A new GIS technician will help prioritize and target conservation activities and protection strategies in nine north-central Minnesota counties. The GIS technician will create GIS products, assessments, and watershed analysis to identify the high priority areas in each County or watershed in need of protection or restoration using all available data, including LiDAR, soils, land use, completed WRAPS and other datasets. These areas will then be targeted for future resource management efforts, Clean Water Fund projects, and additional conservation activities.
The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota will increase access and deepen engagement with their effectively proven School Service Program. The museum will take down the economic barriers and increase enrollment. This grant will fund more educators and facilitators, curriculum development, scholarship aid, transportation assistance and art/teaching supplies.
Connecting students from Northeastern Minnesota, especially Ely and Cook County schools, to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness through grade-wide day trips and overnight wilderness experiences during the school year.
Fourteen permanent RIM Easements on 766 acres of high quality, riparian and forested habitat have been recorded and will provide lasting wildlife habitat. Attempts were made to acquire three tracts in fee title that would have relied on this funding. The owner of one tract rejected an offer of the certified appraised value. Acquisition attempts on the other two tracts were discontinued when it became apparent that the planned use of the land as DNR Wildlife Management Area would be incompatible with local government plans for future municipal growth.
This project is a digital storytelling project dedicated to bonding communities and cultures through telling elders' stories. The project is embedded in the idea that our elders are waterers - carrying history and knowledge that strengthens a community's identity, and that through the sharing of their stories, we can understand and strengthen communities across generations and geographic location. The project will involve 30 persons from Indigenous, Hmong, Latinx and Somali cultures located across the state.
This project will build off the success of the additional geographic information system (GIS) and water planning expertise the TSA8 added in 2016 to provide consistent mapping, water planning assistance and training to partners. This project will help soil and water conservation districts prepare for the 1W1P process before the planning starts. A unified protection methodology is essential for the 1W1P process to be successful. This project will include: unified GIS mapping and protection model for all nine counties respectively.
Turtle Island Skywatchers - Innovative Research and Data Visualization project works to protect Minnesota water, wildlife, and natural resources while empowering Indigenous youth as leaders and all citizens as researchers.
National Register of Historic Places nomination preparation and a management plan for the 47-acre Two Points property on Ottertail Peninsula, Leech Lake. Included is a spatial analysis of physical artifacts, researching documentation of the site, creating and annotating maps, taking photos and completing the nomination form with attachments and bibliography.
We will reconstruct historical lake conditions to identify factors linked to successful walleye fisheries and guide effective management in the face of warming temperatures, invasive species, and nutrient loading.
Minnesotans increasingly value native fishes. For example, >95% of bowfished species in MN are native, yet all are poorly understood. Foundational natural resource data is absolutely necessary for all stakeholders.
Our goals are to engage 100,000 underserved youth statewide in environmental education, engaging them in the conservation and preservation of Minnesota wilderness through the experiences in the outdoors.
Over the past 100 years, about half of Minnesota’s original 22 million acres of wetlands have been drained or filled. Some regions of the State have lost more than 90 percent of their original wetlands. The National Wetland Inventory, a program initiated in the 1970s, is an important tool used at all levels of government and by private industry, non-profit organizations, and private landowners for wetland regulation and management, land management and conservation planning, environmental impact assessment, and natural resource inventories.
The purpose of this project is to gather data specific to developing a site-specific standard for phosphorus for Upper and Lower Red Lakes. These are large shallow lakes that are located in an area where no shallow lake standard exists. Because of these lakes' unique characteristics, it is believed that a site-specific standard is more appropriate than the deep lake standards that currently exist. This project will include additional chemistry and flow monitoring of tributaries to the lakes, as well as outflow of Lower Red Lake to the Red Lake River.
This project will provide the monitoring of reaches where there are data gaps, incorporate new data and analyze relevant data, identify pollutant sources, hold a stakeholder meeting, and gather information towards the future development of a Draft Restoration (TMDL) and Protection Plan.
The goal of this project is to gather and collect necessary watershed data for the development of a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) for the Upper/Lower Red Lakes Watershed that includes impairments, their causes, and plans for restoration. Implementation of the WRAPS will maintain or improve water quality for the watershed.
The goal of phase 1 of this project is primarily to support organizational planning and coordination among project partners, forming and training a civic engagement team, creating a civic engagement strategic plan, holding two watershed kick off meetings and gathering and summarizing available water quality data. The completion of phase 1 will help provide significant momentum towards the completion of the future phases of the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) process.
This project is for the editing the draft Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports resulting from comments received from Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff, preparing the documents for public notice, assisting with responding to public comments and preparing the final documents for final federal and state approval.
This project will extend the simulation period for the Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) models for the Grand Rapids, Brainerd, Crow Wing, Redeye, Long Prairie, Sartell, Sauk, St. Cloud, and Crow watersheds, and review and comment on the calibration.
This project will extend, calibrate, and validate watershed models using the Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Mississippi Headwaters, Leech Lake, Pine, and South Fork Crow Watersheds.
The primary goal of this project is to examine the calibration and validation of recently extended Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Mississippi River-Headwaters, Mississippi River-Grand Rapids, Mississippi River-Brainerd, Mississippi River-Sartell, Mississippi River-St. Cloud, Leech Lake, Pine River, Crow Wing River, Long Prairie River, and Redeye River watersheds and revise the calibration.
Use mobile AI-assisted technologies to survey lake visitors. Assess perceptions of water quality and perceived threats. Combine survey data with water quality data and trend monitoring to inform lake management.
Wolf survival and predation in summer are almost unknown but critical to deer, moose, and wolf, management. We'll study wolf predator-prey ecology, share charismatic natural history, and promote Voyageurs' region.
Wetlands in large lakes in the Voyageurs National Park area have been degraded by invasive cattails, which reduces biodiversity, degrades fish/wildlife habitat, and outcompetes wild rice/manoomin. Phases 1&2 of the project entailed refinement of restoration methods. We will continue mechanical treatment methods in Phase 3 to remove invasive cattails and other vegetation, including use of contracted harvesting machines, NPS owned-cutting machines, and hand crews in more inaccessible areas.
Minnesota Sea Grant seeks to create a science-policy fellowship program to train Minnesota's science-policy workforce and advance Minnesota's water resource policy, emulating Sea Grants successful federal-level fellowship program.
We propose robotics-based educational activities for middle-school youth on water quality in Minnesota. Youth will gain skills for measuring water quality and communicating results through group study and hands-on projects.
Vermilion Community College will assist the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) with meeting the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) development objectives of collecting data and completing watershed assessments for the Rainy River Headwaters, Vermilion River, and Little Fork River watersheds. Services will include providing support for field water monitoring, other field sampling and measurements and related field data management, analysis, and assessments in these watersheds.
This Phase 5 continuation of the Wild Rice Shoreland Protection Program will utilize permanent conservation easements to protect 500 acres, translating to approximately 3 miles of wild rice shoreland habitat. Sites are selected through an integrative ranking process that considers development risk, surrounding land use, habitat value, and numerous other criteria. BWSR will utilize the RIM Easement process in partnership with 12 local SWCDs within the Northern Forest and Forest/Prairie Transition Sections during the appropriation term.
