This grant application will focus on the construction of multiple targeted best management practices (BMPs) in priority areas which will provide measurable reductions in sediment and phosphorus loadings to cold water streams in the Mississippi River/Lake Pepin Watershed. The installation of these BMPs will also protect the existing stream habitat by reducing peak flows and reduced streambank erosion.
We will characterize environmental drivers contributing to the decline of wild rice using lake sediment cores to reconstruct historical wild rice abundance in relation to lake and watershed stressors.
This project leverages more than $10 million in federal funds to begin implementation of a system-wide effort to improve game fish and waterfowl production in the Upper Mississippi River by improving 100 acres of floodplain forest and up to 1,000 acres of aquatic and wetland habitat at the upper end of Lake Pepin. Local partners are working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to mitigate habitat degradation caused by turbidity and excess sediment accumulating at the head of the lake. Project construction is anticipated to begin in 2020.
We propose identifying hot spots of groundwater chloride pollution of surface waters due to excessive road salt use, which is a long term source increasing chloride impairment of surface waters.
