Mississippi (St. Cloud) Watershed Restoration & Protection Project   

April Project Update!

The Major Watershed Restoration & Protection Project (MWRPP) is a State developed 10 year cycle program which provides an approach for State-wide assessment of water quality and aquatic life.  The Watershed approach is designed to intensively monitor streams and lakes within a major watershed to determine the overall health of the water resources, identify impaired waters, and identify those waters in need of additional protection efforts to prevent impairments.

A watershed is the area of land that all drains to the same body of water.  In Minnesota there are 81 major watersheds.  Through this program monitoring sites are placed to provide methodical spatial coverage of monitoring sites within the study watershed therefore leading to more thorough assessment of main stem rivers and their tributaries.  The goal of the new 10-year cycle is to address all impairments within 4-5 years from the start of monitoring.  The next four to five years would be used to implement BMP's and other watershed restoration practices to address impaired waters.  The whole cycle is then repeated.  This effort will help coordinate the efforts of local, state and federal efforts to most effectively manage watershed resources.  Most importantly this process will provide a communication tool that will inform stakeholders, engage volunteers, and activate citizens.

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Steps of this MWRPP are as follows:

1. Monitor and gather data and information (Years 1-3)

2. Assess the data (Years 1-3)

3. Establish implementation strategies to meet standards (Years 1-3)

4. Implement water quality activities (Years 4-10)

To learn more about the Watershed Approach follow the link below:
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/water/water-types-and-programs/surface-water/watershed-approach/watershed-approach.html

* Civic Engagement/Outreach
Planning Committee

The 10 year watershed cycle for the Mississippi (St. Cloud) Watershed began in the spring of 2009 under a separate project.  Field work for the biological and water chemistry referred to as Intensive Watershed Monitoring or IWM, was completed in 2010.  It is anticipated that the findings will be available in the spring of 2011.  In 2010 the Elk River Watershed Association became the Local Project Coordinators for the remaining tasks associated with the MWRPP.

Current efforts are focused towards project planning, coordination and initiating the effort towards completing TMDLs on the lakes currently listed as impaired stream monitoring, and development of a civic engagement/outreach plan.  The aforementioned activities will result in the compilation of existing water quality data from within the watershed, development of a project stakeholder list, and the listing key watershed projects and local water planning elements that should be factored into the watershed project. These activities are further detailed in the two part work plan, part 1 and part 2.

The main outcome of the project will be final deliverable of an implementation plan that will prescribe restoration and protection strategies for the surface water resources within the Mississippi (St. Cloud) watershed.

Civic Engagement in the MWRPP

Watershed protection and restoration depends largely on the changing behaviors of citizens who live on the land, it will require a real commitment at the community level to address problems in out lakes and streams.  Watershed planning will require that the public play a much more active role.  Citizens must be involved in framing the problem, developing solutions and taking responsibility for implementation.  To effectively involve citizens, a Civic engagement Planning Committee was formed.  This committee meets on an as-needed basis and is currently in the process of developing a strategic plan for which future efforts for civic engagement can be drawn from.  The planning team consists of members from the ERWS, CWRWD, Benton SWCD, Wright SWCD, MnDNR and the National Park Service. Visit the MPCAs website for more information on Civic Engagement in Watershed Projects.

Watch "Watershed story: Mississippi River-St. Cloud Watershed, Watershed Project Launch"

Partner Meetings

Civic Engagement Planning Committee Meetings