The Minnesota Soil Survey is an ongoing effort by the Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) that is systematically collecting and mapping data pertaining to soil types and other soil properties in each county of the state. Soils data is used by governments, farmers, and other businesses for a number of purposes from protection and restoration of soil, water, wetlands, and habitats to agricultural soil management to building construction.
This project will augment data collection efforts for the Lake Superior South, Cloquet, St. Louis River, and Duluth Urban Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) projects. Activities include: attaining datasets for watershed stressors and geomorphic conditions, water quality gap monitoring, and civic engagement. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has been collaborating with the South St. Louis Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) to complete WRAPS related technical and civic engagement work in the Lake Superior basin for the past five years.
Imminent Health Threat (IHT) systems are those that are discharging improperly treated human waste onto the ground surface or into surface waters. In addition to the potential water quality impacts, untreated sewage has the potential to introduce bacteria and viruses into the environment. When IHT systems are identified, county or city staff assist the homeowners through the process required to bring their systems into compliance with the septic ordinance.
Each fiscal year of ACHF funding, a majority of the twelve regional library systems agree to allocate 10% of their ACHF funding to support statewide partnership projects. SELCO serves as the fiscal agent for statewide projects.
We will deploy acoustic detectors and revisit roost trees identified in our previous ENRTF project to measure effect of seven years of white-nose syndrome on Minnesota bats.
The Stewart River is a state protected water and a Designated Trout Stream. In 2010, it was identified as a high priority watershed during the update of the Lake County Water Management Plan. The river empties into Lake Superior near the drinking water intake for the City of Two Harbors.
This project will restore five severely eroding streambank sites along a 1.5 mile reach of the Stewart River. Commitments have been secured from the five property owners, including the Lake County Highway Department, to complete the project.
This project will generate water quality data for 10 stream locations MPCA designated for their 2012 and 2013 open-water sampling seasons (8 by NRRI-UMD and 2 via subcontract to the North St. Louis SWCD). The overall project goal is to collect event-based physical and chemical data sets for 10 agency-prioritized stream sampling sites in NE Minnesota for calculating pollutant loads and for incorporation into the overall State database for MPCA assessment purposes.
This project seeks to provide data on insecticide contamination in the soil and the insect community across the state and the effect of sublethal insecticide exposure on insect reproduction.
