Phase Four of the MN Prairie Recovery Program resulted in a total of 1,707 acres protected, 37,567 acres enhanced, and 440 acres restored. When combined with Phases 1-3 of the Prairie Recovery Program we have cumulatively protected 5,777 acres, enhanced 95,701 acres and restored 754 acres using Outdoor Heritage Fund dollars. We will continue to implement subsequent Phases toward meeting the conservation goals described in the MN Prairie Conservation Plan.
The project will advance the protection, restoration and enhancement goals for prairie, grassland and wetland habitats as described in the 2018 MN Prairie Conservation Plan. It builds upon the highly successful model established via prior Prairie Recovery Phases and seeks to protect 400 acres in Fee without PILT obligations to be held by The Nature Conservancy, enhance 18,000 acres of permanently protected grasslands, and restore 100 acres of prairie and wetland habitat.
This proposal protects and restores 651 acres of land in the Minnesota prairie-chicken range, that will be transferred to the MNDNR as a WMA or to the USFWS as a WPA. All land will be open to public hunting. MN Prairie Chicken Society and Pheasants Forever will be protecting parcels that focus specifically on prairie chicken benefits, which makes this proposal unique and highly focused. All acquisitions will occur within the prairie and prairie/forest planning regions with a focus in Clay, Norman, Mahnomen and Wilkin counties which is the primary range of prairie chickens in Minnesota.
The Minnesota Prairie Chicken Society in partnership with Pheasants Forever seek to protect and restore parcels within the Minnesota prairie chicken range. Focus will be on parcels that will specifically benefit prairie chickens, a species of special concern. Acquisitions will be located in the prairie or prairie/forest planning regions with an emphasis in the primary prairie chicken range. Parcels will be transferred to either the MN DNR as WMA's or the USFWS as WPA's and will be open to the public.
The project will advance the protection, restoration and enhancement goals for prairie, grassland and wetland habitats as described in the 2018 MN Prairie Conservation Plan. It builds upon the highly successful model previously established in prior Prairie Recovery Phases and seeks to protect 500 acres in Fee without PILT obligations to be held by The Nature Conservancy, enhance 18,000 acres of permanently protected grasslands, and restore 200 acres of prairie and wetland habitat.
This proposal protects and restores 760 acres of land in the Minnesota prairie-chicken range, that will be transferred to the MNDNR as a WMA or to the USFWS as a WPA. All land will be open to public hunting. MN Prairie Chicken Society and Pheasants Forever will be protecting parcels that focus specifically on prairie chicken benefits, which makes this proposal unique and highly focused. All acquisitions will occur within the prairie and prairie/forest planning regions with a focus in Clay, Norman, Mahnomen and Wilkin counties which is the primary range of prairie chickens in Minnesota.
We propose to integrate Minnesota Wildflowers Information, an online tool for plant identification, with the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas, to preserve and extend this popular ENTRF-supported resource for future use.
This project helps Minnesota entities that directly or indirectly cause PFAS and microplastics contamination stop the flow of the contaminants by developing strategies to manage solid waste streams.
The 400-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from its headwaters at Lake Itasca to Morrison County near Little Falls is the focus of this project. Working in cooperation with the eight member counties, this project will develop implementation plans and strategies geared specifically for the Mississippi River and incorporate them into the individual County Comprehensive Local Water Plans. These recommendations will be for specific strategies, often crossing county boundaries for implementation.
This project will result in the development of three critical pieces of information. They include: 1. Development of restoration and protection strategies for all waterbodies in the district relative to the State's Non-point Source Funding plan 2. Use of PTMApp to tie the WRAPs implementation tables from the Buffalo and Red River Watersheds to targeted on-the-ground projects and practices that will provide measurable water quality improvements, and 3.
Turbidity and E.coli impairments characterize the Clearwater River Watershed and its sub-watersheds. Focused protective efforts in this watershed have helped, but more work is vitally needed to further improve the quality of water. Several recent studies on the Clearwater River watershed and its sub-watersheds, Lost River and Silver Creek will be used to direct the work.
White Earth has acquired all 2,034 acres and transferred them into fee title status. Initial assessment/inventory of habitat conditions and needs were conducted in summer of 2017. Most illegal dump sites were removed in summer of 2017. The parcel located east of Lower Rice lake adjacent to HWY 92, which contained remnants of ~ 5 acres of food plots, were planted into a pollinator prairie mix. This prairie planting makes the property compliant with the MN Buffer Law. This east parcel is in the planning stages of an early succession forest manage plan.
This project will collect real-time parameter data for specific conductance, water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and stream flow at the United States geological Survey (USGS) gaging stations located at Fargo, ND and Grand Forks, ND on the Red River of the North; and publish the data both on the USGS NWIS website and in the USGS Annual Report.
