Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Contact: Forrest Peterson, 320-214-3789 Toll-free: 1-800-657-3864 Editor's note: Projects are located in the following counties: Aitkin, Becker, Benton, Blue Earth, Brown, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Dakota, Dodge, Faribault, Fillmore, Goodhue, Houston, Jackson, Martin, Morrison, Mower, Nicollet, Nobles, Olmsted, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Sherburne, Stearns, Steele, Wabasha, Winona, and the cities of Duluth and St. Cloud. St. Paul, Minn. -- The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) recently approved loans and grants in 2006 totaling more than $6.8 million for 24 local water-quality improvement projects. They range from conservation-type projects on the land to education and research. All of the projects are focused on nonpoint-source pollution. This includes stormwater runoff from urban areas and farmland, leaky private septic systems and livestock open feedlots. More than four-fifths of pollutants entering lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands in Minnesota come from nonpoint sources. Eight of the projects will receive state funds through the Clean Water Partnership (CWP) program to continue existing work. Federal funds through the Clean Water Act will be going to 16 new projects among a total of 34 new requests totaling more than $7.5 million. The projects, titles, locations, grant and loan amounts, and brief descriptions are listed below. Grants and loans come from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the federal Clean Water Act of 1972 (Section 319) and statewide through the MPCA's Clean Water Partnership program. The MPCA, in coordination with other agencies, reviews the applications and awards the funds. Many of the projects include other financial and in-kind support from counties and local organizations. The CWP and Section 319 programs date back to the late 1980s. The MPCA uses both programs to support the efforts of local units of government and citizens to address nonpoint sources of pollution. The programs provide financial and technical assistance for the study of water bodies experiencing pollution problems, development of action plans to address the problems and implementation of the plans to fix the problems. In addition to MPCA staff, the review team includes representatives from Department of Natural Resources, Board of Water and Soil Resources, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Department of Agriculture and Department of Transportation, along with other state and federal agencies. For more information about Section 319 or Clean Water Partnership projects on the Web, log on to the MPCA Web site at/water/cwp-319.html Clean Water Partnership continuation project summaries:
· Big Sandy Area Lakes Watershed Management Project - Aitkin County - $260,000 grant. Shoreland re-vegetation, lakeshore protection, vegetated buffers, conservation easements, public education, water-quality monitoring, support local ordinances. Contact: Janet Smude, 218-927-6565.
· Detroit Lake Water Quality Improvement Nutrient Reductions, Pelican River Watershed District - Becker County - $50,000 grant, $450,000 loan. Identify treatment methods for Rice Lake wetland to achieve a minimum 50 percent reduction in nutrient and sediment loadings to downstream areas (Pelican River and Big Detroit Lake). Monitor Detroit Lake for internal loading, remove exotic and nuisance plants, provide education and assistance for shoreland restoration. Contact: Tera Guetter, 218- 846-0436.
· East Branch Chippewa River - Chippewa County - $175,000 grant, $135,000 loan. Provide loans for septic-system upgrades. Buffer strips, shoreline naturalization projects, livestock exclusion, nutrient management, residue management, wetland restoration, water and sediment control basins, grassed waterways, stream-bank restoration/erosion control, terraces, alternative tile inlets. Contact: Kylene Olson, 320-269-2139.
· Elk Creek Conservation Tillage - Heron Lake Watershed District - Nobles County - $28,200 grant. Enlist landowners to change tillage practices to include no-till, strip-till, minimum-till, ridge-till, and forage residue management. Contact: Jan Voit, 507-793-2462.
· Lily and Center Creeks-Blue Earth River - Martin County - $450,000 grant, $300,000 loan. 75% cost share for grassed waterways, filter strips, sediment control basins, tile intake buffers or conversions, and other practices such as rain gardens. Offer alternative easements in areas ineligible for other similar programs. Contacts: Scott Bohling, 507- 235-6680, or John Billings, 507 526-2388.
· Lower Maple River Watershed Project - Blue Earth County - $474,100 grant, $100,000 loan. Cost share for installing rock inlets, grass buffers, terraces, waterways, sediment basins, harvestable buffer strips, crop residue management, nutrient management, septic- system upgrades and other technical assistance. Contact: Erin Degerstedt, 507-345-4744, ext. 125.
· Miller Creek Watershed Implementation - city of Duluth - $31,000 grant. Plant trees, restore habitat, control stormwater and sediment entering Miller Creek, where urban development is impacting trout habitat. Educate adjacent property owners. Contact: R.C. Boheim, 218-723-4629.
· Upper Mississippi River Source Water Protection - city of St. Cloud - $425,000 grant. Conduct research and inventory point and nonpoint sources of contaminants in the Crow River watershed and Mississippi, a source of drinking water for St. Cloud and downstream to Minneapolis and St. Paul. Contact: David Brostrom, 651-690-0690.
Section 319 project summaries:
· Dry Weather/Lines/Spring Creek Sub-basin of the Chippewa River - Chippewa County - $264,100 grant, $300,000 loan. Reduce nutrients, sediment and bacteria through tree plantings, nutrient and residue management, alternative tile intakes, septic-system improvements and nutrient insurance. Contact: Kylene Olson, 320-269-2139.
