The Seven Mile Creek Condition Monitoring project will maintain and build on the continuous flow and water quality data base at three stream sites and one county tile in the Seven Mile Creek watershed through the collection of approximately eighty five water samples per monitoring season in preparation for the Middle Minnesota Intensive Watershed Monitoring scheduled to begin in 2013.
Ducks Unlimited purchased a total of 567 acres in 11 separate parcels in the Prairie Section for the state of Minnesota, including 135 acres of wetlands and 432 acres of uplands. All 11 parcels have been restored and transferred to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for inclusion in state Wildlife Management Areas, are open to public access, and managed for wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation. This prairie conservation work contributes to the goals of the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan, the Governor's Pheasant Action Plan, Minnesota's Long-range Duck Recovery
Ducks Unlimited successfully completed this Phase 4 our land acquisition/restoration program to protect shallow lakes and restore wetlands by purchasing and restoring 1,004 acres of land with drained wetlands and land on shallow lakes as additions to state Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) for the MNDNR throughout southern Minnesota.
Funding through this appropriation enhanced 8,359 acres of wetland habitat. Included in this work were six infrastructure projects that enhanced 871 acres and a Douglas County wetland restoration was done in cooperation with Pheasants Forever. Wetland management actions by the Region 1 Roving Habitat Crew enhanced almost 7,500 wetland acres through work on prescribed burns, herbicide applications, and removal of woody vegetation. Survey and design work in Rice County gathered information for possible future construction.
Funding through this appropriation enhanced 4,745 acres of wetland habitat. Four wetland/shallow lake infrastructure projects were competed that enhanced 1,020 acres and and another project restored 50 acres. Wetland management actions (wild rice seeding, a significant drawdown, and a major large prescribed burn) enhanced 1,997 acres. Work by the Region 3 Roving Habitat Crew enhanced 1,678 wetland acres through work on prescribed burns, drawdowns, herbicide applications, and removal of woody vegetation.
Forest Lake is one of the top recreational lakes in the metro area and protecting its water quality is a top priority for the Comfort Lake Forest Lake Watershed District. While not currently on the impaired waters list, the water quality of Forest Lake is very near the water quality standard. Shields Lake has been identified as the single largest pollutant contributor to Forest Lake. This project proposes to impound water from a tributary to Shields Lake for golf course irrigation reuse, reducing watershed phosphorus loads to Shields Lake.
State leadership for the 4-H Shooting Sports & Wildlife Program, including staff and 4-H volunteer committee members, will provide a menu of equipment options for local programs to choose from as a means to build their Shooting Sports & Wildlife project. Local programs will submit a grant application justifying how the new equipment will help them build and grow their program, attract and engage new audiences, and provide sustainability in their local chapter.
The St. Croix River is one of the most pristine, large river ecosystems remaining in the upper Mississippi River System. Washington County, in partnership with the City of Stillwater, is using this appropriation to acquire 15 acres containing 3,500 feet of St. Croix River shoreline just north of downtown Stillwater and parallel to the Brown’s Creek State Trail. The land will be turned into a local nature park for trail users, river users, tourists, and area residents with passive recreation including fishing, boat launching, walking, and picnicking.
This project, entitled Sing Again, aims to preserve Somali lullabies, originally passed generation to generation through oral tradition, by transcribing them in children's lullaby book and creating website for resource-sharing and archival so that future generations of children can use them.
The Six Lakes subwatershed analysis will utilize previously completed watershed modeling to conduct subwatershed analyses for six high priority lakes that are closest to meeting state water quality standards or require protection due to high public use and declining water quality trends. This project will develop a long list of cost benefit ranked water quality best management practices based on concept design.
The Greater Blue Earth River Basin is a large area within the Watonwan, Le Sueur, and Blue Earth River watersheds. Recent research by University of Minnesota, the National Center for Earth Dynamics, and others has found this basin to be the largest contributor of sediment to Lake Pepin.
The Somali Museum of Minnesota will curate and present two new monthly series of public programs designed to amplify, celebrate, and preserve Somali culture. The first series will be gallery-based and draw from the museum’s collection to offer Somali language, cultural and history instruction targeted to Somali families and school age youth. The second series, designed for a broader audience, will present artist talks and demonstrations, dance performances, exhibitions, and poetry readings.
Ka Joog requests funding from the Minnesota Humanities Center to offer songwriting and composition to Somali American youth enrolled in FANKA, our arts education program. We will contract with Nimcaan Hilaac, a renowned Somali American songwriter, singer, and composer. We will offer 210-300 Somali youth in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and Saint Cloud songwriting workshops facilitated by Mr. Hilaac. Their learning will culminate in a community-wide event featuring performances by our youth.
Soomaal House of Art (Soomaal) proposes an 8-month art residency project focused on supporting 4 contemporary Somali-American artists to create new work for a culminating exhibition. The artists will complete an 8-month long residency encompassing programs to share artists' work with the community through a group exhibition, artist talk, workshop at local schools, and webinar conversations with community members.
To upgrade the capacity of Washington County Fair to host a variety of performing artists at the fair by upgrading the sound system. To purchase mixing console, power amplifier, microphones, dual CD player adaptable to inputs from USB, memory sticks, MP3, therefore allowing the fair to invite performers using digital sound devices.
Well Construction: After grantee pays evaluation and selects well location, drill well. Cost share to be used to evaluate potential to install sentintel monitoring well upgradient of City's well field.
Update list of properties with undocumented, unused or cross-connected wells; Educate property owners of best management practices and options to seals the wells on their property
