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.
The Accelerated Water Quality Project Implementation Program will increase the connection between landowners, local government units and the landscape to accelerate efforts addressing non-point source loading to surface waters throughout the Red River Valley Conservation Service Area.
The Becker County Drainage Ditch Inventory and Inspection Project is a collaborative, multifaceted approach to develop a GIS-based drainage ditch inventory database system, inventory the current conditions of judicial ditches and adjacent land, and target and prioritize portions of each ditch system for restorative or protective measures.
With over 500 public water lakes in Becker County, we are blessed with abundant and diverse lake resources that, like those of much of lake country, are at risk of degradation due to increasing development pressures, redevelopment of non-conforming lots, rising stormwater runoff and land use changes within their watersheds.
The Crow Wing Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) proposes to complete stormwater best management practices (BMPs) that will reduce 40 pounds of phosphorus and 40 tons of sediment per year from entering Big Trout Lake. The Crow Wing County (CWC) Water Plan identifies Big Trout Lake as a priority lake to enhance due to its significant decline in water clarity and high ratio of impervious surface surrounding the lake. The 2015 CWC Assessors Property Tax Assessment reports that Big Trout has the second highest taxable land value in CWC at $4,200 per foot of shoreline.
The Crow Wing Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) will engage citizen and nonprofit groups to enhance, improve, and protect Crow Wing County (CWC) lakes and rivers. To do this, the SWCD will partner with the University of Minnesota Extension, MN DNR, CWC, nonprofits, and lake associations to implement a mini grant program and provide grant funds to 20 community groups.
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).
The overall goal is to develop a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) Report and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Study that will address water quality impairments and maintain or improve water quality throughout the Clearwater River watershed. The study will identify sources of pollutants to the streams and lakes, allocate pollution reduction goals, and prioritize and identify implementation strategies to maintain or improve water quality in key lakes and streams in the watershed.
Crow Wing County, in cooperation with the municipalities within the County, plans to continue its successful well sealing program that pays 50% of the cost to seal unused/abandoned wells up to a maximum of $1000 per well. The amount of funding requested is $31,000 which is estimated to allow for the sealing of 80-100 wells. From 2012 to 2015, Crow Wing County sealed 65 wells as part of an earlier MDH well sealing grant from the Clean Water Fund. Priority will be given to wells located in or near existing wellhead protection areas.
The project will include lake monitoring on seventeen lakes found in the Mississippi River - Brainerd watershed in East Central Crow Wing County (CWC). The project will be conducted in an effort to gain data on these data-deficient lakes. One of the goals of the CWC Local Comprehensive Water Plan (CWP) is to establish a countywide Comprehensive Monitoring Plan (CMP). Surface water assessment monitoring will enable state 303(d) and 305(b) assessments and provide a better understanding of these lakes.
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.
The goal of this project is to construct watershed models for the Grand Marais Creek and Snake River Watersheds and perform an initial hydrologic calibration using Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF).
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 refine the segmentation, extend the simulation period, and recalibrate an existing Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Rum River Watershed.
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.
As lake-focused development continues these high quality waters will see increasing amounts of land use change. The State Demographer projects that the targeted lake catchments will see population increases of 25-62% within 20 years. Isolating these contributing areas permits the Lake Protection Analysis project to perform multiple GIS analyses to accurately inform water quality discussions. The final framework will allow local water managers to prioritize across their water bodies, target activities to specific subsheds, and develop measurable goals.
Phase 1 of this project is primarily geared towards project planning and coordination among project partners, developing an initial civic engagement strategic plan, holding a watershed kick-off meeting, and gathering and summarizing available water quality data.
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 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.
Increases in crop prices have reduced the acreage of land in conservation set-aside programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program and other marginal land use. Significant conversion of grasslands to cultivated agricultural crops has increased the levels of runoff and sedimentation. Phase III of this project addresses the need to protect vulnerable sites by installing water and sediment basins. These basins are earthen embankments built to temporarily detain sediment-laden runoff, allowing sediment to settle out before runoff is discharged.
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 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.
As part of the FY 2012 funding cycle, the Board of Water and Soil Resources granted funds for development of the Water Quality Decision Support Application (WQDSA). The WQDSA will provide land and water managers with geospatial data and online tools to prioritize, market, and implement actions on the landscape to achieve water quality objectives identified in local and state water plans and to ensure that public funding decisions are strategic and defensible.
The objective of this project is to collect real-time parameter data for specific conductance, water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and stream flow at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) gaging stations located at Fargo and Grand Forks North Dakota.
International Water Institute (IWI) staff will monitor 24 sites in the Bois de Sioux, Mustinka (2 sites), Buffalo (8 sites), Red Lake (4 sites), Sandhill (3 sites), Thief (2 sites), and Tamarac River (3 sites) Watersheds intensively over a 2 year period in an attempt to collect 25 samples per year at each site. If conditions allow for the collection of all planned samples, 1200 stream samples will be collected over the time period. Monitoring will include field measurements, observations, and at least three photographs during each site visit.
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.
This project will focus on Watershed Restoration and Protetion Strategy (WRAPS) and Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report development for the Rum River Watershed, which includes Mille Lacs Lake (the second largest lake in Minnesota) and the Rum River of which Mille Lacs Lake is the headwaters. The project will produce a plan that partners and citizens will be able to implement, a framework for citizen engagement, and a set of watershed management activities that will achieve water quality standards for all impairments within the watershed.
