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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.

The MPCA must complete assessments to gather critical information too inform the development of the EPR program statewide.

The Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a vegetation-based ecological assessment approach that can be used for wetland quality monitoring and assessment.

The MPCA has important roles in protecting and restoring waters in degraded conditions.

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.

The MPCA monitors and assesses lakes around the state to determine if they meet water quality standards.

State agencies, counties, municipalities, nonprofit organizations, and many others are engaged in protecting Minnesota lakes.

The MPCA studies, monitors, and regulates water pollutants to protect human health and the environment. Minnesota water quality standards strives to protect water for use, measures health of waters, and guides limits on what regulated facilities can discharge to surface waters.

A brownfield assessment is a property investigation looking for potential contamination.

Minnesota participates in this statistical survey of the condition of our nation's lakes, ponds, and reservoirs.

Removing of an old dam and restoring a creek's curves are improving habitat and water quality in the Pomme de Terre River Watershed.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, states must designate beneficial uses for all waters and develop water quality standards to protect each use.

From the days when raw sewage flowed into rivers and lakes, Minnesota’s water bodies have come a long way. However, there is still work to be done in the restoration and protection of our waters.

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.

Waterways in the northeastern part of the state are generally in better condition than those in the southern, central, and western regions.

Water quality trading is a market-based approach to the protection and restoration of surface waters, another tool to be used in conjunction with existing voluntary, regulatory, and financial assistance programs.

Protecting and restoring water quality is one of the MPCA's core areas of focus.

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.

A water quality variance is a temporary change in a state's water quality standard for a specific pollutant and its relevant criteria, allowing deviation from meeting a water quality-based effluent limit for a particular discharger.

The MPCA 401 certification fills a unique niche in protecting water quality by applying state water quality standards to projects.