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Minnesota's Impaired Waters and TMDLs
Maps of Impaired Waters
IWAV: Impaired Waters Viewer
Waters from the “2008 Minnesota Inventory of Impaired Waters” (shown in red), along with “New Draft listings for 2010” (shown in orange), are shown on the map below. Colored lines show impaired rivers/streams and colored dots show impaired lakes and wetlands.
- Enter a location in the "Map Search" box below to find a city, town, county or street address (for example: St. Paul, MN).
- Put the cursor “hand” icon on an impaired water body and click to get more information about it. Then, in the pop up window, click on the number in the "AUID" column to highlight the corresponding water body. An AUID (assessment unit identification) is the identification number for all or part of a stream, lake or wetland.
- For additional information refer to the notes and list of water quality problems located below the map.
- For information on the status of clean-up plans and projects (TMDLs) for an impaired water, use the AUID (located in the pop up window) with the search tool in the Report of All TMDL Projects and contact the MPCA staff member assigned to the project. Or see individual TMDL project Web pages (see links in left sidebar) to learn more about individual TMDL projects.
- Find additional information about surface water conditions in Minnesota through MPCA's online Environmental Data Access (EDA) application.
List of Water Quality Problems:
- A = Ammonia
- ACE = Acetochlor (Herbicide)
- B-F = Fish IBI (Index of Biological Integrity)
- B-FI = Fish & Invertebrate IBI
- B-I = Invertebrate IBI
- B-P = Plant IBI
- Cl = Chloride
- DO = Low Dissolved Oxygen
- E. coli = Escherichia coli
- FC = Fecal Coliform (Bacteria)
- Hg = Mercury
- LCWA = Lack of Coldwater Assemblage (Fish Species)
- NO3 = Nitrates
- Nutrients/Eutro = Excess Nutrients / Eutrophication
- PBT = Persistent Bioaccumulative Toxics
- PCB = Polychlorinated Biphenyls
- PFOS = Perfluorooctane Sulfonate
- pH = pH
- T = Turbidity
- Tm = Temperature
See the MPCA Glossary for definitions of terms.
Map Files
January 2009 Maps of All Impaired Waters
Inventory of All Impaired Waters - RiversMap Archives
Map Shapefiles
The zipped files below contains shapefiles which represent the current Inventory of Impaired Waters (per Section 303(d) Clean Water Act). These files were created for those interested in preparing computerized maps of impaired waters. To use these files you will need Geographic Information System (GIS) computer software. The zipped files contain a separate shapefile for lakes, streams and wetlands, including metadata. The projection for these shapefiles is UTM extended zone 15, NAD83. These shapefiles were created by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency using the 1:24,000 scale National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). If you have any questions or comments, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. at 651-757-2294.
- Lakes - July 2009 TMDL zipped file (file size = 11 MB)
- Wetlands - July 2009 TMDL zipped file
- Streams - July 2009 TMDL zipped file (file size = 8 MB)
- See more spatial data