Replacement of picnic tables and fire rings at various state parks with safer, accessible options. To date, picnic table purchases have been completed for 39 (69%) of all state park and recreations areas. New fire rings have been purchased for 36 (74%) of all state park and recreation areas.
MNHS and the Minnesota State Fair Foundation are increasing awareness and knowledge of Minnesota history by providing quality programming for visitors to the Great Minnesota Get-Together. In 2015, the partners added new visual and written content for the Minnesota State Fair History Walking Tour brochure. Audio and visual content was available with the smartphone tour component, and staff presented audio/visual content via social media throughout the fair. Some 40,000 brochures were distributed throughout the fairgrounds during the run of the fair.
The Historic Recognition Grant program will preserve, recognize, and promote the historic legacy of Minnesota, with a focus on commemoration of Minnesota's role in the American Civil War via media, materials, and public programs to underscore the Civil War-era origins of the state capitol to complement the visitor experience once the building reopens for public tours in 2017 is the second of three projects being administered by MNHS in cooperation with the state's Civil War Commemoration Task Force are in development
An emerging practice called "precision conservation" aims to maximize conservation benefits by considering the value of lands in terms of the interconnected systems of which they are a part. By compiling and integrating multiple types of data layers and analysis that are available today, conservation professionals can use the best and most precise information available to identify, prioritize, and guide conservation efforts.
The Statewide Sediment Network was established to measure the levels of suspended sediment concentrations and particle size distributions at eight sites across Minnesota to evaluate the amount of sediment carried by rivers. USGS sample collection and laboratory analysis techniques provide a more rigorous, robust, and technically accurate measure of sediment in water than the current use of total suspended solids as the measure of sediment in water.
The Minnesota Historical Society created a new traveling exhibits program, called "Exhibits to Go," giving more than 15 communities across Minnesota the ability to experience Minnesota history in their own neighborhood.
Funding for the traveling exhibits came from multiple appropriation categories, including funding for Statewide Historic Programs and for History Partnership Projects.
Having current and accurate data on historic and archaeological sites is important to understanding our past and to preserving Minnesota’s history for future generations. In 2010-2011, the Minnesota Historical Society awarded contracts for these survey projects:
Replace campfire rings in state parks and state recreation areas with accessible campfire rings. New fire rings have been purchased for 36 (47%) of all state park and recreation areas.
Minnesota's Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) Program is an effort to preserve and perpetuate the state's ecological diversity and ensure that no single rare feature is lost from any region of the state. This includes unique landforms, fossil remains, plant and animal communities, rare and endangered species, or other unique biotic or geological features. These sites play an important role in scientific study, public education, and outdoor recreation.
Each fiscal year of ACHF funding, a majority of the participating regional library systems agree to allocate 10% of their ACHF funding to support statewide partnership projects. SELCO serves as the fiscal agent for statewide projects.
The Statewide Survey of Historical and Archaeological Sites focuses on tangible aspects of Minnesota's cultural heritage including historic places, archaeological sites, places with spiritual and traditional importance, and cultural landscapes. The survey focuses on the identification and evaluation of these places in order to improve their management and enhance their interpretation.
Nitrate-nitrogen (nitrate) is one of the contaminants of greatest concern for groundwater in Minnesota. This funding is being used for activities that help identify the severity and magnitude of nitrate contamination and implement practices at the local level to reduce nitrate in groundwater. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is working with many local partners and passing funding through to local government units (counties, cities, soil and water conservation districts) to address this concern.
The MDA's technical assistance helps ensure that current and accurate scientific information is made available and used to address water quality concerns in agricultural areas of Minnesota. This funding has been used to evaluate the effectiveness of conservation practices, share information from research and demonstration sites and enhance outreach and education to the agricultural community and local government partners.
Stearns County Ditch 26 (CD 26) is a 20 mile channelized section of Getchell Creek, a primary tributary to the Sauk River that is impaired for turbidity, E.coli and aquatic macroinvertebrate bio-assessment. The Stearns County Ditch 26 Drainage Management Project will address the stormwater runoff concerns identified within this public drainage system. Alternative intake structures to manage nutrients and mitigative measures will be taken to retain water on the upland properties and minimize flow rate and velocity.
This project will establish up to 12 miles of riparian buffers along the Pomme de Terre River and its tributaries and install up to 5 raingarden within the cities of Morris and Chokio as identified in the Pomme de Terre TMDL Implementation Plan.
In recent times, the owners of Wolf Marine on the St. Croix River have to excavate sediment that has built up at the outlet of Brown's Creek every year just to keep their marina navigable. Their business is directly affected by how much soil gets into the creek. Reducing dirt and sand entering Brown's Creek is also important to others. The creek is one of the few designated trout streams in the Twin Cities area that supports a fishable brown trout population.
Partner Organizations: Anoka County Historical Society, Hennepin History Museum.
Suburbanization has reached nearly all corners of Hennepin and Anoka Counties. The two counties are bound together by the state's largest school district: Anoka-Hennepin. Working together, the Anoka and Hennepin County Historical Societies are gathering resources located in numerous repositories so that they, and future historians, will have a logical starting place from which to draw information about the suburbanization of Anoka and Hennepin counties.
Through the Stormwater Retrofit Partnership, the Dakota Soil and Water Conservation District (DSWCD) provides the funding and technical assistance to prioritize and install Best Management Practices (BMPs) at existing public facilities. This project is needed because, like other urban properties that developed before stormwater regulations, most government owned facilities were designed and constructed without optimal water quality features.
Stream flow information is essential for understanding the state of Minnesota's waters. Clean water funding has allowed the DNR to expand a network of stream gages that support planning and implementation for clean water protection and restoration. These gages are also used as part of the interagency Flood Forecasting/Warning System. This expanded stream gaging network has also significantly increased the real time data available to recreational water enthusiasts via the internet.
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.
This 5,000-square-foot exhibit opened Oct. 14, 2015, and tells the story of the population exodus from the central cities to the developing Twin Cities suburbs
Supplement Way finding implementation costs for cross-country ski trails at Battle Creek Regional Park, Tamarack Nature Center, and Grass-Vadnais-Snail Lakes Regional Park. *( 2013 winter visits; Bald Eagle Otter Lake, 21,800 visits; Battle Creek Regional Park, 62,600 visits; and Grass Vadnais Snail Lakes Regional Park, 62,100 visits).
The Society sought out potential grant applicants, led grant-writing workshops, presented at 43 public meetings statewide and conducted onsite visits in approximately 40 communities.
MNHS continues to strive for environmental, economic, and social sustainability in the fifth year of its sustainability program. Staff and visitors are engaged with sustainability through the project's "More for the Mission" campaign. Recent energy-efficiency projects within our facilities have allowed us to achieve the five-year goal of 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
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 collect water chemistry and field parameters at the Popple River, Bowstring River, Big Fork River, Rice River, Caribou Lake and Eagle lake. It will also support the biological assessments being completed by MPCA staff for this Target Watershed Assessment. This project is a collaborative effort with MPCA, 3 SWCDs, and the well established Bigfork River Watch Program. This project is a collaborative effort with Lake of the Woods and Koochiching County SWCDs because the Big Fork Watershed encompasses both Itasca and Koochiching Counties.
