This project supports activities by Minnesota Pollution Control (MPCA) Watershed Division staff that provide technical assistance, project oversight, coordination, outreach and other agency activities associated with assessing, listing and conducting Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) studies throughout the State of Minnesota. Project also includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with TMDL work at the MPCA.
Staffing and support for the Accelerated Implementation of municipal stormwater (MS4) Permit Requirements program. The purpose of this program is accelerating municipal stormwater (MS4) implementation activities by providing technical assistance and guidance development to permittees. To date the program has establishment of a digital document library (DDL) which is housed in the MN Stormwater Manual.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Environmental Outcomes staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities within the described priority watersheds. Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support. Biological and Water Chemistry Stream Monitoring: Monitoring to assess the conditions of streams in each watershed.
Agencies and stakeholders are working together to clean up contaminated sediments and restore aquatic habitat to the estuary in the St. Louis River Area of Concern within the Great Lakes Basin.
Staffing support for the development of permits that provide for implementation of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements at wastewater facilities and stormwater permittees.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Environmental Outcomes staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, fieldwork, data management, and interpretation expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities. The ambient groundwater monitoring network describes the current condition and trends in Minnesota's groundwater quality.
Support for the subsurface sewage treatment system (SSTS) program administered by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). The MPCA offers grants to counties for SSTS program administration and special projects to improve SSTS compliance rates, and assistance for low-income homeowners with needed SSTS upgrades.
Provides technical assistance and grants to public entities to meet chloride Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), mostly from road de-icers and water softening.
The Clean Water Council was created through the Clean Water Legacy Act (Minn. Stat. Ch 114D) which was signed into law June 2, 2006. The council’s role is to advise on the administration and implementation of the Clean Water Legacy Act. See the Council’s FY18-19 Clean Water Fund and Policy Recommendations Report (December 1, 2016). The 28-member Clean Water Council (Council) represents organizations with a major role in achieving clean water, enabling consensus building and coordination on a wide array of issues critical to the people of Minnesota.
The goal of this project is to analyze and document database architecture, platform, table structures, systems and data fields at six Minnesota agencies (Board of Soil and Water Resources, Department of Natural Resources, MN Department of Agriculture, MN Department of Health, Metropolitan Council, and MN Pollution Control Agency) for 30+ databases related to water.
The goal of the MS4 Toolkit project is to provide simple and effective resources to regulated municipal stormwater (MS4) staff to use to help build and implement effective and sustainable Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPPs) and when educating municipal staff and the public, including diverse audiences (e.g. non-native English speakers) about the harmful effects of stormwater pollution and prevention techniques. By doing so, MS4 regulated communities will be better able to meet MS4 General Permit requirements.
Minnesota Erosion Control Association (MECA) will offer three one-day training session intended to educate permittees on the requirements of the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit. The focus of these workshops will be on conducting inspections and various hot topics.
MECA will offer day sessions intended to educate permittees on the requirements for the MS4 permit. The sessions will be held in Vadnais Heights, Detroit Lakes, St. Cloud, St. Paul and Mankato Minnesota.
The West Fork Des Moines Headwaters Water Sampling Project consists of collecting water samples and along with field data from three sampling sites within the West Fork Des Moines River Headwaters located in Murray County, MN. The sampling will take place from May 2014 through September 2014, and then again from June 2015 through August 2015. During this sampling regime, the three stream sites will be sampled sixteen times. Field replicates as well as blanks will be collected also. The three sites identified for sampling are the West Fork Des Moines RIver, Beaver Creek, and Lime Creek.
This project will finalize the Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model construction and complete the calibration/validation process. The consultant will produce an HSPF watershed model that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs. The consultant will clearly demonstrate that this model generates predicted output timeseries for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen which are consistent with available sets of observed data.
This project will address United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) comments on the Preliminary Draft Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) comments on the pre-public notice draft Watershed Restoration & Protection Strategy (WRAPS) report, and produce Public Notice Draft TMDL study and Public Notice Draft WRAPS report ready for public review and comment.
Myrtle Lake experiences frequent nuisance algae blooms and does not meet Minnesota state standards for total phosphorus and chlorophyll-a. This has led to questions whether the productivity and condition of the lake has changed over time, what the natural or historical condition of the lake was, what the current trajectory of the lake is, and how to set effective management goals.
The project goal is to assist the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) with meeting the objectives of the Surface Water Assessment Grant (SWAG) to conduct field and water chemistry monitoring at MPCA specified lake sampling locations and stream locations. This will be accomplished by collecting water samples at seven lake sites and eight streams in the Kettle and Upper St. Croix Watersheds, as well as compiling and submitting the required data, information and reports.
This project will define the major factors causing harm to fish and other river and stream life within the Nemadji watershed. Stressor identification is a formal and rigorous process to identify these factors, explain the linkages between the results of biological monitoring and water quality assessments, and organize this information into a structure of scientific evidence that supports the conclusions of the process. Stressor identification is a component of the Watershed Restoration and protection (WRAP) approach.
This project is to identify and prioritize targeted restoration and protection areas where there are data gaps within the Nemadji River Watershed. The purpose is to maintain and enhance water quality. This contract will support research, monitoring, analysis, and planning activities to develop strategic implementation and protection best management practices in targeted locations of the watershed.
This project is to identify and prioritize targeted restoration and protection areas where there are data gaps within the Nemadji River Watershed to maintain and enhance water quality. Through an increased technical agency partnership, this contract will support research, monitoring, analysis, and planning activities to develop strategic implementation and protection management practices in targeted locations of the watershed.
