Wild Rivers Conservancy of the St. Croix and Namekagon, Minnesota Land Trust, and The Trust for Public Land will work in partnership to permanently protect approximately 1000 acres of critical wildlife habitat on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River watershed through fee-title acquisition and conservation easements. The goals of the program are to protect high quality wildlife habitat, improve conservation connectivity, and provide public access for outdoor recreation opportunities.
Wild Rivers Conservancy, Minnesota Land Trust, and The Trust for Public Land will work in partnership to permanently protect approximately 668 acres of critical wildlife habitat on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River watershed through fee-title acquisition and conservation easements. The goals of the program are to protect high quality wildlife habitat, improve conservation connectivity, and provide public access for outdoor recreation opportunities.
During the 2016 Legislative Session, the Minnesota State Legislature asked the Minnesota Humanities, $75,000 the first year is for a grant to the city of St. Paul or Ramsey County to develop and install activity facilities in parks for Takraw courts that are reflective of the current demographics in Ramsey County. This grant is available if the recipient provides at least a 25 percent match for funding.
Chisago County will coordinate up to three community dialogue meetings to inform its water planning decisions. The goal of the meetings will be to provide safe, productive and effective venues for citizens to become authentically engaged in the water planning process. The outcome of this Civic engagement work with Chisago County and their county water planning process will be a more engaged public in the County Water Planning Process.
This project will support the necessary activities for improving the water quality and biological community by reducing nutrients, sediment levels and managing in-stream habitat within the Goose Creek 10-digit HUC Watershed. This restoration and protection plan will identify pollutant load reduction estimates and management strategies that will be used to obtain the TMDL goals outlined in the plan.
This project will complete a comprehensive study, following a rational, step-wise process of data analysis, response modeling and comparison to the water quality standards, followed by impairment diagnosis, modeling of improvement and protection options, and development of a WRAP Report and Implementation Plan for Sunfish lake, Thompson lake, Pickerel lake, and Rogers lake.
This project will complete a Watershed Restoration and Protection Plan for the Lower St. Croix River that provides quantitative pollutant load reduction estimates and a set of pollutant reduction and watershed management strategies to achieve water quality standards for all impairments within the watershed, and that are understood and adoptable by local units of government and other stakeholders.
This project will support the development of whole farm conservation plans for ten (10) agricultural producers within the Sunrise River Watershed. The conservation plans will be used by the farmer and the Chisago SWCD to develop an action plan to address the resource concerns identified as part of the AgEQA program. The overall goal of the program is to prioritize conservation practices that will improve the overall water quality of the Sunrise River.
This project will consist of identifying the candidate causes of biological stress and to develop and implement a public and stakeholder participation process that encourages local ownership of water quality problems and solutions. The Stressor ID process will be done using existing data, identifying data gaps, gathering new data, developing load duration curves, and refinement of the candidate causes. The civic engagement work will include compiling and reviewing existing data on community capacity and assessing that information.
This project will build network and the skill set of local resource professionals to do effective civic engagement work for water restoration and protection in Southeast Minnesota. The cohort will be administered through the Southeast Minnesota Water Resources Board (SE MN WRB) which is an area wide Joint Powers Board (JPB) established to help improve and protect the water resources of the area through coordinating local water planning efforts. This JPB has successfully administered water quality grants in the past that have positively impacted the water resources of this region.
This project will complete a pollutant source identification and subwatershed information report and support the development of a Draft Restoration and Protection Plan (RAPP). It will also support the devlopment of a Implementation Plan that will identify target areas for BMP implementation for bacteria reductions.
This project will complete spatial and temporal revisions , recalibration and validation of 7 watershed HSPF models. These fully functioning calibrated validated executable models will simulate hydrology, sediment (sand, silt, and clay), temperature, phosphorus, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand, and algae at the 12-digit HUC subbasin scale (or finer).
This project will provide the MPCA, CCWD, and all other stakeholders the information and tools necessary to improve the water quality within Coon Creek Watershed District. The improvements will take place using targeted activities throughout the watershed to reduce the primary biological and chemical stressors. In turn, the reduction of these stressors will help to reduce overall loadings of sediment, turbidity, total phosphorus, and E. coli bacteria.
The MPCA, in partnership with the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization, contracted with Wenck Associates, Inc., to develop the Stressor Identification (SID) Report; and develop the necessary models for the Vermillion River Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) as part of Phase I. The final Vermillion River Watershed SID report discusses all of the analysis that was done in the watershed to identify the primary stressors causing the fish and macroinvertebrate impairments in the watershed.
TMDL project in the Chisago Lakes Lake Improvement District that will develop a watershed based plan and provide strategies for water quality and aquatic ecosystem management, restoration, and protection within Sunrise River Watershed. This project will also aid in understanding the Phosphorus loading to Lake St. Croix.
This project will provide baseline data through water monitoring, recording and analyzing the results of six unassessed rivers/tributaries, three unassessed lakes and five storm water outlets in the city of Mora which drain to the Snake River; promote and implement approved BMP’s.
This project will continue the offering of low-interest loans to citizens, some of whom may not be able to acquire funding otherwise, for upgrading 50 septic systems to ensure compliance with state rules. Grant funds will be used to administer the low-interest loan program.
Implementation activities proposed as a part of this project include water quality monitoring, biotic surveys, sediment core sampling, mechanical treatment of curly-leaf pondweed (in accordance with regulations and permitting), an iron-enhanced sand filter, with a high capacity multi-stage outlet weir and 40,000 pounds of iron filings and stakeholder involvement in the design process and educational presentations.
To allow visitors of the Washington County Fair to experience life in the 1800s. The fair will offer children's games from the era, dancing demonstrations, and educational fashion shows which will feature styles from the 1800s along with explanations of an item's function and symbolism.
This project determines ambient background per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) levels in urban and non-urban soils. This information will help Minnesota develop management strategies for PFAS contaminated soils.
The acquisition of high-resolution sonar data provides important information essential for mapping mussel habitat while having ecological applications useful to resource managers and policy makers protecting Minnesota threatened/endangered native mussels.
Lake Elmo Park Reserve. Build Winter Recreation Area including plan winter recreation area, develop recreation facilities to accommodate evening use; install lighting for ski trails and site; develop roads and parking lot; remodel barn for use as a trailhead. A?
The Comfort Lake Forest Lake Watershed includes numerous private ditches and partially drained wetlands which are a priority for mapping, assessment and restoration. The project will include the mapping and assessment of all drained and partially drained wetlands in the watershed. In addition, a web-based GIS system will be developed to inventory, assess, target and track the effectiveness of various conservation practices towards the attainment of water quality goals.
The Disabled Veterans Rest Camp (DVRC), located on Big Marine Lake in Washington County, is open to all military veterans and military families. Founded in 1926 to help disabled veterans recover from World War I, the non-profit, campground relies on donations and volunteers to host most activities that provide relief and recreation. With so many more Guard and Reserve deployments, more veterans and their families are turning to the camp for family fund and recreation while their loved one is deployed and during the transition back to civilian life.
