Provides grants to Soil and Water Conservation Districts that focuses on increasing capacity to address four resource concern areas?Soil Erosion, Riparian Zone Management, Water Storage and Treatment, and Excess Nutrients.
Provides grants to Soil and Water Conservation Districts that focuses on increasing capacity to address four resource concern areas?Soil Erosion, Riparian Zone Management, Water Storage and Treatment, and Excess Nutrients.
Provides grants to Soil and Water Conservation Districts that focuses on increasing capacity to address four resource concern areas?Soil Erosion, Riparian Zone Management, Water Storage and Treatment, and Excess Nutrients.
Provides grants to Soil and Water Conservation Districts that focuses on increasing capacity to address four resource concern areas?Soil Erosion, Riparian Zone Management, Water Storage and Treatment, and Excess Nutrients.
Provides grants to Soil and Water Conservation Districts that focuses on increasing capacity to address four resource concern areas?Soil Erosion, Riparian Zone Management, Water Storage and Treatment, and Excess Nutrients.
The purpose of the Watershed Based Funding is to address priority concern 1, mitigate altered hydrology and minimize flooding and priority concern 2, minimize the transport of sediment, excess nutrients, and bacteria. The goal for the 2018/2019 is to reduce 300 tons of sediment per year, increase storage by 100 acre-feet per year, reduce nitrogen by 16,000 pounds per year and to reduce phosphorus by 800 pounds per year. Grant funds will also be used for technical staffing in order to have the capabilities of implementing the priority BMPs in the seven priority sub-watersheds.
The Cottonwood River watershed is one of the last remaining watersheds to complete Cycle I of the Watershed Restoration & Protections Strategies (WRAPS) process. The scope of this project upon completion is have two reports developed; a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies report and a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the entire watershed.
This project will conduct a 2017 revision of the South Fork Crow River, North Fork Crow River and Sauk River Watershed Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) models and review of the Pine River Watershed HSPF model.
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 project will monitor six sites within the Minnesota River Basin: Hawk Creek near Maynard, Hawk Creek near Granite Falls, Beaver Creek near Beaver Falls, Yellow Medicine River near Granite Falls, Yellow Medicine River near Hanley Falls, and Spring Creek near Hanley Falls. The sites will be monitored according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Watershed Pollutant Load Monitoring Network (WPLMN) Standard Operating Procedure, which is the procedure being followed for sites currently monitored by the Hawk Creek Watershed Project.
This project is for constructing, calibrating, and validating a Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Minnesota portions of the Des Moines Headwaters, Lower Des Moines, and East Fork Des Moines watersheds. The model can be used to provide information to support conventional parameter Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports. This model generates predicted output timeseries data for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen that are consistent with observed data.
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 establish load reduction requirements for impaired waters and to develop restoration strategies to improve water quality for impaired waters and protection strategies to maintain the quality of water for water bodies meeting standards.
The consultant LimnoTech will support response to Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) comments the peer review process, United States Environmental Protection Agency and public notice. They will then revise the TMDL document as needed and attend internal and external project meetings.
The Lower Mississippi River Feedlot Management in MN project will be leveraging State funding from BWSR to provide match for a United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) Regional Conservations Partners Program (RCPP). BWSR will provide technical and financial assistance to plan and design projects to mitigate feedlot runoff from smaller (less than 300 animal units or AUs*), open lot feedlots in southeastern Minnesota.
This project will plan, implement, and report on a community engagement strategy for identifying community/landowner opportunities, obstacles, and opinions on land management and water quality that will result in the identification of Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) input for the Sibley, Nicollet, Renville, McLeod, Rice, and LeSueur County areas of the Lower Minnesota River watershed.
The project will plan, implement, and report on a community engagement strategy for identifying community/landowner opportunities, obstacles, and opinions on land management and water quality that will result in the identification of Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) input for the Sibley, Nicollet, Renville, McLeod, Rice, and Le Sueur County areas of the Lower Minnesota River watershed.
