Lower Prior Lake was the target of a 2011-2013 diagnostic and feasibility study that identified projects and ranked subwatershed by phosphorus loading to the lake. This project is in a high loading subwatershed and includes three elements designed to reduce phosphorus loading and control rates and volumes of stormwater runoff: 1) retrofitting an existing ditch section with in-line iron-sand filters; 2) expanding storage capacity and creating wetland upstream of the ditch; and 3) installing a new control structure in an existing berm.
Arctic Lake, while not listed as an impaired water on the statewide 303(d) list, both regularly exceeds the statewide phosphorus standard for shallow lakes and drains directly to Upper Prior Lake, which is impaired for nutrients Reducing Phosphorus to Arctic Lake will help reverse the current declining water quality while also reducing the loading entering Upper Prior Lake.
This project will accelerate production of County Geologic Atlases (part A). An atlas is a set of geologic maps and associated databases for a county that facilitate informed management of natural resources, especially water and minerals.
Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (RWMWD) will improve water quality in Casey Lake and ultimately Kohlman Lake through the installation of approximately 25 rain gardens on priority properties identified as part of the Casey Lake Urban Stormwater Retrofit Assessment completed by Ramsey Conservation District (RCD) in 2011.
There are two main goals of this Cedar Basin HSPF project,
A. Overall development of the HSPF model in the Cedar Basin of Minnesota; and
B. Shell Rock River nutrient, DO , impairment modeling and TMDL completion.
The Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (District) has determined that large impervious sites (like churches, commercial sites, and schools) are more economical for stormwater management retrofit projects than distributed small projects along roadways. The District began assessing church sites for retrofit opportunities in 2013 and will continue this effort in 2014. Church congregations have been receptive to partnering with the watershed district.
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.
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.
Minnesota’s use of groundwater has increased over the last two decades. An increasing reliance on groundwater may not be a sustainable path for continued economic growth and development. The DNR is establishing three pilot groundwater management areas (GWMA) to help improve groundwater appropriation decisions and help groundwater users better understand and plan for future groundwater needs associated with economic development.
The goal of this project is to complete the calibration/validation process of Hydrologic Simulation FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Lake of the Woods/Rainy River Basin.
The goal of this project is to extend the existing HSPF models through 2012 in the Chippewa Watershed (07020005) and Hawk-Yellow Medicine Watershed (07020004) to incorporate recent monitoring data to support current MPCA business needs and sediment source investigations.
Demand for Engineering services in Northeast Minnesota's nine-county Area III Technical Service Area is exceeding the capacity to deliver the needed services. There are increased requests from Soil and Water Conservation Districts for engineering needed to design and install Best Management Practices in part due to requests related to Clean Water Fund projects. These funds will be used to hire an engineer, which will increase engineering capacity and result in the completion of at least five additional projects per year.
The north-central Minnesota counties of Cass and Hubbard share large portions of the Crow Wing River, Leech and Upper Mississippi Watersheds, all of which play an important role in providing clean drinking water to over one million Minnesota residents. Each county assumes the responsibility of inspecting and evaluating the judicial and county ditch systems that drain directly into these watersheds. The two counties together share two judicial ditch systems and combined have an additional 42 ditches within their borders.
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.
This project will help to improve the water quality of Lake of the Woods by providing local staff with the resources necessary for implementing best management practices that will reduce erosion in drainage ditches. The Lake of the Woods Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) will assist the County in developing a process for inventory and inspection of ditches. Public drainage is critical to the local economy and proper drainage management is critical to water quality protection.
The purpose of this project is to gain an understanding of modern and historical nutrient and thermal dynamics in Lake of the Woods using modeling, monitoring, sediment core analysis, and whole basin techniques.
The goal of this project is to determine: 1) temperature and seasonal variations in sediment chemical-textural characteristics (upper 10-cm sediment layer) and rates of P release from sediments; and 2) vertical variations in mobile P concentrations in the sediment column of Big Traverse Bay in order to better understand the role of internal P loading to the P economy of LOW and for the development of the LOW TMDL.
This project will reduce sediment and nutrient loading to the main stem and local tributaries of the Lower Minnesota River (LMR) by providing cost share for practices that treat ravine headcut and channel erosion, streambank/shoreline erosion, ephemeral gully erosion, and direct-discharging open inlet drainage systems. Targeted Best Management Practices (BMPs) will include but not be limited to grade control structures, grassed/lined waterways, water & sediment control basins, shoreline/streambank stabilization and alternative tile inlets.
This project will establish a groundwater monitoring network in the 11 county metropolitan area. The network will provide information about aquifer characteristics and natural water trends by monitoring healthy aquifers (non-stressed systems). The project will also develop an automated system that captures groundwater level and water use data. This system will enhance evaluation of changes in aquifers that are stressed by pumping from existing wells.
Ensuring natural resource practitioners are applying state-of-the-art approaches is the best way to achieve optimum Best Management Practice (BMP) selection, design, and placement in the landscape, thereby maximizing Clean Water Fund (CWF) benefits. To that end, it is critical to train new staff, create modeling protocols for new BMPs, refine and calibrate models, and test ever-advancing modeling applications.
