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.
This monitoring project includes lake and stream monitoring and encompasses all of Cass County, and surrounding counties. The project will obtain water quality data for streams; in 2009, lakeshed assessments indicated that many surface waters throughout the county were data deficient. This project will address the need for sufficient data on a county-wide basis and fulfill the State’s intensive watershed monitoring program goals by obtaining water quality data at targeted lake and stream sites.
Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District (Cook SWCD) will be working with up to four volunteers in the Rainy River Watershed Headwaters to monitor the Cross River during 2014 and 2015.The area of the stream being monitored is located 45 miles north of Grand Marais, MN. The area is remote and travel is slow to the stream. It is an area that was affected by fires with vegetation in the beginning years of succession. There are lodges, resorts and residents scattered throughout the area. The parameters monitored are set by the MPCA, along with the frequency of sampling.
This project will collect a complete Trophic Site Index (TSI) data set for Crow Wing County lakes and a complete data set for streams and rivers for the Intensive Monitoring Program (IMP). Crow Wing County, Cass County, Wadena County, Morrison County and Hubbard County are partnering to ensure that all target lakes and rivers within the Crow Wing River watershed are monitored efficiently.
This project focuses on preventing and reducing sediment related turbidity problems throughout the Crow River Watershed and contains three main tasks; Best Management Practices (BMP's) installation, public outreach and administration.
The purpose of this project is reduce peak flows in the North Fork of the Crow River through culvert sizing. Culvert sizing will typically result in smaller culverts, which will provide short-term temporary storage within channels and on adjacent lands upstream from road crossings. In addition to reducing peak flow rates, flood damage and downstream erosion, increased sediment and nutrient removal through extended detention time is expected.
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.
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 complete the calibration/validation process of Hydrologic Simulation FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Lake of the Woods/Rainy River Basin.
The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate a watershed model using HSPF. RESPEC will produce a HSPF model that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs.
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 north-central Minnesota counties of Cass and Hubbard share large portions of the Crow Wing River, Leech and Upper Mississippi Watersheds, all of which play an important role in providing clean drinking water to over one million Minnesota residents. Each county assumes the responsibility of inspecting and evaluating the judicial and county ditch systems that drain directly into these watersheds. The two counties together share two judicial ditch systems and combined have an additional 42 ditches within their borders.
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.
The Lake Superior Beach Monitoring and Notification Program exists to test recreational beach water and notify the public if bacteria levels become unsafe. This project will expand the Beach Program to include additional outreach efforts, sanitary surveys and testing of new technologies to improve the Beach Program. Monitoring results will be used to inform the public, find the sources of bacterial contamination and address polluted runoff from improper waste disposal.
Phase 4 of the Lake Winona Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) project will finalize the draft Lake Winona TMDL, dated November 2009, by completing additional data analysis, lake quality modeling, updating the TMDL report, and supporting the public involvement process.
The goal of this project is to develop a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for all impaired stream reaches and lakes within the Long Prairie and Red Eye Watersheds.
This project will provide condition monitoring and problem investigation monitoring at the following sites. Mississippi River: Tributaries include Bassett Creek, Cannon River, Crow River, and Minnehaha Creek. Minnesota River: Tributaries include Eagle Creek, Riley Creek, and Willow Creek. St. Croix River: Tributary includes Valley Creek.
This project will create a high accuracy elevation dataset - critical for effectively planning and implementing water quality projects - for the state of Minnesota using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geospatial mapping technologies. Although some areas of the state have been mapped previously, many counties remain unmapped or have insufficient or inadequate data. This multi-year project, to be completed in 2012, is a collaborative effort of Minnesota's Digital Elevation Committee and partners with county surveyors to ensure accuracy with ground-truthing.
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.
Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support.
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.
The goal of this project is to add dual endpoints to the turbidity section of the North Fork Crow TMDL so that it addresses the proposed TSS standards.
The goal of the Pomme de Terre River Association (JPB) is to improve local water resources within the watershed through targeted voluntary efforts and build strong relationships with local landowners, producers, and citizens. Utilizing the State's first Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy, the JPB has targeted and identified specific areas and activities required for marked water quality improvement.
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 will develop an effective transferable model to engage and educate watershed residents, stakeholders and others to better understand and protect watershed ecostystems through environmental monitoring, training, and formal and informal education programs in their local watershed. The project will build on the foundation of the existing Red River Basin River Watch program by strengthening three main activity areas: 1) curriculum integration and teacher training, 2) youth leadership and civic engagement, and 3) applied research collaboration and watershed science skills building.
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 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.
Stormwater runoff from the City of Kimball drains untreated into Willow Creek, a trout stream. Willow Creek is tributary to Lake Betsy, which is impaired by excess nutrients. This project targets phosphorus removal for Lake Betsy as identified in the Upper Watershed TMDL Studies for the Clearwater River Watershed and protection to Willow Creek trout habitat by infiltrating the 1.5-inch storm event off 428 acres in and around the City of Kimball.
Numerous studies have shown that stream bank erosion can be a significant contributor to the decline of water quality in the Rock River. The Clean Water dollars provided for this project assisted in three stream bank projects that address the turbidity (muddiness) impairment of the Rock River and bring the river closer to the level of water quality required for the EPA Clean Water Act.The $25,000.00 of Clean Water dollars were successful in leveraging $30,000 of US Fish and Wildlife funding as well as $20,000 of landowner and SWCD investment.
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.
Open house National Water Week; Develop presentation about groundwater and purchase sand tank groundwater model; Update City zoning map, emergency plan and City ordinances; update City webpage