A collaboration between the Roseau County SWCD and the Roseau River Watershed District (RRWD), the CD 8 Subwatershed Sediment Reduction Project will reduce sediment delivery to the Roseau River by implementing Best Management Practices on sites that have been identified as the greatest contributors of sediment. Sites were prioritized based on modeled data from the Watershed District's Site Prioritization Grant, and the International Watershed Institutes's Water Quality Decision Support Application (WQDSA) and local knowledge of the subwatershed.
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.
The goal of this project is to continue and finalize Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model construction and complete the calibration/validation process for the Minnesota River–Headwaters and Lac qui Parle watersheds that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) reports.
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 Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) is a co-sponsor and assists with a portion of the financial support for the International Rainy River-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum.
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.
The goal of this project is to establish a framework that the local government can use to guide their involvement as the UMR Watershed Project progresses over the next four years. This will result in strategies to protect or restore the waters in this watershed. These strategies will be used as the basis for making informed local water quality and land use planning decisions, as well as development of grant applications to implement the restoration and protection of waters in the UMR watershed.
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.
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 study will assess existing phosphorus data records and create a model to explain phosphorus loading into the Red River of the North. Studies have found that the majority of nutrient loading in the stream located in agricultural areas occurs with sediment loading since nutrients are typically bound to sediment particles.
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.
The goal of this project is to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.
Phase 1 of the Roseau River Watershed Restaration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) project will focus on planning and coordination among project partners, creating a civic engagement strategic plan, holding a watershed kick-off meeting, gathering and summarizing available watershed information and data, and developing a data gap monitoring plan.
The Roseau River Watershed Assessment will include the waters of the Roseau River, Sprague Creek, Hay Creek and Hayes Lake. All of the monitoring sites, except one, are located in Roseau County, with the exception being located in Kittson County. This assessment focuses on collection of water chemistry and field parameters at one site on Hayes Lake and seven key sites on the Roseau River, which have been identified by MPCA. These sites are located in the lower reaches of each surface water system.
The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate and validate a watershed model using Hydologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) for the Roseau River Watershed.
The goal of this project is to develop a Roseau Lake Water Quality Improvement Report that will include a prioritized, targeted, and measurable implementation plan that will improve water quality in the Roseau Lake watershed. The project will result in development of site specific implementation actions through use of the Prioritize, Targeting, and Measuring Application (PTMApp) and the Drained Wetland Basin Inventory terrain analysis methods.
Seal wells on private property; Educate businesses about proper tank management; Provide DWSMA map to MPCA tank units; Above ground storage tanks - updated rules and regulations; educate businesses; Provide DWSMA map to road authorities; WHP education and
The Bois de Sioux Watershed District intends to begin a program to repair the legal ditches it owns and maintains for the purpose of improving water quality within the watershed and downstream receiving waters. The intent of this effort is to complete a pilot project to a legal ditch system that is in disrepair and use it as an example to educate landowners along other legal ditches on the importance of water quality. This pilot project consists of the construction of berms and side inlet culverts for sediment control along Traverse County Ditch #17 (TCD 17) and its single branch (B1) .
Lake of the Woods (LOW) is a resource with local, regional, state, and international significance and is the second largest lake in Minnesota. Over the past three decades the Warroad River Harbor in LOW has experienced severe sedimentation problems. The sedimentation has led to frequent dredging to remove excess sediment and protect this vital resource. However, it is unsustainable to continue dredging the harbor without also addressing the sources of upstream sediment within the Warroad River watershed.