Bald Eagle Lake is a popular recreational lake known for its fishery on the Metropolitan Council's Priority Lakes List. The lake is negatively impacted by excess nutrients and restoring its water quality is a local priority.
This project will collect stormwater runoff from an approximately 900 acre area and re-use it to irrigate an existing golf course. This innovative project will provide a multitude of environmental benefits for Bald Eagle Lake including significant runoff volume reduction, groundwater recharge and phosphorus load reduction.
Capitol Region Watershed District will partner with local organizations and private landowners to implement a variety of cost-effective Best Management Practices in the East Kittsondale subwatershed. The urbanized condition of the 1,860 acre subwatershed results in an estimated 1,500 pounds of phosphorus, over 470,000 pounds of sediment, and significant concentrations of bacteria associated with that sediment being sent untreated to the Mississippi River each year. Those pollutants have contributed to several impairments within the river.
In partnership with Metro Blooms, the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) will implement stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) at a minimum of six properties along commercial nodes targeted for re-investment by the City of Minneapolis' Business District Support program.
Stubbs Bay on Lake Minnetonka is impaired for excess nutrients due to phosphorus loading. This impairment results in nuisance algae blooms that limit the recreational use of this water body. As a part of its surface water management planning process, the City of Orono has identified projects to help improve the water quality of Stubbs Bay and Lake Minnetonka. The Stubbs Bay Ravine Stabilization project is one of the projects scheduled for completion in 2011.
Grants to counties to implement SSTS programs including inventories, enforcement, development of databases, and systems to insure SSTS maintenance and of reporting program results to BWSR and MPCA and base grants.
The Ramsey Conservation District is partnering with the Vadnais Lake Area Water Management Organization, St. Paul Regional Water Service, and Ramsey County Parks and Recreation to restore and stabilize approximately 550 linear feet of streambank along the Sucker Lake Channel in northeastern Ramsey County with a cost effective critical area planting, replacing the existing mix of turf grass and asphalt streambank with a native vegetation planting.
The project will work with county and Waseca Soil and Water Conservation District staff to increase knowledge and participation in the Watershed Approach efforts and provide input to the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) document.
The Le Sueur Watershed Technician will provide highly focused targeting of conservation programs and practices in this key watershed. The technician will enhance current staff capabilities in the Le Sueur watershed by collecting landowner contact information, producing landowner mailings about funding opportunities, and meeting one-on-one with landowners to discuss conservation concerns they may have. This has been a highly successful method for targeting projects, project identification, landowner contact, and project follow through.
The Le Sueur Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), who acts as County Ditch Inspectors, will partner with the Le Sueur County GIS Coordinator to accomplish the inventory and inspection of drainage ditches. A database will be established for all 250 miles of Le Sueur County Drainage Authority ditches. The inventory will be conducted using Lidar, 2010 and 2013 Pictometry and onsite technical review. Sites that have potential water quality issues will be identified from worst to most stable for side inlets, buffers and retention storage.
This project will complete a Acetochlor Impairment Response Report. This report will combine and coordinate information relating to actions being done in direct response to the acetochlor water quality impairments with those being done and support MDA’s on-going responsibility to assure pesticides are used in a manner that does not cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.
This project will provide additional monitoring data to be utilized in the watershed assessment process for the Le Sueur River Watershed Project. Monitoring will take place for an additional year at two sites along the Maple River.
This project will identify priority management zones (PMZ), for the purposes of water quality restoration and protection, within the LeSueur River major watershed. This project is only one component of a larger effort in the LeSueur watershed to complete Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) studies while engaging citizens and landowners in land management planning.
The Lower Minnesota River Watershed is on schedule for monitoring in 2014 and 2015. The requested sample sites that are listed in the RFP for Le Sueur County are Le Sueur Creek, Forest Prairie, a joint drainage tributary in the NW part of the county and Lake Sanborn. The project goal is to obtain useful water quality data in the Lower Minnesota River Watershed. Project objectives are: 1. Complete project planning by April 15 2014. 2.
