We protected 22.3 miles of trout streams and 1.3 miles of lakeshore via easements (585 acres in total), and 7.4 miles (504 acres) of lakeshore through fee-title purchase. We enhanced shoreline habitat on 524 acres of riparian land, and instream habitat on 3.1 miles of trout streams and 0.5 miles of warmwater rivers.
This project will accelerate production of County Geologic Atlases (part A). An atlas is a set of geologic maps and associated databases for a county that facilitate informed management of natural resources, especially water and minerals.
The goal of this project is to develop and complete the Watershed Restoration and Protection (WRAP) process and report, while also enlarging and sustaining a public participation process that encourages local ownership of water quality problems and solutions (civic engagement).
Civic engagement strategies including education public participation in watershed work and expanded knowledge, technical input into and review of stressor id process and report, Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports, implementation plans and protecion strategies.
This project will provide fiscal resources for South St. Louis County Soil and Water Conservation District (SSLCSWCD) to participate and lead efforts to attain geomorphic data sets, dissolved oxygen assessments, culvert inventory, and civic engagement activities in three major watersheds, Nemadji River, South Lake Superior and St. Louis River. This work is currently being worked on as a part of the MPCA’s Watershed Restoration and Protection Planning efforts.
We will use a programmatic approach to achieve prioritized aquatic habitat protection, restoration, and enhancement of lakes, trout streams, and rivers across all of the LSOHC planning regions of Minnesota.
The main purpose of this project is to provide fiscal resources for Lake County Soil and Water Conservation District (Lake County SWCD) to be engaged and participate in efforts for civic engagement in the Lake Superior South (LS South) Lake Superior North (LS North) watersheds and lead and carry-out civic engagement in the early stages of the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) process in the Cloquet River watershed.
This project will provide a protocol for prioritizing sites in the St. Louis Area of Concern (AOC ) for restoration based on site-specific bioavailability considerations. Despite large data collection efforts focused on sediment chemistry, the extent to which sediment with moderate levels of contamination is available for uptake into biota and therefore contributing to Beneficial Use Impairments (BUI)s is still largely unknown.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 19,439 acres of forest and forested wetlands with perpetual working forest conservation easements in Lake, Itasca and Koochiching Counties ensuring public access, management access and sustainably managed forests.
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 Statewide Sediment Network was established to measure the levels of suspended sediment concentrations and particle size distributions at eight sites across Minnesota to evaluate the amount of sediment carried by rivers. USGS sample collection and laboratory analysis techniques provide a more rigorous, robust, and technically accurate measure of sediment in water than the current use of total suspended solids as the measure of sediment in water.