This project will create a high accuracy elevation dataset - critical for effectively planning and implementing water quality projects - for the state of Minnesota using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geospatial mapping technologies. Although some areas of the state have been mapped previously, many counties remain unmapped or have insufficient or inadequate data. This multi-year project, to be completed in 2012, is a collaborative effort of Minnesota's Digital Elevation Committee and partners with county surveyors to ensure accuracy with ground-truthing.
The DNR has been charged by the legislature to develop rules that protect and manage the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area (MRCCA) for natural resource, economic development, transportation, historic preservation, and other values. This project engages stakeholder groups in a public process to balance regulatory protections with local flexibility and control.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities within the described priority watersheds. Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support. Biological and Water Chemistry Stream Monitoring: Monitoring to assess the conditions of streams in each watershed.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, fieldwork, data management, and interpretation expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities.The ambient groundwater monitoring network describes the current condition and trends in Minnesota's groundwater quality.
The goal of this project is to analyze and document database architecture, platform, table structures, systems and data fields at six Minnesota agencies (Board of Soil and Water Resources, Department of Natural Resources, MN Department of Agriculture, MN Department of Health, Metropolitan Council, and MN Pollution Control Agency) for 30+ databases related to water.
MECA will offer day sessions intended to educate permittees on the requirements for the MS4 permit. The sessions will be held in Vadnais Heights, Detroit Lakes, St. Cloud, St. Paul and Mankato Minnesota.
The Prioritization, Targeting, and Measuring Water Quality Improvement Application (PTMA) connects the general qualitative strategies in a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) and Watershed Restoration and Protection (WRAP) and the identification of implementable on-the-ground Best Management Practices (BMPs). Leveraging geospatial data from the International Water Institute this application will be developed for two pilot areas within the Red River Basin.
This project will reduce sediment to the Minnesota River, control erosion and reduce sedimentation in a local DNR Protected Water and protect private land and public infrastructure. The County Road (CR) 6 ravine (Quarry Creek) cuts through the Minnesota River valley bluff in Blakeley Township. Active channel incision and erosion within the ravine has caused large amounts of sediment to be deposited under the bridge at CR 6 such that the road is frequently flooded and sediment has to be removed several times a year.
Ramsey County has 3,500+ acres tied to 358 faith organizations and 304 schools. On average, these properties contribute 1 billion gallons of stormwater runoff, 3,000 lbs of phosphorus, and 1,000 tons of sediment to our local water bodies. The Ramsey Conservation District (RCD), working with community partners and Watershed Districts/Water Management Organizations, will install 6-12 stormwater best management projects that will help protect and improve water quality of surrounding lakes.
Capitol Region Watershed District (CRWD), in partnership with the City of Roseville, will construct a volume reduction/capture-reuse irrigation facility below the Upper Villa Park Softball field in the City of Roseville. This project will protect Lake McCarrons and the Villa Park Wetland System (VPWS) by reducing runoff volumes and the pollutants associated with urban stormwater such as Total Phosphorus (TP), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), heavy metals, and petroleum products among others.
The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) will create a web-based, mobile-compatible public drainage system inspection and maintenance database. This database system will enable District staff to create and track maintenance requests and inspections from the field, including Geo-referencing locations requiring repair via a mobile device. The system will greatly reduce the time required to identify and log each maintenance request, enabling staff to inventory more miles of public drainage system yearly thereby identifying erosion problems more efficiently and thoroughly.
Calcareous fens such as the Savage Fen are fragile ecosystems existing only under a unique combination of soil type, hydrology, chemistry, and vegetation. The City of Savage is continuing efforts to protect this important ecosystem through this project. Two large ravines -Dakota Avenue and McColl's Bluff - discharge to the Fen, which was granted special status under the State's Wetlands Conservation Act. Both ravines are highly eroded and carry a significant amount of stormwater and sediment to the Savage Fen.
The Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District (District) has determined that large impervious sites (like churches, commercial sites, and schools) are more economical for stormwater management retrofit projects than distributed small projects along roadways. Analysis of the watershed land use indicates that large impervious sites are typically commercial properties (primarily retail), churches, and schools. The District began assessing church sites for retrofit opportunities in 2013 and will continue this effort in 2014.
This project will provide lake and stream monitoring assistance to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), identifying impaired waters within the Lower Minnesota RIver Watershed (Watershed ID: 07020012) according to the Intensive Watershed Monitoring (IWM) Approach.
Approximately 70 percent of all Minnesotans rely on groundwater as their primary source of drinking water. Wells used for drinking water must be properly sealed when removed from service to protect both public health and Minnesota’s invaluable groundwater resources. The Minnesota Department of Health with the assistance of the Board of Water and Soil Resources protects both public health and groundwater by assuring the proper sealing of unused wells.” Clean Water funds are being provided to home owners as a 50% cost-share assistance for sealing unused private drinking water wells.
