These funds are being used to systematically collect data and produce statistically valid estimates of the rate of soil erosion and tracking the adoption of high residue cropping systems in in the 67 counties with greater than 30% land in agricultural row crop production. Designed to establish a long term program in Minnesota to collect data and produce county, watershed, and state wide estimates of soil erosion caused by water and wind along with tracking adoption of conservation measures to address erosion.
These funds are being used to systematically collect data and produce statistically valid estimates of the rate of soil erosion and tracking the adoption of high residue cropping systems in counties with greater than 30% land in agricultural row crop production. Designed to establish a long term program in Minnesota to collect data and produce county, watershed, and state wide estimates of soil erosion caused by water and wind along with tracking adoption of conservation measures to address erosion.
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.
This project will result in the final the Bois de Sioux River Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) report and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study. This work order will authorize the consultant to address all comments received during the public notice period and produce the final WRAPS report for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's final approval and a final TMDL study for United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) final approval.
This is the second phase of building the Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) model for the Buffalo River watershed. The project will result in a completed model including necessary calibration and validation phases.
The goal of this project is to address public comments on the public noticed draft Watershed Restoration & Protection Strategy (WRAPS) study and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report for the watershed, and to produce a final draft WRAPS study and TMDL report ready for final approval by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).
This Surface Water Assessment Grant (SWAG) project is intended to supplement the 2019-2020 Intensive Watershed Monitoring (IWM) process for the Buffalo and Upper Red River of the North watersheds. Nine sites will provide water chemistry and river eutrophication data to the IWM. Monitoring sites were requested by the Buffalo - Red River Watershed District (BRRWD) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).
The purpose of this project is to create a shared plan for the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) process with roles, responsibilities, commitments and deliverables clearly understood by all (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), Chippewa River Watershed, and local partners). The MPCA and the Chippewa River Watershed Project (CRWP) will be working together to ascertain the level of involvement that local units of government and other partners want to engage in for the second round of the WRAPS process.
This project will provide timely surface water quality data from waters of concern to Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). This data will be analyzed and compared to historic data from the same sampling locations. All locations are in the Douglas County portion of the Chippewa River Watershed. Sampling locations include six lakes: Little Chippewa, Devils, Moon, Moses, South Oscar, and Stowe; and one stream site: County Ditch 60.
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.
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.
Otter Tail County will partner with the Buffalo-Red River Watershed District and the West Otter Tail and Wilkin SWCDs to stabilize the outlet of Judicial Ditch No. 2 which has become the most critically eroding gully contributing sediment to the Otter Tail River. When stabilized, sediment to the river will be reduced by 988 tons per year, and total phosphorus will be reduced by 840 pounds per year. The sediment reduction associated with this project is 7 percent of the 6,868 tons per year goal set by the Lower Otter Tail River Total Maximum Daily Load.
This project is to finalize the Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) and Watershed Restoration & Protection Strategies (WRAPS) for the Red Eye and Long Prairie Watersheds.
The goal of this project is to extend existing Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) models through 2017 for the following major watersheds: Redwood, Cottonwood, Watonwan, Blue Earth, Le Sueur, Pomme de Terre, Minnesota River-Headwaters, and Lac Qui Parle watersheds.
The goal of this project is to develop a Watershed Restoration and Protection Plan (WRAPS) to be used at the local level. It will increase the number of citizens participating in education and outreach events; foster information and idea exchange around watershed issues through relationships and social networks; involve community members in crafting civic engagement activities/plans in which they feel ownership and desire to implement; and promote awareness, concern, and watershed stewardship to community organizations/institutions.
This project will address United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) comments on the Preliminary Draft Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) comments on the pre-public notice draft Watershed Restoration & Protection Strategy (WRAPS) report, and produce Public Notice Draft TMDL study and Public Notice Draft WRAPS report ready for public review and comment.
The goals of project are to: 1) engage stakeholders and the public in watershed management activities; 2) conduct microbial source tracking to determine the source(s) of E.
The Otter Tail River is located in west-central Minnesota. Its Lower Otter Tail River (LOTR) reach is impaired for sediment. The LOTR begins at the dam of Orwell Reservoir near Fergus Falls and ends 48 river miles downstream at the confluence with the Bois de Sioux River at Breckenridge. No point sources contribute directly to the LOTR. Consequently, the turbidity impairment must be addressed through non-point measures. Current stream instability and bank erosion is largely a result of an 18-mile channel straightening completed by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s.
This restoration and protection project will reduce the loading of sediment to the Otter Tail River by 440 tons/year. This is about 6.5% of the total reduction needed to meet the goals of the Lower Otter Tail TMDL Implementation Plan. The Otter Tail River downstream of Orwell Dam is impaired due to sediment, with stream bank erosion being the primary contributor. This stream bank restoration will include the installation of woody toe debris benches and the installation of a vegetated slope along a 1,400 foot reach of the river.
The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate a Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Otter Tail watershed. The contractor will produce a HSPF watershed model application(s) that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs). The contractor will clearly demonstrate that this model generates predicted output timeseries for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen that are consistent with available sets of observed data.
The Otter Tail River is impaired for turbidity. This project involves the installation of 45 side-inlet structures into Wilkin County Ditch 3-2 and 7-1 and 22 acres of buffer strips along the entire systems. Eleven miles of continuous berm will also be constructed along the ditch. When installed these water quality practices will become a permanent part of the ditch system and will be maintained by the ditch authority. These ditches outlet to the Otter Tail River just upstream from Breckenridge, MN. Together these water quality BMPs will reduce sediment loading by 1,375 tons/year.
This project will develop the Pomme de Terre Watershed Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study for the second round of the 10-year watershed approach cycle in the Pomme de Terre watershed. This phase of the project will address 4 stream impairments and 3 lake impairments and produce a draft TMDL document. A second phase may be needed as the stressor ID report identifies more stream reaches with TMDL relevant stressors.
The goal is to facilitate strategic networking, learning, and participation of targeted groups to assess, build, and leverage community capacity (i.e. community resources and values) to become aware of water quality issues and increase best management practice adoption to restore and protect water quality in the Pomme de Terre River watershed. This goal will benefit the completion of the second cycle of the watershed approach by providing useful information important in the completion of Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) report.
The goal of the Pomme de Terre River Association (PDTRA JPB) is to improve the local water resources within the watershed through targeted voluntary efforts and the building of strong relationships with local landowners, producers, and citizens. To further our efforts in strategically working to achieve our reduction goals, listed in our Major Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies Report and Turbidity Total Maximum Daily Load report, we would like to further define our Priority Management Zones through the development of a hydrological conditioned Digital Elevation Model.
The goal of this project is to development a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study that addresses all of the non-mercury-related impaired reaches along the Red River of the North (RRN). The TMDL study will provide an analytical and strategic foundation for recommending restoration strategies for impaired waters. This phase of the project will also include civic engagement efforts by providing water quality framework and stakeholder activities for civic/citizen engagement and communication.
This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
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.
The purpose of this project is to improve understanding of primary productivity in the Red River and the diversity and population structure of the algal communities occurring along the river system. This will be accomplished through taxonomic identification of periphyton and phytoplankton assemblages necessary for characterizing responses to nutrient gradients along the Red River of the North.
This project will focus on monitoring & assessment, stressor ID assistance, problem investigation, watershed prioritization and targeting, Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report development, Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) report updates and continuing civic engagement for the Sauk River Watershed.
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.
Install a variable frequency drive (VFD) on the City's well; Send WHP article to residents; Provide factsheet about wells management to property owners
