Watershed Achievements Report
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wq-cwp8-18
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<strong>Watershed</strong> Minnesota River <strong>Achievements</strong> Basin <strong>Report</strong> 2008<br />
<strong>Watershed</strong> <strong>Achievements</strong> <strong>Report</strong> Statewide 2015<br />
Minnesota River Mankato <strong>Watershed</strong><br />
Middle Minnesota Phosphorus Load<br />
Reduction<br />
The Middle Minnesota <strong>Watershed</strong> (MMW) is a major<br />
watershed of the Minnesota River Basin. It covers<br />
approximately 862,000 acres across parts of eight<br />
counties in south-central Minnesota. Nicollet County is<br />
part of the MMW. Agriculture is the dominant land use<br />
covering 78% of all land in Nicollet County. Increased<br />
farming pressure on the land has caused extensive<br />
damage to ravine areas throughout the MMW. In Nicollet<br />
County, almost 70% of the soil being deposited in our<br />
streams and rivers is coming from ravines and other<br />
near stream features such as stream banks and bluffs.<br />
The remaining soils are carried from crop production<br />
lands into the drainage ditches, and into streams/rivers.<br />
Though 70% of soil loss is coming from near stream<br />
features, the main source of phosphorous pollution in<br />
our <strong>Watershed</strong> comes from the 30% of soil lost on our<br />
crop production land.<br />
The project prioritized implementation activities to areas<br />
of the Seven Mile Creek <strong>Watershed</strong>, an area of southeast<br />
Nicollet County with a rich legacy of watershed-scale<br />
efforts to improve water quality. Nicollet SWCD was<br />
able to re-instate a <strong>Watershed</strong> Coordinator for Seven<br />
Mile Creek in partnership with Great River Greening, reimagine<br />
and re-energize a dormant watershed program,<br />
and received a $170,000 grant from a private foundation<br />
to continue collaborative watershed-scale work in this<br />
area. In addition, implementation activities included 22<br />
structural practices to reduce sediment and phosphate<br />
loading and seven acres of vegetative buffers along the<br />
cropland-ravine interface resulting in the prevention of<br />
more than 1,200 tons of sediment and 1,400 pounds of<br />
phosphorus from reaching Seven Mile Creek and the<br />
Minnesota River.<br />
Goals<br />
• Install 20 erosion control structures, 20 side inlet<br />
control structures on ditches.<br />
• Establish vegetative buffers where feasible.<br />
• Continue to foster watershed stewardship and<br />
community pride in clean water that achieves a legacy<br />
beyond this implementation grant.<br />
Results that count<br />
• Twenty-two structural practices (including WASCOBs,<br />
grade stabilizations, and side inlet controls on drainage<br />
ditches and at the cropland-ravine interface).<br />
• Seven acres of vegetative buffer at the cropland-ravine<br />
interface.<br />
• Secured an additional grant to continue promoting<br />
BMPs and fostering a culture of conservation in the<br />
Seven Mile Creek watershed.<br />
Lessons learned/Recommendations<br />
• Skills required to be successful in creating a watershed<br />
partnership that can really generate results are far<br />
different from those skills that we typically seek in<br />
our technical service providers. It’s the soft skills –<br />
relationship-building, diplomacy, creative problemsolving,<br />
long-term visioning, strategic planning, among<br />
many others – that are truly critical when considering<br />
this approach to watershed work.<br />
• Even landowners who are not typical clients of SWCDs<br />
are eager to do conservation work when it doesn’t<br />
interfere with their business.<br />
• Landowners have plenty of good, common sense<br />
ideas about how to address many of our surface water<br />
concerns, but they are almost never consulted or<br />
involved in conservation projects in a collaborative<br />
way.<br />
• Neighbors will be a more effective at outreach to each<br />
other than a technical service provider every time – it<br />
ought to be the goal of watershed programs to harness<br />
this potential within our communities in order to reach<br />
more people and to make our own work more efficient.<br />
• Outreach is most effective when well-targeted, much<br />
like conservation activities. Mass mailings of generic<br />
information are not worth the time it creates to send<br />
them. Generating specific, compelling content, and<br />
personalizing outreach materials is worth the extra time<br />
and effort required.<br />
Recommendations<br />
Provide more flexibility to grantees to account for<br />
uncontrollable factors like staff turnover and weather.<br />
Financial information<br />
Funding type: Section 319<br />
Grant amount: $228,382<br />
In-kind: $64,501<br />
Matching funds: $141,117<br />
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency www.pca.state.mn.us 77