The grant will use local data to develop stormwater planning options that prioritize, target, and measure the effectiveness of Best Management Practices and allow local city officials to make decisions on stormwater Best management Practices that reduce pollutants in the stormwatershed.
South Central Technical Service Area (SCTSA) will use this Clean Water Fund grant to provide Soil and Water Conservation Districts and other local organizations in its eleven-county area with a Geographic Information System (GIS) Technician to assist in using available GIS information to target specific locations where Best Management Practices (BMPs) can be installed to help improve water quality.
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 Crow Wing Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) will partner with citizen groups and nonprofit groups to complete projects to reduce stormwater runoff and retain water on the land in Crow Wing County's (CWC) 125 minor watersheds. The SWCD will implement a mini grant program and provide competitive grant funds to an anticipated 12 groups. This project will also address CWC Water Plan priorities one, two, and six, which involve stormwater management and sediment control, shoreline buffers, and agriculture best management practices.
The project protect approximately 1090 acres of habitat for fish, game and wildlife with easements along the Mississippi and Crow Wing Rivers and tributaries. Protection will reduce infringement and development and improve watershed function.
This project will install new stormwater treatment practices in neighborhoods directly draining to Coon Lake. The objective is to remove phosphorus, which fuels algae growth, before the water is discharged into the lake. Seventeen potential project sites have been identified and ranked and include curb-cut rain gardens, swales, stabilizing stormwater discharge points, and a basin outlet modification.
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.
This project will identify and prioritize opportunities to implement a multipurpose drainage management plan that will provide adequate drainage capacity, reduce peak flows and flooding and reduce erosion and sediment loading, improving water quality to the West Branch Rum River.
This project will install an iron enhanced sand filter (IESF) to restore water quality in Golden Lake. Golden Lake is within a fully developed area of the Twin Cities, surrounded by residential land use, and the focal point of a city park. The IESF will achieve 11% of the phosphorus reduction (21 lbs/yr) required for Golden Lake to meet State water quality standards, as identified in the approved Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL).
Demand for Engineering services in Northeast Minnesota's nine-county Area III Technical Service Area is exceeding the capacity to deliver the needed services. There are increased requests from Soil and Water Conservation Districts for engineering needed to design and install Best Management Practices in part due to requests related to Clean Water Fund projects. These funds will be used to hire an engineer, which will increase engineering capacity and result in the completion of at least five additional projects per year.
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.
Lake George is the premier recreational lake in Anoka County with above average water quality, a vibrant fishery, and a large regional park and beach that is among the most utilized in the county. Located in northwestern Anoka County within the Upper Rum River Watershed Management Organization (URRWMO), the Lake George Improvement District (LGID) was formed to tend to the lake's diminishing water quality and problematic invasive species.
This project is a cooperative effort between Crow Wing and Itasca County to contract with RMB Laboratories to generate 65 lake assessment/trend analysis reports. The watershed protection model is an innovative and proactive approach to water resource management which is geared towards prioritizing areas of concern, targeting implementation strategies, and measuring their effectiveness. These assessments are also useful and understandable tools for lake associations and the public.
The Clean Water Fund (CWF) and Outdoor Heritage Fund (OHF) were used together to secure easements on buffer areas. 71 easements have been recorded for a total of 1,083.9 acres and are reported in the output tables for the final report (acre total does not include Clean Water Fund acres). The total acreage from both CWF and OHF sources for recorded easements is 2,105.0 acres. Only the OHF acres are being reported in this final report to be consistent with the approved accomplishment plan.
Northern white cedar wetland plant communities provide unique ecological, economic, and wetland functions, including high value timber, long-term carbon storage, winter refuge for deer and other wildlife, wildlife habitat, and thermal buffering for brook trout streams. However, these plant communities have been declining in Minnesota for decades mostly as a result of development impacts. The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources is using this appropriation to continue efforts aimed at improving the quantity and quality of white cedar wetland plant communities in Minnesota.
This Oak Glen Creek stormwater pond expansion and enhancement using an iron enhanced sand filter (IESF) is a partnership between the Anoka Conservation District (ACD) and a private company to protect a downstream corridor stabilization and improve the quality of stormwater discharged to the Mississippi River. Very little stormwater infrastructure currently exists in the 573 acre Oak Glen Creek subwatershed, and it discharges 147,519 pounds of sediment and 353 pounds of phosphorus to the Mississippi River annually.
The Rice Creek Watershed District (RCWD) will create a web-based, mobile-compatible public drainage system inspection and maintenance database. This database system will enable District staff to create and track maintenance requests and inspections from the field, including Geo-referencing locations requiring repair via a mobile device. The system will greatly reduce the time required to identify and log each maintenance request, enabling staff to inventory more miles of public drainage system yearly thereby identifying erosion problems more efficiently and thoroughly.
The Project and Outreach Coordinator will facilitate efforts within the watershed to provide landowner support and assistance in identifying areas in need of conservation plans and best management practices. The coordinator would use the Watershed Protection and Restoration Strategy Report and county water plans to target and prioritize outreach and education to maximize water quality benefits. This will greatly multiply the number of educated landowners in the watershed and increase the number of projects implemented.
A new GIS technician will help prioritize and target conservation activities and protection strategies in nine north-central Minnesota counties. The GIS technician will create GIS products, assessments, and watershed analysis to identify the high priority areas in each County or watershed in need of protection or restoration using all available data, including LiDAR, soils, land use, completed WRAPS and other datasets. These areas will then be targeted for future resource management efforts, Clean Water Fund projects, and additional conservation activities.
Fourteen permanent RIM Easements on 766 acres of high quality, riparian and forested habitat have been recorded and will provide lasting wildlife habitat. Attempts were made to acquire three tracts in fee title that would have relied on this funding. The owner of one tract rejected an offer of the certified appraised value. Acquisition attempts on the other two tracts were discontinued when it became apparent that the planned use of the land as DNR Wildlife Management Area would be incompatible with local government plans for future municipal growth.
Crow Wing County is pursuing this grant to continue this proven community and landowner outreach campaign by developing new water planning tools and using print and social media strategies to effect a positive change in our watersheds. The County believes that landowners want to do the right thing and has the data to show that when doing the right thing can be presented in customer-focused, fact-driven, easy-to-understand format, they get engaged and conservation gets done!
Twenty six easements protecting 1,173.3 were recorded which exceeded the original proposal by 173 acres (15%). 11.6 miles of shoreline were protected which exceeded the 8 acre goal by 30%. Total expenditure was $1,355,000 which was 17% lower than originally budgeted. No fee-title land acquisition opportunities on wild rice lakes that fit within DNR and other government agency land plans were available during this time period thus DU did not expend any of the $100,000 budgeted for fee-title acquisition. Instead the program focused on RIM easements.