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 will support water quality monitoring and data analysis in nine major watersheds (8-digit Hydrologic Unit Codes) of the Lower Red River Basin. The monitoring will assist in providing water chemistry data needed to calculate annual pollutant loads for the Major Watershed Load Monitoring Program (MWLMP) and provide short term data sets of select parameters to other MPCA programs.
This project will provide land and water managers in the Red River Basin with data and online tools to prioritize actions on the landscape that achieve water quality objectives identified in local and state plans. This will help identify strategically important locations for implementing erosion control and water management practices. Standardized watershed-based data products will be integrated into a web-based planning tool which will be added to the Red River Basin Decision Information Network (RRBDIN) being developed as part of the Red River Watershed Feasibility Study.
The goal of this project is to development a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study that addresses all of the non-mercury-related impaired reaches along the Red River of the North (RRN). The TMDL study will provide an analytical and strategic foundation for recommending restoration strategies for impaired waters. This phase of the project will also include civic engagement efforts by providing water quality framework and stakeholder activities for civic/citizen engagement and communication.
This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
The International Water Institute (IWI) will monitor 42 sites (3 basin, 12 major watershed, and 27 subwatershed) in the Red River and Upper Mississippi River Basins intensively during the contract period. There will also be 5 sites in the Red River Basin where mercury samples will be collected and sent to Minnesota Department of Health for analysis. The IWI will collect water samples across the range of flow conditions targeting sample collection at times of moderate to high flow.
This project will develop an effective transferable model to engage and educate watershed residents, stakeholders and others to better understand and protect watershed ecostystems through environmental monitoring, training, and formal and informal education programs in their local watershed. The project will build on the foundation of the existing Red River Basin River Watch program by strengthening three main activity areas: 1) curriculum integration and teacher training, 2) youth leadership and civic engagement, and 3) applied research collaboration and watershed science skills building.
The Red Lake Watershed District will create an inspection database for 103E ditches under their drainage authority. The district will acquire a database software solution to conduct field inspections and to track ditch maintenance projects and use the software to facilitate compliance with state statutes. The project will also develop a process for completing the annual inspection and reporting requirements under Statue 103E.
This project will monitor nine locations in the major watersheds (8-digit Hydrologic Unit Codes) of the Lower Red River Basin. The stream outlet monitoring will provide the water chemistry data needed to calculate annual pollutant loads. Staff from the Red River Watershed Management Board (RRWMB) will conduct the sampling, initially manage the data and provide the data to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) for load calculations and import into the STORET data system.
The goal of this project is to extend, calibrate, and validate the existing Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models in the Red Lake River, Thief River, Clearwater River and Red Lake watersheds.
International Water Institute (IWI) staff will monitor 24 sites in the Bois de Sioux, Mustinka (2 sites), Buffalo (8 sites), Red Lake (4 sites), Sandhill (3 sites), Thief (2 sites), and Tamarac River (3 sites) Watersheds intensively over a 2 year period in an attempt to collect 25 samples per year at each site. If conditions allow for the collection of all planned samples, 1200 stream samples will be collected over the time period. Monitoring will include field measurements, observations, and at least three photographs during each site visit.
MN Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
The purpose of this project is to improve understanding of primary productivity in the Red River and the diversity and population structure of the algal communities occurring along the river system. This will be accomplished through taxonomic identification of periphyton and phytoplankton assemblages necessary for characterizing responses to nutrient gradients along the Red River of the North.
The goal of this project is to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
The goal of this project is to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate a watershed model using the Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) model for the Upper/Lower Red Lake Watershed. The contractor will produce an HSPF model that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Studies. The model will generate predicted output for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen that is consistent with observed data.
The Red River Watershed Management Board (RRWMB) will partner with the Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) on this basin-wide initiative to establish 780 acres of riparian/upland habitat within the Red River Basin (RRB) in Northwest Minnesota. This initiative will use BWSR's Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) Program to target permanent conservation easements on agricultural lands to restore and protect stream and riparian habitat.
The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University (CSB+SJU), in partnership with the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM), will collect and analyze archival records and oral testimonies on Native American boarding schools in order to develop educational materials that promote truth and healing. The project includes: 1) archival research; 2) oral testimonies; 3) developing curricular materials from these archival and oral records.
The concrete floor in the exhibit and storage area of a former garage structure, located on the Clearwater Historical Society museum grounds, was removed and replaced. The severely deteriorated floor with an insafe step down had been barred to public access. With the floor replaced storage capacity has been increased, artifacts are more accessible, space is more usable and the building is now in compliance with ADA requirements.
