With the completion of LiDAR data in southern Minnesota, it is imperative to use this data as effectively as possible. In order to do so, the Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance (GBERBA) will contract with a vendor to complete a Geographic Information System (GIS) terrain analysis in subsheds of the Watonwan River watershed. This inventory will utilize the State of Minnesota LiDAR elevation datasets to create many GIS datasets by spatially analyzing the elevation data.
The Watonwan Watershed Resource Specialist has been funding with Clean Water funds since 2012. Since that time, the Watonwan Watershed Resource Specialist has been a crucial connector between landowners and natural resource professionals in the Watonwan Watershed. As the technical ability and responsibilities of the WWRS expands, the need and urgency to secure extended funding becomes a priority. This project will fund half of the Watonwan Watershed Research Specialist position through year 2020.
The Watonwan Watershed Technician will provide highly focused targeting of conservation programs and practices. The technician will enhance current staff capabilities in the Watonwan watershed by collecting landowner contact information from previous studies and GIS methods, produce mass mailings about funding opportunities, and meet one-on-one with landowners to discuss their conservation concerns. The technician will implement 45 projects/practices over a three year period.
In conjunction with the Watonwan Major Watershed Project engagement process, create a contact strategy for community/landowner opportunities, obstacles, and opinions on land management and water quality that will result in the identification of restoration and protection strategies for the Watonwan River watershed.
Develop a network of informed citizens, business people, community leaders and others capable of acting collectively to get work done in a sustained, strategic and meaningful way through a sense of shared ownership in the water resource management process.
The Bois De Sioux Watershed District (BdSWD) is partnering with the Wilkin County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), Wilkin County, and landowners to reduce sediment load by 450 tons/year and phosphorus load by 90 lbs/yr to the Bois de Sioux River. This project is estimated to meet 10% of the Bois de Sioux-Mustinka short-term reduction goals for sediment and 28% of the short-term goal for phosphorus reduction in the planning region. Wilkin County Ditch #1 (WCD #1) outlets to the Bois de Sioux River, which is impaired for turbidity, dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus, and e. coli.
This proposal will fund technical assistance for nutrient management planning to accelerate water quality improvements with the 12-county West Central Technical Service Area (WCTSA). A needs assessment identified an estimated 156 certified nutrient management plans that will be needed over a 3 year period. Of the 71 SWCD employees in the WCTSA, only 1 SWCD staff member is dedicated to nutrient management planning. To meet technical assistance needs, this grant will fund a Regional Planning Specialist (RPS) to address local resource concerns.
The West Central Technical Service Area (WCTSA) serves 12 Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs) in west central Minnesota and has been experiencing increased workload due to greater requests from member SWCDs. This funding will sustain a limited-term technician and purchase related support equipment to assist landowners in implementing targeted, high priority practices that result in the greatest water quality outcomes.
This project will educate and assist landowners to seal unused wells by providing cost-share funds of 50% up to $1,000 per well located in highly vulnerable groundwater areas in 10 southeast Minnesota counties. Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water and due to the karst geology in SE MN groundwater is more vulnerable to contamination.
The Yellow Medicine One Watershed One Plan has identified Protecting and Preserving Groundwater Quality and Quantity as one of the three priorities addressed in the Plan. Seven priority sub-watersheds have been identified as priority areas, as well as two townships that have been identified by the Department of Agriculture to have vulnerable groundwater areas. Our goal is to provide 50% cost share to seal 34 abandoned wells that are located in these priority areas.
This program is a part of a comprehensive clean water strategy to prevent sediment and nutrients from entering our lakes, rivers, and streams; enhance fish and wildlife habitat; protect groundwater and wetlands. Specifically the Wellhead Protection Conservation Easement program is targeted to protect drinking water through the Reinvest in Minnesota Program (RIM).
This program is a part of a comprehensive clean water strategy to prevent sediment and nutrients from entering our lakes, rivers, and streams; enhance fish and wildlife habitat; protect groundwater and wetlands. Specifically the Wellhead Protection Conservation Easement program is targeted to protect drinking water through the Reinvest in Minnesota Program (RIM).
This program is a part of a comprehensive clean water strategy to prevent sediment and nutrients from entering our lakes, rivers, and streams; enhance fish and wildlife habitat; protect groundwater and wetlands. Specifically the Wellhead Protection Conservation Easement program is targeted to protect drinking water through the Reinvest in Minnesota Program (RIM).
A large amount of effort has gone in to identifying phosphorous loading and other nutrient sources in West Washington County. Installing stormwater retrofit projects at local church campuses represents a major opportunity for water quality improvement. In partnership, three watershed organizations will install conservation practices, targeting impervious surfaces on the campuses. This project will provide funding to install raingardens, pervious pavement and rainwater harvesting methods to capture and improve water quality to downstream water resources.
