in collaboration with county, state, federal, tribal, university and non-governmental organizational (NGO) partners, seeks to continue the successful work of the Moose Habitat Collaborative (Collaborative) by improving nearly 10,000 acres of foraging habitat for moose in northeast Minnesota. The project builds on the Collaborative’s previous efforts to enhance forest habitat by increasing stand complexity and production while maintaining thermal components of the landscape with variable enhancement methods.
The Minnesota Forest Recovery Project completed habitat enhancement on 5519 unique acres of public lands in Lake, Cass, Itasca, St. Louis, Cook, and Beltrami Counties. Multiple treatments on some parcels ensured success of enhancement efforts.
The Minnesota Forests for the Future Program will use $4.573 million in the Northern and Southeast Forest sections to protect and enhance habitat. In the Northern Forest, we propose to protect 1,500 acres with permanent conservation easements and 400 acres in fee title acquisition, and to enhance 100 acres. In the Southeast Forest, we propose to add 100 acres to the Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest and enhance 300 acres of existing state forest land.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 178 acres of forest, forested wetlands, shoreline, shoreland wetland and other riparian areas with a perpetual working forest conservation easement in Crow Wing County ensuring public benefits, management access and sustainably managed forests.
The MN Forests for the Future Program will use $2,971,000 in the Northern, Southeast and Transition Forest sections to protect 1,966 acres of habitat with permanent working forest conservation easements. Phase 8 builds upon past land protection work and focuses on permanently protecting working forests threatened by conversion to non-forest uses. This program will also protect habitat in priority cold-water refuge watersheds by implementing protection strategies identified in local watershed plans.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore degraded habitat for fish and wildlife in and along priority coldwater streams located on existing public lands and conservation easements. Trout streams are a relatively scarce resource. Increasing threats to them require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches, improve riparian forests to improve stream flows and temperatures, and buffer streams from larger, more frequent rainfall and flood events. Outcomes will be maximized by improving the connectivity of habitat and fish and wildlife populations.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife in and along priority coldwater streams located on existing conservation easements and public lands around the state. Trout streams are a relatively scarce resource and increasing threats to them require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches. Outcomes will be maximized by improving the connectivity of habitat and fish and wildlife populations. Timely maintenance on old projects will ensure habitat outcomes continue for many years.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited enhanced in-stream and riparian habitat for trout and other wildlife along more than 11 miles of coldwater streams across the state. We far exceeded our original targets, enhancing habitat on 135 acres rather than 78. We completed 16 separate stream habitat projects. Leveraging other funding and efficiently contracting projects allowed us to add habitat projects and adjust to changing conditions.
The Minnesota County Biological Survey (MCBS) is an ongoing effort begun in 1987 by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that is systematically surveying, county-by-county, the state's natural habitats. The effort identifies significant natural areas and collects and interprets data on the status, distribution, and ecology of plants, animals, and native plant communities throughout the state. Through 2009 surveys have been completed in 74 of Minnesota's 87 counties and have added nearly 17,000 new records of rare features to the DNR's information systems.
This program proposes a 15-year goal to provide protection to the remaining 90,000 acres of native prairie/savanna, a 20-year goal to restore and protect an additional 500,000 acres of diverse grasslands/savannas, and a 10-year goal to increase management capacity to annually manage 300,000 acres of grassland and savannas per year. This proposal takes the first steps to achieve these goals by initiating a comprehensive, coordinated and collaborative prairie conservation initiative. Annual investments by the LSOHC will be required to realize these ambitious outcomes.
The goals for this project were to: protect 1,200 acres native prairie/wetland/savanna; restore 250 acres prairie/wetland; enhance 6,000 acres grassland/savanna with fire, invasive species removal, and grazing; and continue a new prairie conservation model. This phase resulted in a total of 1,425 acres protected, 22,298 acres enhanced, and 110 acres restored. When combined with phases 1 and 2 of the Prairie Recovery Program we have cumulatively protected 4,070 acres, enhanced 58,134 acres and restored 314 acres using OHF funds.
The Minnesota Moose Collaborative (Collaborative) has implemented a variety of habitat enhancement treatments across the core of moose range in Northeast Minnesota on County, State, Federal, and Tribal lands since 2013. Moose browse has been improved through treatments that regenerate preferred brush and tree species. The Collaborative has also planted over two million trees including white spruce, white pine, jack pine, and white cedar.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited enhanced in-stream and riparian habitat for trout and other wildlife along coldwater streams located on public lands and Aquatic Management Area easements across the state. We completed 12 separate projects encompassing 118 acres and 9.3 miles of stream habitat. Leveraging other funding and efficiently contracting projects allowed us to increase the scope of some projects and adjust to changing conditions. We enhanced more acres of habitat and more stream length than originally proposed.
