The Stearns County Soil and Water Conservation District will hire an Accelerated Water Quality Technician to focus on projects in the Middle Sauk area showing the greatest pollution reductions. After identifying and prioritizing targeted sites with the highest pollution potential, the Stearns County SWCD will begin surveys and designs and complete them in a timely fashion while current implementation funds are available. The accelerated survey and design in Stearns County will relieve our natural resources of the current strain put on them by the environment and land use.
The AgBMP Loan Program provides needed funding for local implementation of clean water practices at an extremely low cost, is unique in its structure and is not duplicated by any other source of funding.The AgBMP loan program provides 3% loans through local lenders to farmers, rural landowners, and agriculture supply businesses.
The Ashley Creek and Adley Creek Inventory Project will involve desk top analysis and a field scale inventory of riparian areas to determine priority areas to install erosion control Best Management Practices and vegetative buffers for nutrient reduction. Assessments will also be made for potential E.coli bacteria sources. Inventory data will be shared with local partners to further develop an implementation plan to address nutrient loading and the listed impairments on each creek.
The City of Cold Spring is looking to retrofit 24 acres of existing development within a 138 acre subcatchment of the City to improve the water quality of Cold Spring Creek, a designated trout stream. The large amounts of hard surfaces within the subcatchment area do not allow for rainfall or snow melt to soak into the ground. The stormwater carries with it sediment, bacteria, automotive fluids, and other pollutants. Cold Spring staff has frequently witnessed sediment plumes, the color of chocolate milk, at the storm sewer outfalls.
The Discovery Farms program is a farmer-led effort to gather information on soil and nutrient loss on farms in different settings across Minnesota. The mission of Discovery Farms Minnesota is to gather water quality information under real-world conditions.
This grant will cover all components of water chemistry sampling for pollutant load monitoring at four sites. Of those four sites, two of them are subwatershed sites that will be monitored seasonally and two of them are basin/major watershed sites that will be monitored year round. The Monitoring Coordinator for the Sauk River Watershed District will be responsible for sample collection, data management tasks, attending weekly call in meetings and will coordinate additional help from other staff members and/or interns if needed.
The Minnesota River Basin Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) models, which simulate flow and pollutant transport, need to be refined to be consistent with the most recent external sources of land use, hydrologic response, and surface flow attributions. The primary goal of this work is to refine the hydrologic calibration in the Minnesota River basin.
The Minnesota Ag Water Quality Certification Program (MAWQCP) is a voluntary opportunity for farmers and agricultural landowners to take the lead on implementing conservation practices that protect water quality. Those who implement and maintain approved conservation practices will be certified and in turn obtain regulatory certainty for a period of ten years. This program will help address concerns about changing regulatory requirements from multiple state and federal agencies.
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.
This project will provide a better understanding of nitrogen fertilizer management on irrigated, sandy soils that are common in central and west-central Minnesota.
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 protects both public health and groundwater by assuring the proper sealing of unused wells.
Clean Water funds are being provided to well owners as a 50% cost-share assistance for sealing unused public water-supply wells.
