This project will use the We Are Water MN traveling exhibit and the Minnesota Humanities Center's approach to community engagement, relationship building, and storytelling, to increase community capacity for sustainable watershed management in six Minnesota watersheds.
The project will include lake and stream monitoring. Lake monitoring will be completed on twenty lakes found in The Crow Wing River Watershed - West Crow Wing County (CWC) & Southern Cass County for 2020. There will be 11 streams sampled located in Crow Wing, Cass, Wadena and the border of Cass/Morrison Counties 2020 & 2021. The project will be conducted in an effort to gain sufficient data on these data-deficient lake sites. One of the goals of the CWC Local Comprehensive Water Plan (CWP) is to establish a countywide Comprehensive Monitoring Plan (CMP).
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.
Funding supports an Irrigation Specialist to develop guidance and provide education on irrigation and nitrogenbest management practices (BMPs). In this position, Dr. Vasu Sharma provides direct support to irrigators onissues of irrigation scheduling and soil water monitoring. She is collaborating on the development of new irrigationscheduling tools that help irrigators manage water and nitrogen resources more precisely. These tools help reducenitrogen leaching losses in irrigated cropping systems.
The goal of this project is to support the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) in responding to public comments on the Lake Pepin Watershed Phosphorus Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), which were prepared by LimnoTech under previous phases of the project.
This project is to conduct water chemistry monitoring at two subwatershed sites and two major watershed sites based on flow conditions, targeting runoff events using protocols defined in the Watershed Pollutant Load Monitoring Network (WPLMN) Standard Operating Procedures and Guidance. The data collected will be submitted to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and used for calculating pollutant loads. This loading information, in turn, will be used at both the state and local level to guide policy and strategies for the restoration and protection of Minnesota’s waters.
The purpose of this work is to develop a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) and associated Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) documents for the Lower Rainy River and Rainy River Rainy Lake Watersheds.
Mankato State University (MSU) will work with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) to plan a stakeholder process kick off meeting for the Minnesota River Ag/Urban partnership project. MSU will help to plan and facilitate the meeting.
The International Water Institute (IWI) will monitor 42 sites (3 basin, 12 major watershed, and 27 subwatershed) in the Red River and Upper Mississippi River Basins intensively during the contract period. There will also be 5 sites in the Red River Basin where mercury samples will be collected and sent to Minnesota Department of Health for analysis. The IWI will collect water samples across the range of flow conditions targeting sample collection at times of moderate to high flow.