The Pine County SWCD project will collect complete sets of water quality data for the Kettle River and some of its tributaries and also collect complete sets of water quality data for six area lakes (Oak, Dago, Rhine, Elbow, Rock, and Lake Eleven).
This project will collect water quality data at eight stream sites in three of the MPCA targeted watersheds. The sites are located on Medary Creek, Flandreau Creek, Pipestone Creek (2), Split Rock Creek, Rock River, Poplar Creek and Chanarambie Creek. This project will also promote a citizens monitoring program and encourage individuals to participate in a monitoring program.
This comprehensive water sampling program will assess the water quality of six sites: two main points on the Rock River, two main tributaries to the Rock River, and two points where streams leave the state (Mud and Beaver Creek) for a period of two years.
This project will assess lakes and streams in the Cannon River watershed that have not been assessed to determine if they are meeting their designated uses. Some of these lakes and streams have data for certain pollutants, but not enough to complete an impairment assessment. The river and stream reaches are located in Dakota, Goodhue, Le Sueur, Rice, Steele, and Waseca counties. The lakes are located throughout the Cannon watershed (Le Sueur, Rice and Waseca Counties). This project will be a continuation of past assessments conducted in 2007 and 2009.
This project will allow monitoring to take place on nine stream sites and characterize their water quality and determine their impaired status for biological and chemical parameters. The physical and chemical measurements will include dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, conductivity, transparency, total phosphorus, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total suspended solids, total volatile solids, nitrite-nitrate nitrogen, chloride, sulfate, hardness and e-coli.
The Pioneer-Sarah Creek Watershed Assessment project will complete a condition assessment for all currently unassessed or partially assessed (i.e., incomplete datasets) lakes and streams throughout the Pioneer-Sarah Creek (PSC) watershed (South Fork of Crow River; Hennepin County).
This project will collect additional water quality and flow data on tributaries on the South Fork Crow River and Buffalo Creek. Further assessment of these reaches will provide a better understanding of what impacts these tributaries have on the impaired South Fork Crow River and Buffalo Creek.
The Zumbro River Watershed is a major watershed in the Lower Mississippi River basin in SE Minnesota. It includes parts of six counties, covering 910,291 acres. This project will assess all 13 stream reaches in the Zumbro River Watershed to determine if they are meeting their designated uses. The monitoring will entail collecting water chemistry and field parameters.
This project will focus on collecting stream water quality data. Citizen volunteers and SWCD staff will complete water quality monitoring on two targeted stream sites in the watershed and eight additional sites including prospective MPCA biological assessment sites and DNR-Fisheries priority sites. This project will expand citizen participation into the assessment of streams in the watershed which are not included in the current TMDL study and expand data collection to a wider set of parameters.
Rice County Water Resources Division will complete a Surface Water Assessment for six lakes located in the Cannon River Watershed. The lakes chosen include: Sprague Lake (66-0045-00), Mud Lake (66-0054-00), Hatch Lake (66-0063-00), Pooles Lake (66-0046-00), Logue Lake (66-0057-00), and Phelps Lake (66-0062-00). Each lake chosen is currently unassessed, and both Sprague and Mud lake are priority lakes for testing. Sampling will include testing dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, Secchi, Total phosphorus, and chlorophyll-a. The samples will be taken by volunteers and paid staff.
The soil and water conservation districts within the watersheds for the Redwood and Cottonwood Rivers have been putting conservation practices on the ground for years in a long-running collaborative effort.
This area of the Minnesota River Basin has been identified as contributing significant amounts of sediment to the watershed. The primary cause of the sediment is from gullies and ravines. This project by the Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance (GBERBA) continues efforts begun with FY2011 Clean Water Funds. Using data collected through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and LiDAR, GERBA will install best management practices to address severe ravines and gullies in targeted specific locations.
Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (RWMWD) is a largely developed area of the Twin Cities with an average impervious surface area of 34%. Faith organizations often have large impervious surface areas with little to no stormwater treatment on site. The goal of this project is to collaborate with faith organizations in high priority areas to implement stormwater volume reduction retrofit projects. High priority areas are defined as areas with limited to no stormwater treatment before reaching a water body and/or areas that drain to an impaired water.
The Whitewater River is one of Minnesota's most scenic and best loved rivers. The Whitewater's pools are home to brown, brook and rainbow trout, making the river one of the state's most popular trout fishing areas. Yet, water quality is of concern. Abnormal rainfall events in Southeastern Minnesota have increased stormwater runoff which equates to increased flows, erosion and sedimentation into the Whitewater and other local streams like the Zumbro River.
This project will educate and also encourage residents to join the Le Sueur County cost-share well sealing program to provide assistance in sealing unused/abandoned wells.
This project will continue collaboration with faith organizations in priority areas to implement stormwater volume reduction retrofit projects. Priority areas are defined as areas with limited to no stormwater treatment before reaching a water body and/or areas that drain to an impaired or at risk water.
The objective of the project is to develop a targeted stormwater implementation and outreach program focused on non-profit partners. The Nine Mile Creek Watershed District is a 50 square mile fully-developed watershed with 15 major lakes and over twenty miles of creek system. Given that much development in this area occurred prior to the era of stormwater management regulations, runoff from many sites is untreated prior to discharge to downstream water bodies.
To be able to manage resources in the Blue Earth and Le Sueur Watersheds into the future and have a positive effect on water quality, resource managers need high quality accurate data to support decision making of best management practice (BMP) implementation. Digital elevation data is a valuable resource for modeling water flow, however in its current state it cannot represent water conveyance through features such as roadways. These flow barriers limit the accurate use of data for recently developed targeting tools identifying BMP suitability and effectiveness down to the field scale.
The Medicine Lake Excess Nutrient Total Maximum Daily Load study indicates a volume reduction of 10% will reduce phosphorus loading to Medicine Lake by over 300 pounds. The 400 Project is a grant program supporting projects to reduce existing impervious surface and increase infiltration through the implementation and use of porous pavement(s) and/or reinforced turf technology. While new construction has more opportunity to include water quality improvements, The 400 Project is unique in that can assist with redevelopment projects where space is limited.
The Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance (GBERBA), a nine County/SWCD JPO has identified buffers as a basin priority. This initiative will work towards the goal of identifying all DNR protected shoreland in the GBERBA counties without a 50 foot vegetative buffer. Buffer strips protect surface and groundwater from a multitude of pollutants. During stormwater run off events buffers can remove between 50 and 100 percent of nutrients, pesticides, pathogens, and sediment. The estimated sediment reduction for this project is 756 tons per year prevented from entering our waters.
At almost 4,000 acres, Trout Brook is the largest subwatershed in the Capitol Region Watershed District and the City of Saint Paul. The restored stream is part of the 42 acre Trout Brook Nature Sanctuary project, whose goal is to return the area back to some resemblance of its pre-industrialized valley of stream floodplain and wetlands. Monitoring results within the corridor show that phosphorus, sediments, bacteria, lead and copper are the pollutants of most concern.
The Southwest Prairie Technical Service Area 5 (SWPTSA), located in the southwest corner of Minnesota, encompasses 11 Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs): Cottonwood, Jackson, Lac Qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Rock, and Yellow Medicine. This project will protect natural resources within the three major river basins of Minnesota, Missouri and Des Moines Rivers. The SWPTSA will assist member SWCDs in locating and identifying priority subwatersheds that have soil erosion and water quality issues using terrain analysis.
This project will complete a chloride management plan which will lay out a strategy for addressing chloride impacts to our surface waters for the 7-county metropolitan area. This chloride management plan will satisfy EPA requirements for impaired waters, address waters not yet listed, and develop a strategy to protect waters that are currently meeting the water quality standards.
