This project addresses five reaches of the Minnesota River that have aquatic recreation impairments as identified by high concentrations of E. coli. The project will describe the water quality impairments, complete pollutant source assessments, establish loading capacities and allocations for the impairments, and develop implementation strategies.
The Clean Water Fund and OHF were used together to secure easements on buffer areas. Seven easements were recorded for a total of 606.5 acres. These acres represent 303.1 acres funded by OHF and 303.4 acres funded by non-OHF sources. Only the OHF acres are being reported in this final report to be consistent with the approved accomplishment plan.
This project is for two years of water quality condition monitoring, data management, and project oversight for ten stream locations within the Watonwan and Minnesota Mankato Watersheds.
The Minnesota State Band is a 45-piece concert band that performs a wide variety of music throughout the year. This year, the band celebrates 125 years as an arts organization. We are a part of Minnesota's rich history.
When we receive legacy funding, our goals are to increase the number of concert tours, continuing to reach out to smaller communities around Minnesota, sharing our love of music with residents, and planning joint events with school and community music and arts groups throughout our state.
Jumping worms are an invasive, exotic that poses a threat to forests by removing soil organic matter and seedlings. It is necessary to develop IPM tactics for mitigating jumping worms.
Update the state's 20-year-old native plant community classification guides to incorporate new data; streamline user application and access to products; and increase connections to evolving climate and vegetation trends.
The protection of insect-feeding animals is reliant on sustained insect abundance. We will investigate the ecological roles and energy transfer by Minnesota insects and train future insect researchers
Construction funding is needed to stabilize a unique shoreline site using a bioengineered design incorporating native plants soil wraps, stream barbs and root wads to create aquatic habitat.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO 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.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities.
Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support.
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.
Asian Media Access will create a new cultural destination at the former St. Paul Sears parking lot, with a weekly Multicultural Night Market in Summer 2024.
The Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance (GBERBA) along with Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Counties, landowners, and drainage authorities in the ten member counties will install conservation drainage practices to improve water quality. 103E drainage systems with documented sediment or water quality issues are the focus with the goal of installing 52 practices such as improved side inlets (grade stabilization structures), alternative tile inlets, denitrifying bioreactors, saturated buffers, storage wetlands and others.
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.
The Mustinka River winds through five counties in west central Minnesota and empties into Lake Traverse, a border waters lake with excellent fishing and recreational opportunities. For several years, sections of the river have been negatively impacted from too much soil/sediment eroding from the land and washing away into the water. Excess sediment degrades aquatic habitat and feeds algae blooms. This project continues a 2012 Clean Water Fund collaborative effort to develop a plan to reduce the amount of sediment washed into the river.
The Mustinka River winds through five counties in west central Minnesota and empties into Lake Traverse, a border waters lake with excellent fishing and recreational opportunities. For several years, sections of the river have been negatively impacted from too much soil/sediment eroding from the land and washing away into the water. Excess sediment degrades aquatic habitat and feeds algae blooms.
This project continues a 2011 Clean Water Fund collaborative effort to develop a plan to reduce the amount of sediment washed into the river.
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.
This habitat project presents a unique opportunity within the prairie region to convert 5.5 miles of ditched river to 8+ mile long stream channel within a 260 acre fish and wildlife habitat corridor composed of riparian wetlands and grasslands.
The Mustinka River winds through five counties in west central Minnesota and empties into Lake Traverse, a border waters lake with excellent fishing and recreational opportunities. For several years, sections of the river have been impaired for turbidity due to too much soil/sediment eroding from the land and washing away into the water. Excess sediment degrades aquatic habitat
and feeds algae blooms.
Prior to European settlement more than 18 million acres of prairie covered Minnesota. Today less than 1% of that native prairie remains, and about half of those remaining acres are in private landownership without any formal protection currently in place. Through this appropriation the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will work with private landowners of high quality native prairie sites to protect remaining native prairie using a variety of tools. Approximately 200 acres are expected to be permanently protected through Native Prairie Bank conservation easements.
We will develop camera trapping methods for small mammals, a new tool in the toolbox to to fill key knowledge gaps in status of Minnesota mammal species.
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.
The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife Service will work together to permanently protect native prairie and associated complexes of wetlands and native habitats in western and central Minnesota by purchasing approximately 705 acres of fee title properties and/or permanent habitat easements. Approximately 350 acres will be native prairie. Work will be focused in areas identified as having significant biodiversity by the Minnesota Biological Survey and located in priority areas in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan.
The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife Service will work together to permanently protect native prairie and associated complexes of wetlands and native habitats in western and central Minnesota by purchasing approximately 875 acres of fee title properties and/or permanent habitat easements. Approximately 469 acres will be native prairie. Work will be focused in areas identified as having significant biodiversity by the Minnesota Biological Survey and located in priority areas in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan.
The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife Service will work together to permanently protect native prairie and associated complexes of wetlands and native habitats in western and central Minnesota by purchasing approximately 620 acres of fee title properties and/or permanent habitat easements. Approximately 333 acres will be native prairie. Work will be focused in areas identified as having significant biodiversity by the Minnesota Biological Survey and/or the US Fish and Wildlife Service and located in priority areas in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan.
This appropriation allowed the permanent protection of 887 acres in western Minnesota. These properties included 664 acres of remnant native prairie, 76 acres of associated wetlands complexes, and 8,500' of streamfront. For this phase we originally planned to protect 740 acres with a minimum of 375 native prairie. Both targets were exceeded - 120% of total acres and 177% of native prairie acres.
The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife Service will work together to permanently protect native prairie and associated complexes of wetlands and native habitats in western and central Minnesota by purchasing approximately 1,112 acres of fee title properties and/or permanent habitat easements. Approximately 726 acres will be native prairie. Work will be focused in priority areas identified in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan that have significant biodiversity by the Minnesota Biological Survey.
The Nature Conservancy and US Fish and Wildlife Service will work together to permanently protect native prairie and associated complexes of wetlands and native habitats in western and central Minnesota by purchasing approximately 1,020 acres of fee title properties and/or permanent habitat easements. Approximately 545 acres will be native prairie. Work will be focused in areas identified as having significant biodiversity by the Minnesota Biological Survey and located in priority areas in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan.
This proposal requests renewed funding for a new integrated process with potential to promote nutrient removal/recovery and renewable energy production at rural municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants (WWTP).
