The AgBMP Loan Program provides needed funding for local implementation of clean water practices at an extremely low cost, is unique in its structure and is not duplicated by any other source of funding.The AgBMP loan program provides 3% loans through local lenders to farmers, rural landowners, and agriculture supply businesses.
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 support a civic engagement cohort that will be offered in southwest Minnesota to foster partnering and build capacity of local government, organizations, and residents for effective civic engagement in water protection and restoration. This project will also build networks and the skill set of local resource professionals to do effective civic engagement work for water restoration and protection. The cohort will be administered through the Minnesota River Board (MRB), established in 1995 with a goal of focusing water management efforts on the local level.
This project will complete spatial and temporal revisions , recalibration and validation of 7 watershed HSPF models. These fully functioning calibrated validated executable models will simulate hydrology, sediment (sand, silt, and clay), temperature, phosphorus, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand, and algae at the 12-digit HUC subbasin scale (or finer).
The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate three HSPF watershed models. The project will result in HSPF models that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs. The models are expected to generate predicted output timeseries for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen which are consistent with available sets of observed data.
The goal of this project is to extend the existing HSPF models through 2012 in the Chippewa Watershed (07020005) and Hawk-Yellow Medicine Watershed (07020004) to incorporate recent monitoring data to support current MPCA business needs and sediment source investigations.
Construct, calibrate and validate 3 Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the St Louis, Cloquet, and Nemadji River Watersheds.
This project will complete spatial and temporal revisions of 6 Hydrologic Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) models, the recalibration and validation of 7 watershed HSPF models, and the revision of the drainage network and point source representation of the Pomme de Terre HSPF model.
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.
The Minnesota River Basin Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) models simulate sediment erosion and transport, however these models periodically need to be adjusted to be consistent with the most recent sources of information regarding sediment distribution and loading rates. The goal of this project is to refine the sediment source partitioning and simulation in the Minnesota River basin using all relevant available sources of information.
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.
This project will gather watershed data necessary for the development of a Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) report to maintain and improve water quality for the St Louis River Watershed.
The St. Louis River watershed is one of the largest watersheds in northern Minnesota and the largest single contributing watershed to Lake Superior. Surface waters are abundant with 353 lakes and 97 streams segments. Large areas of forest and wetlands help to sustain areas of exceptional water quality. However, land use changes have degraded many lakes, rivers, and streams. 21 stream reaches have aquatic life impairments, as identified by high turbidity (1 reach), poor quality aquatic macro-invertebrate community (16 reaches), and/or poor quality fish community (12 reaches).
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.
This project will update sediment Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for 60-64 impaired stream reaches and provide a final TMDL report. The report will address sediment and turbidity impaired streams in the Minnesota River Watershed. TMDLs will describe the impairment in each water body and water quality targets, and will include a discussion of pollutant sources, supporting report components that document assumptions and methodologies, and TMDL equations with completed load allocations, wasteload allocations, and margin of safety for each impairment.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Aitkin County Soil and Water Conservation District will partner with local lake associations and other eligible community partners to reduce the impacts of storm water runoff and retain water on the land. We will implement a mini-grant program that will install rain gardens and native vegetation buffers along shorelines using deep-rooted native vegetation that will filter runoff, promote infiltration, and control stormwater runoff and soil erosion.
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.
The objective of this sampling plan is to quantify the inputs and outputs of methyl-mercury in the St. Louis River. Mercury can be bound to organic carbon or suspended solids; therefore, it is necessary to determine loadings of them as well. To get loadings, this sampling plan includes event and base flow monitoring at key tributaries to the St. Louis River and at stations within the St. Louis River.
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.
The goal of this project is the continued development of an overall strategy for reduction of turbidity/TSS, with sets of sediment reduction initiatives and actions for various sources, to address the Minnesota River Turbidity TMDL and the South Metro Mississippi River TSS TMDL. The overall strategy will be used to help establish a path towards achieving the required reductions of turbidity/TSS.
This project will provide complementary (same year) physical and chemical data sets for three MPCA prioritized lakes in NE Minnesota to incorporate into the overall State database for MPCA assessment purposes as well as research purposes.
The Yellow Medicine River Watershed District will contract with the Water Resource Center at the Minnesota State University - Mankato to complete a Geographic Information System (GIS) terrain analysis for the watershed using recently completed LIDAR data in southern Minnesota. Analysis will concentrate on the impaired reaches of the Yellow Medicine River Watershed and its tributaries. This inventory will utilize the State of Minnesota LiDAR elevation datasets to create many datasets through the analysis of this elevation data.
