Protecting groundwater aquifers that supply community drinking water supplies is critical for communities in Winona County. Well #219210 located within the Altura Drinking Water Supply Management Area (DWSMA) is an unused, multi-aquifer municipal well that poses a risk to the community drinking water supply. This well intersects with multiple aquifers, including the Prairie Du Chien, Jordan, Tunnel City/Lone Rock, and Wonewoc. These are primary aquifers used by the majority of drinking water wells in the region.
Most if not all people in the Rum River watershed get their drinking water from groundwater meaning groundwater quality is of utmost importance. The purpose of this project is to complement citizen and decision maker awareness of the relationship between unsealed wells, groundwater and drinking water. This project proposes to provide resources that will enable these landowners to take action on their land to protect groundwater quality by sealing unused and abandoned wells.
This project will improve water quality in the nutrient impaired Fairmont Chain of Lakes. These 5 lakes are a surface water drinking water source for a City of over 10,000 people. Phase one of this multi-phase water quality restoration project focuses on installing 12 targeted agricultural best management practices such as bioreactors, saturated buffers and grassed waterways and will reduce nitrogen by over 1,000 pounds per year, sediment by over 130 tons per year, and phosphorus by over 200 pounds per year.
The goal of this project is to reduce peak stormwater flow discharge, sediment and phosphorus from directly entering Lake Pepin by installing two stormwater infiltration basins treating a total of 15.8 acres of developed residential and commercial area in Lake City in conjunction with the Highway 61 road reconstruction project scheduled for 2020 reducing total phosphorus by 13 pounds per year and sediment by 2 tons per year.
This project proposes to address the largest phosphorus loads discharging from 885 acres to Lake St. Croix through the installation of targeted stormwater treatment best management practices ranked in the top 10 of those prioritized in the 2018 Lake St. Croix Direct Discharge South Stormwater Retrofit Analysis. The goal of this project is to reduce pollutant loading from four small communities to Lake St. Croix by at least ten pounds phosphorous.
Capitol Region Watershed District and the City of Lauderdale seek to improve water quality and flood control functions of Seminary Pond in Lauderdale. The project partners propose improvements to the pond including: 1) expansion of the pond?s storage area and 2) construction of an iron-enhanced sand filter. These improvements were identified as being the most cost-effective and will remove an estimated additional 2 tons of sediment and 9 pounds of phosphorus annually.
This project will reduce sediment and nutrient loading by 141 tons of sediment and 120 pounds of phosphorus annually while improving in-stream and riparian habitat by restoring a 2/3-mile corridor of Middle Sand Creek. This project expands upon the Lower Sand Creek Corridor Restoration project funded in part by a FY18 CWF grant and results in the restoration of over a mile of contiguous stream corridor.
This project will restore healthy ecosystems and Indigenous cultural practices. Through expanded programming for preK-12th grade, urban Native students and families will reestablish enduring connections to land and culture.
This project would educate residents and provide assistance to the City of Le Center in sealing an unused/abandoned municipal well. One municipal well has been identified as a high risk due to impacting the groundwater and drinking water supply to the City of Le Center.
Otter Tail County will partner with the Buffalo-Red River Watershed District and the West Otter Tail and Wilkin SWCDs to stabilize the outlet of Judicial Ditch No. 2 which has become the most critically eroding gully contributing sediment to the Otter Tail River. When stabilized, sediment to the river will be reduced by 988 tons per year, and total phosphorus will be reduced by 840 pounds per year. The sediment reduction associated with this project is 7 percent of the 6,868 tons per year goal set by the Lower Otter Tail River Total Maximum Daily Load.
A watershed assessment and water quality treatment plan was completed for the impaired Lake George . This project will address the watershed practices portion of the water quality treatment plan. One regional underground stormwater detention/filtration treatment facility treating a 47-acre drainage area will be installed in partnership with the Tech High School Redevelopment Project. The underground facility will target phosphorus reduction reducing an estimated 27 pounds of phosphorus and 7 tons of sediment annually.
In partnership with the City of Coon Rapids, the Coon Creek Watershed District will address Coon Creek's aquatic life and recreation impairments by reducing nutrient and bacteria loading attributable to stormwater runoff from an 822-acre urban catchment. The project will retrofit an existing in-line rate control pond with a large iron-enhanced sand filter bench to target dissolved phosphorus, reducing TP loading to Coon Creek by 69 pounds per year. It will also incorporate bio-char into the filter media mixture to reduce E.
