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For more than 50 years, volunteers have gathered critically important water clarity data on Minnesota lakes and streams.
The MPCA monitors and assesses lakes around the state to determine if they meet water quality standards.
The MPCA works with city and county governments, watershed districts, consultants, and others on monitoring, protecting, and restoring water quality. This is a repository of guidance and technical resources for agency partners.
Dakota County is now hosting We Are Water MN, a traveling exhibit and community engagement program that explores Minnesotans’ relationships with water.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) reflect how agency staff and contracted partners complete agency-funded field activities.
To protect human health and the environment, we need to limit the amount of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in our waters to safe levels. Safe levels means water can be used for drinking,…
This committee included a broad range of stakeholders and was charged with providing perspective, input, and advice to the commissioner on MPCA's water fees.
The We Are Water MN exhibit in Duluth's Hartley Nature Center runs from February 29 through April 22.
Excess nitrate remains a long-term challenge to manage. In our lakes, rivers, and streams, it is toxic to fish and other aquatic life. In drinking water, it can pose a risk to human health,…
The MPCA is authorized to develop numeric water quality criteria that apply specifically to a water body or region where the pollutant is found, using data from that water body or region.
A watershed is the area of land where all of the water that drains off of it goes into the same place — a river, stream or lake.
In karst landscapes, the distinction between groundwater and surface water is blurry.
We Are Water MN travels to Chisago County, where Dawn White has served as an educator and policy team member focused on preserving waters.
Surface water assessment grants (SWAG) provide local organizations and citizen volunteers with funds to complete the monitoring needed to meet assessment requirements on Minnesota lakes and streams. Assessment is usually the first step in protecting or restoring surface waters.
Implementing water quality standards come with tangible costs and benefits. Costs such as taxes to residents, regulated parties, and communities help achieve benefits such as increased property values, tourism, and protecting human health.
The MPCA proposes adding 46 new impaired bodies of water and removing 45 impairments from bodies of water from the IWL, the most removals in a two-year cycle since the state began the IWL program in 1992.
The MPCA proposes to adopt the U.S. EPA's 2013 national recommended water quality criteria for ammonia as its Class 2 ammonia water quality standards for the protection of aquatic life.
The MPCA added three bodies of water to the impaired waters list for PFAS contamination. Which are they? How did they get polluted? And how much PFAS does it take to contaminate a body of water?
The MPCA plans to amend Minnesota Rules chapter 7050, which establishes beneficial uses and water quality standards to protect those uses, and designates where the uses occur in waters of the state.
The MPCA uses the Environmental Quality Information System (EQuIS) to store water quality data from more than 17,000 Minnesota sampling locations.