The Native Prairie Bank Program will work with willing landowners to enroll 420 acres of native prairie in perpetual conservation easements. Enrollment will focus on Minnesota Prairie Plan identified landscapes and target high quality prairies that provide valuable wildlife habitat.
CMSM will build upon the work that began with its 2015-16 appropriation by (1) Remediation and further development of exhibit areas that promote Arts & Cultural Heritage (ACH) learning (2) Expanding ACH learning opportunities for new audiences at off-site locations; (3) Engaging an outside Evaluation Consultant to help plan/implement strategies that meaningfully assess ACH learning outcomes and impacts; (4) Boosting the Museum’s capacity to serve more school/early learning groups.
The goal is to facilitate strategic networking, learning, and implementation in targeted groups to assess, build, and leverage community capacity (i.e. community resources and values) to increase best management practice (BMP) adoption to restore and protect water quality in the Blue Earth River watershed
The Conservation Partners Legacy Grant Program will be managed by the Department of Natural Resources to provide competitive matching grants of up to $400,000 to local, regional, state, and national non-profit organizations and government entities.
This project will gather long term watershed data necessary for assessment, stressor identification work, and Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) development work for Elm Creek and the Blue Earth Watershed.
This project is for constructing, calibrating, and validating a Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Minnesota portions of the Des Moines Headwaters, Lower Des Moines, and East Fork Des Moines watersheds. The model can be used to provide information to support conventional parameter Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports. This model generates predicted output timeseries data for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen that are consistent with observed data.
Martin Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) is proposing to monitor six lakes sites and two stream sites in the Blue Earth River watershed. The lake sites will be monitored by kayak and the stream sites will be monitored from the shore. Sites will be analyzed for field conditions and water chemistry. Martin SWCD will subcontract with Faribault SWCD to monitor fourteen stream sites and with Blue Earth SWCD to monitor one lake site and three stream sites.