Goals for Phase 2 of the MN Prairie Recovery Program were to: protect 1200 acres native prairie/savanna; restore 250 acres grassland; enhance 6000 acres grassland/savanna with fire, invasive species removal, and grazing; and continue a new prairie conservation model.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 3,293 acres of forest and forested wetlands with perpetual working forest conservation easements in Lake and Crow Wing Counties ensuring public benefits, management access and sustainable managed forests.
This project will create a high accuracy elevation dataset - critical for effectively planning and implementing water quality projects - for the state of Minnesota using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geospatial mapping technologies. Although some areas of the state have been mapped previously, many counties remain unmapped or have insufficient or inadequate data. This multi-year project, to be completed in 2012, is a collaborative effort of Minnesota's Digital Elevation Committee and partners with county surveyors to ensure accuracy with ground-truthing.
The Mississippi Headwaters Board (MHB) will work with the Board of Water & Soil Resources (BWSR), The Trust for Public Land (TPL), headwaters' counties and Soil & Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) to protect and preserve targeted upland and aquatic habitats through fee title and permanent easement acquisition in high quality shoreland areas along the Mississippi River main stem, headwaters' reservoirs, and major Mississippi River tributaries.
The Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Corridor Project Phase III (ML 17) achieved permanent protection of 1,694 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat, including 14.5 miles of shoreland on the Mississippi River and adjacent lakes/tributaries. This accomplishment exceeded the appropriation goal by over 200%. Fee-title acquisitions and RIM conservation easements adjacent to public land created or expanded large habitat protection complexes, including a new 232 acre WMA in Crow Wing County.
In Phase 6, The Mississippi Headwaters Board in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and BWSR assisted by 8 County SWCDs will permanently protect an additional 1,235 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River, its major tributaries, and 9 headwaters lakes.
The Mississippi Headwaters Board in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, assisted by 8 County Soil and Water Conservation Districts, will continue to permanently protect critical shorelands and wildlife habitats along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River. Fee title acquisitions and conservation easements on priority lands will create and expand contiguous habitat corridors/complexes and reduce forest fragmentation from development to benefit fish, game and non-game wildlife, and migratory waterfowl.
This acquisition protected 2.7 miles of Mississippi river shoreline and nearly 2,000 acres of wetland and forest/upland habitat through fee title acquisition just east of Brainerd, MN.
Through the ML2015 Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Partnership appropriation, we permanently protected 1,923 acres of wildlife habitat in the quickly developing Mississippi Headwaters area. These accomplishments exceed the appropriation goal by 209%. Utilizing both fee-title acquisition and conservation easements, the partnership protected 10 projects, totaling over 11 miles of shoreline along the Mississippi River, its tributaries and nearby lakes.
The Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Corridor Project Phase 1 (ML 16) achieved permanent protection of 1,478 acres of fish and wildlife habitat, including 11 miles of shoreland on the Mississippi River and on an adjacent lake. This accomplishment exceeded the appropriation goal by 178%. Utilizing fee-title acquisition and RIM conservation easements adjacent to public land, large habitat protection complexes were established, including one complex in Crow Wing County that protected over 9 contiguous miles along the Mississippi River.
We propose a programmatic approach to achieve prioritized aquatic habitat protection for trout streams in Minnesota, with an emphasis on Southeast and Northeast Minnesota. We propose to protect 3.75 miles of trout streams, including approximately 75 acres with permanent conservation easements on private land. Protected lands will be designated as Aquatic Management Areas (AMA's) administered by the Minnesota
DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife.
DNR acquired a fee-title parcel designated as an Aquatic Management area in Itasca County. This acquisition protected 41 acres and exceeded the accomplishment plan goal. Nine trout stream conservation easements were also added to the AMA system. Two Forests for the Future easements with a combined total of 171 acres were acquired, achieving protection in priority watersheds while maintaining working forest in private ownership.
Moose, one of Minnesota's prized wildlife species, are dying at much higher rates in Minnesota than elsewhere in North America. Recently observed increases in mortality rates amongst some moose in northeastern Minnesota have led to concern that the population there may be entering a decline like that seen in the northwestern part of the state, where moose populations fell from over 4,000 to fewer than 100 in less than 20 years. Additionally the specific causes of increased mortality amongst individual moose remain under investigation.
The Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS), in collaboration with federal, state, county, tribal, university and non-governmental organizational (NGO) partners, seeks to continue the successful work of previous Moose Habitat Collaborative (Collaborative) grants to stabilize/sustain Minnesota's moose population by enhancing ~8,000 acres of cover/forage habitat for moose.
