This project will develop an enhanced street sweeping plan for the City of Forest Lake that optimizes phosphorus removal from increasing sweeping frequency with the cost of additional sweeps. In addition, this project will identify road-specific street sweeping timing and frequency, quantify expected phosphorus load reductions, itemize costs of enhanced street sweeping, and recommend funding options to the City of Forest Lake.
Forest Lake Area Schools, the Rice Creek Watershed District and the City of Forest Lake have partnered to develop the first phase of a long-term stormwater reuse and education program starting. This project will result in stormwater pond retrofits and construction of new irrigation infrastructure to reduce potable groundwater usage by over 4 million gallons per year. Further, educational curriculum will be developed to integrate the reuse technology and water conservation concepts. Clear Lake is an important regional resource and boasts a very active lake association.
The Crow Wing River is a valuable natural resource and forested regions in the watershed are at risk from conversion to cropland and clearing for other uses. In order to maintain the high quality upland that protects the water quality, forestry practices are being encouraged with cost-sharing and education in an effort to manage, protect, and improve existing forest stands.
The Minnesota DNR and the Minnesota Forest Resources Council work with forest landowners, managers and loggers to implement a set of voluntary sustainable forest management guidelines that include water quality best management practices (BMPs) to ensure sustainable habitat, clean water, and productive forest soils, all contributing to healthy watersheds. This project will monitor the implementation of these forest management guidelines and BMPs on forested watersheds in MN.
In the fourth year of this project, MNHS staff completed inventory and rehousing of most artifacts excavated from Historic Fort Snelling between 1957 and 1981. The Collections Management System now has 118,500 records for Fort Snelling artifacts. Three hundred items were photographed and are now accessible to the public online. In 2016, an exhibit featuring patent medicine bottles found at Fort Snelling was developed and installed in the Fort Snelling Visitor Center.
This leadership workshop series will provide the participants (citizen leaders) with knowledge, skills, processes and tools that can help to strengthen their current efforts and nurture new ones.
The Frogtown area of St. Paul is a culturally diverse, low-income neighborhood having less green space per child than any other neighborhood in the city and was recently identified as an area in need of a new park. This appropriation is being used by The Trust for Public Land, in partnership with the City of St. Paul, to acquire a portion of twelve acres of a currently vacant space in the area to establish the multi-purpose Frogtown Farm and Park.
This project will layer hydrologic, hydraulic, geomorphic, and pollutant loading analysis with existing countywide PTMApp outputs to identify the four highest priority areas for BMP implementation in an eastern Nicollet County ravine system experiencing dramatic mass wasting events. Three alternatives for each priority site will be presented, including an evaluation of water quality benefit, construction costs, and a cost-benefit summary.
Groundwater sample collection and analysis will be conducted for contaminants of emerging concern (CEC) at large subsurface treatment systems (LSTS) and rapid infiltration basins (RIB), using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methodology. Results from the ELISA analysis will be reported to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and used to conduct follow-up investigations at a select number of these sites.
The stream monitoring will follow the stream monitoring parameters and frequency tables outlined in the Surface Water Assessment Grant (SWAG) Request for Proposals (RFP). Specifically over the two-year grant period, monitoring will include 19 sets of field measurements for specific conductance, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, secchi tube readings, and one upstream photograph at each visit.