· Elk River Watershed Priority Lakes II - Elk River Watershed Association - $185,187 grant. Re-establish shoreland vegetation around area lakes, reduce phosphorus and nitrogen applications on farmland, improve and create wetlands. Contact: Mark Basiletti, 763-241-1170.
· Hawk Creek Watershed Project - Renville County - $300,000 grant, $900,000 loan. Implement practices to reduce phosphorus: Promote alternative tile intakes, improve septic systems, develop ditch buffers, urban stormwater management and education. Contact: Darrell Schindler, 320-523-3672.
· Heron Lake - Alternative Tile Intake Cost-Share Program, Heron Lake Watershed District - Jackson County - $36,000 grant. Reduce sediment in runoff from farm fields by replacing open tile intakes with subsurface rock intakes. Contact: Jan Voit, 507-793-2462.
· Into the Home Stretch: Achieving Feedlot Runoff Control to Reduce Bacteria Total Maximum Daily Load to Impaired Waters of the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota - Southeast Minnesota Water Resources Board - $300,000 grant. Hire technicians to assist eligible open livestock feedlots and provide some funds for low-cost improvements to reduce runoff. Contact: Bea Hoffmann, 507-457-5223.
· Swan River Watershed Management Plan Implementation - Morrison County SWCD - $70,000 grant. Identify and work with smaller feedlots to reduce over-application of manure to cropland with nutrient management plans, buffer strips and other conservations practices. Contact: Helen McLennan, 320-616-2479.
· Targeted Implementation/Compliance Activity Within Impaired and Ecologically-Sensitive Areas in the Upper Mississippi River Basin in Stearns County (continuation) - Stearns County SWCD - $300,000 grant. Hire inspector and technician to investigate unpermitted earthen manure storage basins, conduct feedlot evaluations, develop manure management plans. Contact: Dennis Fuchs, 320-215-7800.
· The Greater Blue Earth River Watershed BMPs Focus on the Big Cobb - Greater Blue Earth River Basin Alliance - $299,988 grant, $100,000 loan. Hire staff and provide cost-share for installation of conservation practices to reduce phosphorus and sediment. Contact: Kay Clark or Dave Bucklin, 507-831-1153, ext. 3.
· Vermillion River and Chub Creek ISTS Inspection and Upgrade Program - Dakota County - $160,500 grant. Inspect individual sewage-treatment systems near streams, provide incentives for improvements. Contact: John Jaschke, 952-891-7011.
· Winter parking lot/sidewalk maintenance training and certification to reduce environmental impacts to Shingle Creek, the Mississippi River, Sauk River, Lake Superior, North Shore streams and other waters of Minnesota - Fortin Consulting, Minneapolis - $80,000 grant. Provide training for staff working in winter road maintenance to reduce the amount of road salt in runoff to surface and ground water. Contact: Connie Fortin, 763-478-3606.
· Assessing potential of watershed and stream channel modifications on suspended sediment, turbidity and nutrients in the Blue Earth River Basin - University of Minnesota - $296,060 grant. Advance the work begun by the Blue Earth River Basin Initiative to reduce levels of sediment, turbidity and nutrients in the river to meet the goals of the Total Daily Maximum Load being developed for the basin. Contact: Ken Brooks or Dean Current, 612-624-5599.
· Interpreting a Century of Sediment in Redwood Lake - Redwood-Cottonwood Rivers Control Area, Redwood Falls - $89,140 grant. Redwood Lake is filling up with up to 27 feet of sediment that has accumulated behind the dam in Redwood Falls. Sample the sediment to help analyze the long-term impacts of land use on water resources. Contact: Jim Doering, 507-637-2142 ext. 124.
· Manure Basin Storage Abandonment Alternatives and Water Quality Improvement in the Upper Mississippi River Basin - Stearns County - $57,150 grant. Evaluate ground water beneath six abandoned manure basins, with the aim of learning more about the effect of such facilities on regional ground-water resources. Contact: Dennis Fuchs, 320-215-7800.
· Multi-metric IBI-based citizen monitoring of hydrologically-altered systems within the Rice Creek Watershed - Friends of the Mississippi River Inc. - $21,500 grant. Collect data on the health of aquatic ecosystems in eight streams that are heavily used for stormwater management in the Rice Creek Watershed. Contact: Daniel Huff, 651-222-2193.
· Testing Assumptions of Sediment and Nutrient Supply by Fingerprinting Glacial Sediment Sources - Brown-Nicollet-Cottonwood Water Quality Board - $87,930 grant. Determine what portion of sediment and nutrient pollution in Seven Mile Creek is due to such natural processes as stream-bank erosion. Contact: Kevin Kuehner, 507-934-4140.
· The Sediment in the System: Modeling the response of the Minnesota River to major forcing events at 10,000, 1,000, 100, 50 and 10 years ago - National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics, Minneapolis - $79,445 grant. The Minnesota River is still evolving in response to events that happened thousands of years ago. The project will use computer modeling to help resource managers in the river's basin better understand how the river responds to natural and human changes. Contact: Karen Gran, 612-624-4363.