Locating the sources of sediment, phosphorus, and bacteria is integral to reducing the effect they have on a water body. The completion of the West Fork Des Moines River (WFDMR) Targeting and Prioritizing Endeavor will result in a set of data that is the most cost-effective for the implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs) for all identified priority resources. The results will be expressed as the maximum reduction of a water quality contaminant (e.g. sediment, phosphorus, bacteria) at a priority resource (e.g. an impaired stream) for a given level of investment.
This monitoring work expands on previously established routine water quality and flow sampling to include extensive fish and aquatic invertebrate surveys. Subsequent steps include assessment of the monitoring data to determine impairments, identification of stressors that are causing impairments, development of Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) studies using identification of pollutant sources using computer modeling and other techniques, civic engagement, and public education as approaches in progress towards water quality goals.
The goal of this project is to establish a framework that the local government can use to guide their involvement as the WFDMR Watershed Project progresses over the next four years. This will enhance the success of the overarching goal of providing a framework for which the local government and watershed organizations can engage the public in a manner that will lead to water quality improvement. This will result in strategies to protect or restore the waters in this watershed.
This project will apply science to identify viable and priority wetland restorations and rehabilitations that will deliver sustainable water quality benefit, along with flood storage and habitat benefits. Decision tools will be developed to assist with selection of restoration projects.
Whaletail Lake (MDNR 27-018400) is located within the jurisdictional boundaries of Pioneer-Sarah Creek Watershed Management Commission (PSCWMC). The lake is considered having two distinct basins relative to the Minnesota water quality nutrient standards with the South basin (MDNR 27-018402) classified as a deep lake (156 acres; max depth 23 feet; & 66% littoral) and the North basin (MDNR 27-0180401) classified as a shallow lake (370 acres; max depth 10 feet; & 100% littoral).
This project will support the operation and maintenance of a stream gage that records stage, index-velocity and water temperature at Wheeler's Point on the Rainy River. The USGS will visit the stream gage approximately every six (6) weeks to perform maintenance and, as needed, to define the range of flows that occur.
The Whiskey Creek project involves a coordinated and comprehensive approach to watershed management. This project consists of installing conservation practices that reduce sediment loading to Whiskey Creek while also providing flood reduction benefits to downstream landowners.
The Wilkin Soil and Water Conservation District will partner with the Buffalo Red River Watershed District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and landowners to install 59 side inlets to stabilize high priority gullies that are contributing sediment to Whiskey Creek. When these 59 gullies are stabilized, sediment loading to Whiskey Creek will be reduced by an estimated 1,006 tons per year and total phosphorus reduced by 794 pounds per year.
The Whiskey Creek Watershed is the largest subwatershed in the Upper Red River of the North drainage, encompassing 165.63 square miles in Otter Tail and Wilkin Counties. This watershed contains the headwaters of the Red River of the North, which begins in far west central Wilkin County, an area of mixed residential and agricultural land use. The cities of Breckenridge, Minnesota and Wahpeton, North Dakota, as well as the small town of Kent are within the watershed.
The DNR is directed by Minnesota Law 2016, Chapter 172, Article 2, Section 12 to request proposals for a potential design-build project to augment White Bear Lake with water from East Vadnais Lake.
Within Whitewater River Watershed, groundwater is the primary drinking water source for both private and community wells. These drinking water aquifers often lack adequate protective layers making them vulnerable to contamination. Unused wells can deteriorate and pose a serious risk to groundwater quality by providing a pathway for contaminants from the surface to easily travel into groundwater. This project will use cost-share funds to incentivize sealing twelve abandoned wells that are contamination risks to vulnerable aquifers.
Project outcomes include results from hydroponics experiments, which will likely consist of information on the response of wild rice growth to a range of concentrations of sulfate, sulfide, and various cations. Results from these experiments will be used to help determine what additional research is needed in 2013. The MPCA will use this data to evaluate the current sulfate standard and the need, if any, for modifications to it.
Project outcomes include data that will ultimately allow the MPCA to quantitatively compare the environmental conditions (surface water and sedimentary geochemistry) at sites that successfully support wild rice growth to sites that do not support wild rice. These data, in particular the analysis of the porewater samples obtained under this project, will be compared to the results from a separate project that will assess the growth of wild rice using hydroponic methods.
The MPCA is currently collecting additional information needed to evaluate the 10 mg/liter wild-rice-based sulfate standard and has received funding through legislation passed during the 2011 Special Session to implement a wild rice research plan and contract with scientific experts to further understand the effects of sulfate on the growth of wild rice. The goal of this project is to determine responses of wild rice to sulfate and the products of geochemical transformations of sulfate.
This project makes an additional plant growth chamber available to increase efficiency for the MPCA Wild Rice Standards Study, which is gathering information about the effects of sulfate on the growth of wild rice.
