The ENRTF grant will introduce 12 young people to conservation careers through full-time, paid internships and apprenticeships on the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge (16 FTEs over 2 years).
Running through the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota, the Mesabi Trail provides a recreational and alternate transportation corridor for hikers, bikers, skiers, and horseback riders, as well as some designated snow snowmobile use areas. When completed the trail will include 145 paved miles extending from the Mississippi River in Grand Rapids to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Ely – 115 miles have been finished to date. The St. Louis and Lake Counties Regional Railroad Authority are using this appropriation to develop 11 miles of trail segments near Vermilion State Park.
Construction of approximately 2 miles of the Mesabi Regional Trail beginning in Soudan at the Brietung Town Hall and ending at the Vermillion State Park entrance road.
The purpose of this monitoring project is to maintain water quality data collection, build upon existing data for Phase II of the Intensive Watershed Monitoring approach, and develop a better understanding of what impacts the rivers located in central Minnesota specifically in the North Fork Crow Watershed.
This project will create a culvert inventory database for county and township roads in the southwest portion of St. Louis County that contains the St. Louis River watershed. Data will be used by the County Public Works Department to identify and prioritize stream crossings in need of replacement or increasing upstream storm water retention to reduce the potential for culvert failure during large runoff events, factoring in stream health (fish habitat and passage, sediment transport and hydrologic connection) while protecting infrastructure.
The Miller Hill Mall, a regional shopping destination located in the City of Duluth, is the largest contiguous impervious site in the Miller Creek Watershed. The draft Total Maximum Daily Load Study identified heated stormwater runoff as a major contributor to the creek's excessive heat loading problem, which negatively impacts the creek's native brook trout population. The Mall, along with eight other entities in the watershed, was assigned a reduction goal as part of the effort to address the temperature problem in this creek.
This grant will restore a section of Miller Creek, an urban trout stream located in Duluth, that was straightened many years ago back to its natural channel. The original channel had a lot more sinuosity, or, curviness, than it does now and the straightened creek suffers from erosion and warm temperatures illsuited for trout.
This project includes a new exhibit component that includes a variety of farm production machinery, diverse agriculture commodities, and livestock, and provides an interactive learning experience about agricultural production and the art of manufacturing food for every culture.
Expanding waste diversion practices across the state this project will: create 16 jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide data to measure the social, economic, and environmental benefits of waste diversion.
Legacy funds allow the Minnesota Zoo to extend the season of the Wells Fargo Family Farm beyond its historical May to September season to include full programming and exhibits from April through November.
To add Minnesota history and museum administration books to Proctor Historical Society's holdings to make this information more accessible to the public.
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.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited and its partners, chapters, and volunteers enhanced habitat for trout, as well as other fish, game and wildlife, in or along 10 miles of coldwater streams around the state. We adapting to challenging conditions caused by the pandemic by shifting budget from smaller projects using hand labor (which was largely unavailable for the past 3 years) to larger scale projects utilizing heavy machinery.
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.
Legacy-funded programs at the Minnesota Humanities Center demonstrate our determination to collaboratively create humanities programs for the broader public by forging strong partnerships with local, state, and national cultural organizations. These programs show the broader community how the humanities can be used to address issues important to their everyday lives. Each activity, event, and program shares an Absent Narrative with participants, which help residents across the state engage in a more sophisticated understanding of their community.