This project addresses twelve lakes that have aquatic recreation impairments as identified by eutrophication indicators and 53 impairments on 45 stream reaches in the Minnesota River Mankato and Watonwan River watersheds. The project will develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) addressing impaired lakes and streams in the Minnesota River–Mankato and Watonwan River watersheds. A TMDL establishes the maximum amount of a pollutant allowed in a waterbody and serves as the starting point or planning tool for restoring water quality.
This project addresses five reaches of the Minnesota River that have aquatic recreation impairments as identified by high concentrations of E. coli. The project will describe the water quality impairments, complete pollutant source assessments, establish loading capacities and allocations for the impairments, and develop implementation strategies.
This project will identify areas for potential Best Management Practice (BMP) placement and identify strategies to strengthen social capacity and effectively engage citizens in development of the upcoming Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) report.
The Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance (GBERBA) along with Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Counties, landowners, and drainage authorities in the ten member counties will install conservation drainage practices to improve water quality. 103E drainage systems with documented sediment or water quality issues are the focus with the goal of installing 52 practices such as improved side inlets (grade stabilization structures), alternative tile inlets, denitrifying bioreactors, saturated buffers, storage wetlands and others.
The goal of this project is to refine the nutrient and algae simulation in the Minnesota River basin using all relevant available sources of information. The outcome of this work order is a revised Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model application for the Minnesota River basin that correctly represents nutrient sources and algae.
Olmsted SWCD will work in coordination with Fillmore SWCD and Root River (Houston) SWCD to collect water quality and chemistry parameters on 14 Minnesota Pollution Control Agency approved sites within the Root River watershed during the 2018-2019 sampling season.
Parameters to be tested include:TSS, TP, Chloride, CaCO3 (hardness), E. Coli, Chlorophyll A, Specific Conductance, Temp, pH, DO, NO2/NO3.
The goal of this project is to better target restoration activities in the Cannon River watershed via a paleolimnological study of a selected set of the lakes addressed in the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the watershed. The goals are to better constrain lake phosphorus budgets, and determine the magnitude of ecological change experienced by a range of lake types.
The overall goal of this project is to perform water quality monitoring and load calculation duties to accomplish Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Watershed Pollutant Load Monitoring Network (WPLMN) monitoring efforts at the seven sites within the Redwood and Cottonwood River watersheds as well as the Minnesota River site near Morton. To accomplish this goal the requested funds will provide for technician’s time, mileage, lab costs, supplies, as well as equipment calibration and upkeep.
The Redwood River watershed is one of the last remaining watersheds to complete Cycle I of the Watershed Restoration & Protections Strategies (WRAPS) process. The scope of this project upon completion is have two reports developed; a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies report and a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for the entire watershed.
In 2017 and 2018, Redwood-Cottonwood Rivers Control Area (RCRCA) will collect water chemistry samples from the 10 lakes and 24 stream sites identified in the Redwood and Cottonwood River watersheds. Six samples will be collected at 10 lakes from May through September in 2017; five samples will be collected at 5 lakes in 2018 from May through September. Eleven samples will be collected at each of the 24 stream sites following the Basic Regime in 2017. Sixteen samples at each stream site will be collected in 2017 and 2018 following the E.coli monitoring regime.
This grant will fund an expected 44 projects in 4 subwatersheds (South Fork Root River, Crooked Creek, Rush-Pine and portions of the headwaters of the Middle and South Branch Root) and 2 DWSMAS (Chatfield and Utica). Projects include grassed waterways, WASCOBs, grade stabilization structures and cover crops, plus field walkovers, project development, and technical assistance. The anticipated sediment reduction from this work will be 2,285.5 tons, or 2.2% of the 10-year goal for the entire planning area.
The Root River Watershed Pollutant Load Monitoring Network (WPLMN) project will continue existing efforts to calculate seasonal pollutant loads for the Root River. The Fillmore Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) will assist the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) with water quality monitoring and pollutant load calculations for five subwatershed sites. Samples will be collected using procedures described in the WPLMN standard operating procedures.
The goal of this project is to complete the construction, calibration, and validation of an Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Minnesota portions of three watersheds: Root River, Upper Iowa, and Mississippi River-Reno.
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.