This project is to complete the Watershed Restoration and Protection (WRAP) process, complete Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports and calculations, develop and discuss Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) model scenarios, set restoration and protection priorities, and integrate all of this information in the final WRAPS report.
The goal of this workplan is to define the major factors causing harm to fish and other river and stream life within the Nemadji Watershed. The work will complete the strength of evidence tables, will explain the linkages between biological monitoring results and water quality assessments, and will organize this information into a scientific evidence structure that supports the conclusions of the overall process. Multiple lines of evidence are reviewed and evaluated to produce a final evaluative report. This work order, the second of two, begins in 2013 and will be completed in year 2014.
This project is to identify and prioritize targeted restoration and protection areas where there are data gaps within the Nemadji River Watershed. The purpose is to maintain and enhance water quality. This contract will support research, monitoring, analysis, and planning activities to develop strategic implementation and protection best management practices in targeted locations of the watershed.
This grant will allow Nicollet SWCD and partners the means to establish local and regional volunteer monitors for this and future monitoring activities in the Middle Minnesota River Watershed Basin. It also enhances past water quality studies by providing present data for water quality assessment in the Seven Mile Creek Watershed, which has and is receiving support by numerous entities to increase the water quality of that watershed.
This project will fund two years of condition monitoring, data management, and oversight for two locations within the Minnesota River Mankato watershed.
This project will provide an interpretive assessment of nitrogen concentrations in Minnesota rivers and streams, including spatial and temporal trends based on historical data sets. The trends analyses will provide information useful for evaluating nitrogen reduction efforts in the past couple of decades.
Nobles County has five stream sites and three lake sites that need monitoring. These sites have had some testing in the past
and it is important to continue to monitor these for changes. Soil and Water Conservation District staff will gather the water samples in the most accurate manner possible and track the funds spent to do so. The samples will be taken monthly and sent to the labs in a timely manner.
The State of Minnesota has adopted a ten year cycle for managing water quality for each of the 80 major watersheds in the state. Every ten years, each major watershed will undergo a surface water assessment and a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) project. The North Fork Crow River WRAPS process is entering its second round which will focus both on addressing data gaps identified in the approved NFCRW Comprehensive Watershed Plan and on addressing additional required Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) studies required by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
This St. Louis River Watershed assessment will include the waters of Dempsey Creek, West Two River, St. Louis River, Mud Hen Creek, Embarrass River, West Swan River, Partridge River, Barber Creek, East Swan River, Helen Lake, Pine Lake, Cadotte Lake, Colby Lake, Loon Lake, St. James Pit, Strand Lake, Nichols Lake, Ely Lake, Silver Lake, Elbow Lake, Mashkenode Lake, Carey Lake and Island Lake. These lakes and streams are found throughout the St. Louis River Watershed, which spans parts of St. Louis and Itasca Counties.
The goal of this project is to produce a subwatershed assessment report for two subwatersheds in the Lake Pepin major watershed. The subwatersheds included are East Lake and the upper North Creek that drains from Lakeville, both will be studied for total phosphorus and total suspended solids. The report will include two distinct lists of potential best management practice (BMP) location, cost, feasibility, estimated reductions and 30% specifications of top projects.
This project will support the review of all public comments submitted for the North Fork Crow River TMDL and make appropriate edits and changes to the draft TMDL based on MPCA guidance.
The goal of this project is to complete Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) modeling on North and South Heron Lake and incorporate the results into the Des Moines River Watershed TMDL report.
This project will collect water quality data for 31 sites (22 lakes and 9 stream sites) within the Rainy River Headwaters, Cloquet, and Vermilion major watersheds as part of the 10-year cycle for monitoring Minnesota's waters. Due to the large number and geographic extent of monitoring sites, North St. Louis SWCD (NSLSWCD) is subcontracting with Lake County SWCD and Koochiching County SWCD. An intern from the Vermilion Community College (VCC) Water Resources Program will be hired to conduct monitoring of 4 stream sites and 3 lake sites located between Ely and Virginia.
This contract will be to initiate the second cycle of the North Fork Crow River Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) development. The project will provide needed information and analysis to make sure that implementation strategies are well thought out and targeted. The result will be a framework for civic and citizen engagement and communication, which will contribute to long-term public participation in surface water protection and restoration activities throughout the watershed.
The goal of this project is to add dual endpoints to the turbidity section of the North Fork Crow TMDL so that it addresses the proposed TSS standards.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will coordinate the collection of high-resolution elevation data for northeastern portion of Minnesota using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems. The geographic area of the work includes Minnesota counties of Carlton, Cook, Lake, and St. Louis Counties and that portion of Koochiching County that comprises Voyageurs National Park.
The overall project goal is to develop complementary (same year) physical, biological, and chemical data sets for eight agency-prioritized lakes and three streams in NE Minnesota to incorporate into the overall state database for MPCA assessment purposes as well as research purposes.
This project will improve the water quality of Northwood Lake by treating storm water runoff from over 110 acres of currently untreated urban land. The project includes the installation of a variety of practices at two different locations adjacent to the lake that will maximize storm water treatment while conserving drinking water and preserving park land.
The goal of this project is to refine the nutrient and algae simulation in the Minnesota River basin using all relevant available sources of information. The outcome of this work order is a revised Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model application for the Minnesota River basin that correctly represents nutrient sources and algae.
