This collaborative project creates a college to workforce pathway for underrepresented students interested in pursuing Natural Resources careers by reducing barriers that inhibit successful educational attainment.
Wolf Ridge seeks scholarships for equitable access to authentic, hands on learning experiences in the outdoors that supports our Minnesota schools and achievement of the ENRTF strategic plan priority goals.
Minnesota's six accredited residential environmental learning centers (RELCs) will provide life-changing, immersive multi-day environmental learning experiences to a minimum statewide distribution of 20,000 K-12 students, achieving ENRTF's goals.
This collaborative project creates a college to workforce pathway for under-represented students interested in pursuing Natural Resources careers by reducing barriers that inhibit successful educational attainment.
This program will develop a centralized, integrated approach to managing existing data systems and incorporating new information needs into the integrated enterprise information system of data.
PROJECT OVERVIEW The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages over 2,135 state Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) and Aquatic Management Areas (AMA) containing over 1.3 million acres. This appropriation is enabling the DNR to develop an information system that will better facilitate the management of the state's WMAs and AMAs by helping to identify needs; prioritize, plan, and carry out related activities; track and assess results of activities; and make the information available to resource management professionals and the public.
Protection of State?s drinking water resources and natural resources by eliminating a new Contaminant of Emerging Concern (CEC) known as Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from point source discharges.
This project will develop a statewide parks and trails map in print and in a web-based form. The print map will be generalized and the web-based map will be more descriptive.
The aim of this project is to create public awareness of recreational opportunities and, as a result, increased visitation to these areas.
This project acquired a small portion of land in Interstate State Park. The land may serve a trail connection from Scandia into the park in the future.
This on-going program is for detecting, mapping and controlling invasive plant species and re-establishing native vegetation in their place on lands administered by the Division of Parks and Trails. Control of invasive plant species furthers progress to preserve and restore the quality of native plant communities on Parks and Trails lands as well as helps prevent the spread of invasives to new locations.
We will assess movements, survival, and causes of mortality of Minnesota elk while developing a non-invasive, safer method to estimate population size. This information is important for long-term management efforts.
Woody biomass energy systems have shown themselves to offer more locally-based, stable energy supplies for some communities. Itasca Community College is using this appropriation to design a renewable energy system based on woody biomass that will serve as a demonstration and educational tool in the region.
OVERALL PROJECT OUTCOME AND RESULTS The impetus for this project was the need to better protect and manage functional lake ecosystems in Minnesota. There is widespread concern about the consequences of poorly planned development on water quality and fish and wildlife habitat. Given the increased demands for water and shoreland, continued habitat fragmentation and loss of species diversity, protection of sensitive lakeshores is critical.
This study investigated the entire water and sewer system servicing Itasca State Park. A condition report was created that proposes a 12-year rehabilitation schedule. Itasca is Minnesota's oldest park at almost 100 years old. It's water and sewer infrastructure is in dire need of rehab. Failure of this system would be most likely when the park is being heavily visited. Until now, a comprehensive inventory of the entire water and sewer system did not exist.
This project accomplished the design of the next phase of the new bike trail at Itasca State Park, from the Mississippi Rover to the Oziwindib group center. Portions of the bike trail follow the park road, which is a very dangerous situation for both bikers and motorists. This project will remove this safety risk. The DNR will seek 2016 bonding to construct Phase II.
This project protected in fee approximately 1,960 acres in Cass County and 320 acres in Hubbard County of forest habitat that are at significant risk of conversion to row crop agriculture. The project also restored 92 acres jack pine, an increasingly rare tree species, in the project area.
This project sustains momentum from the pilot project funded previously by the ENRTF for growing environmental education opportunities for learners from outside of Austin.
This project acquired 40 acres of land within the Jay Cooke State Park boundary on its western side. The land may serve as western access to hiking trails in the future.
This project constructed a 40 kw solar array for Jay Cooke State Park. The array will offset electrical use in the shop area, which is one of the highest energy using areas in the park.
Upgrades to the River Inn retained the building’s historic integrity and include new ADA-accessible restrooms, new historically appropriate and energy-efficient power-assisted exterior doors, new interpretive exhibits, new energy-efficient lighting and upgrades to a large three-dimensional topographical map with recommended biking, photography, geology, history and nature routes to explore.
The Jay C. Hormel Nature Center would like to offer its environmental education curriculum to more southeast Minnesota students by hiring an additional naturalist and interns for three years.
To establish a breeding insurance population of Karner Blue Butterflies for climate mitigation in a restored prairie/savanna at Crow-Hassan Park and assess the quality of habitat on butterfly populations.
The Two Rivers Watershed District (TRWD) proposes to construct a multi-purpose impoundment located upstream of Lake Bronson State Park in Kittson and Roseau counties. The project footprint is over 12 square miles in size, and it will alter Lateral 1 of State Ditch #95 to provide fish and wildlife habitat, keep water on the landscape, stabilize river flows, reduce erosion and sediment, protect, maintain, and improve a prairie rich fen, benefit water quality and provide flood damage reduction.
The Two Rivers Watershed District (TRWD) proposes to construct "part 2" of Phase 1 of the Klondike Clean Water Retention impoundment. Part 1 was recommended for funding by LSOHC last year. The multi-purpose project will provide fish habitat, protect-maintain-improve prairie rich fen habitat, stabilize river flows, keep water on the landscape, reduce erosion and sediment, benefit water quality and provide flood damage reduction. Because only partial funding was awarded, construction was scaled into part 1 and part 2.
Historic Knife River flooding has led to stream channel degradation. This degradation resulted in slumping streambanks, sediment discharge exceeding the total maximum daily load (TMDL) and the loss of instream trout habitat. This is LSSA's 6th LSOHC Grant proposal in the Knife River. Since the LSSA began grant work on the Knife River (2013), the DNR has observed a 215% increase in the adult steelhead population. Our LSOHC projects have also stabilized ~2 miles of stream channel, restored ~15,000 feet of streambanks and reduced annual sediment discharge by 700 tons.
Eroding streambanks in the Knife River Watershed have degraded trout habitat and resulted in a total maximum daily load (TMDL) exceedance for turbidity. The LSSA proposes to rehabilitate instream habitat to increase trout spawning and rearing. Natural Channel Design construction techniques will be utilized to create a self-sustaining project that enhances instream habitat, improves channel stability, facilitates sediment transportation, stabilizes eroding streambanks, creates riparian wetlands and replant riparian trees/pollinator shrubs.
Phase I work was conducted on the main Knife River and its Main West Branch tributary. Primary goals were met and these goals include: stream connectivity, riparian zone tree planting, stream assessment and black ash stand identification. • Stream Connectivity - repaired Second Falls on the main Knife River. • Tree Planting - two volunteer and one CCM projects where several thousand trees were planted.
The goal of PH II-Knife River Habitat Rehabilitation project was to improve instream habitat, stabilize slumping streambanks and restore the immediate riparian zone.
Instream habitat and streambank stabilization was achieved by rehabilitating a 2200-foot stretch of stream utilizing Natural Channel Design methodology. This project reduced turbidity by stabilizing four slumping streambanks and creating instream habitat in two areas for adult trout spawning and two areas for 1+ juvenile rearing. Riparian plantings also occurred in this area.
