In Minnesota’s Marshall County, the solution to farmers’ decades-long drainage and erosion problems along Swift Coulee came with partnerships and funding that transformed the project into a 9-mile-long stream restoration surrounded by 740 acres of permanent wildlife habitat with water quality benefits that extend to the Red River.
A partnership between the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) and the Red River Watershed Management Board (RRWMB) is tapping the Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) conservation easement program to restore priority riparian habitat corridors across northwestern Minnesota. The aim: improve water quality, reduce flood damage, and create valuable habitat for fish and wildlife.
Situated a half mile from the Pomme de Terre River, one of the largest erosion-control projects in Grant County resulted in the installation of 19 water- and sediment-control basins to help keep topsoil in the fields and pollution out of the nutrient-impaired river and Perkins Lake, downstream in Stevens County, Minn.
Cooperating landowners and two rounds of Watershed-Based Implementation Funding from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources made the $360,000 project possible.
Pomme De Terre River priorities drive Grant County, Minn., erosion fix Read More »
With a new forester and a new funding source, the Pine County Soil and Water Conservation District in Minnesota is poised to work with landowners within the Snake River watershed on forestry-protection plans with water quality benefits.
Pine County is the fiscal agent for the Snake River watershed, a 1,010-square-mile area encompassing most of Kanabec, parts of Pine, Aitkin, and Mille Lacs, and bits of Isanti and Chisago counties.
Minnesota’s Pine County SWCD targets Snake River water quality via forestry work Read More »
Bob and Colleen Christianson cut the fire risk to their property last summer when they cut and mulched dead and dying balsam fir trees left in the wake of a spruce budworm outbreak.
“The biggest problem I was worried about was the fire danger. And if any fire got going in here, it would burn everything. Not only that, I wanted to improve the land for wildlife,” Bob Christianson said.
Spruce budworm is native to Minnesota, where 100-plus years of fire suppression allowed dense stands of balsam fir to flourish.
Federal-state partnership supports fire safety in Minnesota’s Arrowhead region Read More »
The rotational grazing system Carter Lee installed on 70 acres of Fillmore County blufftops is revitalizing pastureland, improving soil health, and protecting the Root River, a designated trout stream.
“That piece originally was in the CRP program (Conservation Reserve Program), and when it came out, we decided we would really like to put (the land) back into perennial grass to use for grazing,” Lee said.
Rotational grazing: A pipeline to better water quality in Fillmore County, Minn. Read More »
The Becker Soil and Water Conservation District has worked with landowners to install more than 660 water- and sediment-control basins during the past 20 years. The projects were slow to catch on at first, but interest in the basins surged as farmers saw how well they mended gullies and curbed erosion.
“It’s a night-and-day difference. It went from a washout that was 6 feet deep to (now) we farm across it and there’s absolutely no problem with it as far as erosion whatsoever,” Riceville Township farmer Tom Bergren said of a multi-basin project spanning his field and a neighbor’s field upstream.
Erosion control aids Wild Rice River water quality in Minnesota Read More »
Situated on either side of the Redwood River just 3 miles upstream from Lake Redwood, an earthen dam and a series of seven terraces will strengthen a network of flood- and erosion-control measures intended to combat altered hydrology within the Minnesota River basin.
Redwood River project in southwestern Minnesota saves soil, strengthens flood control Read More »
Minnesota’s Fish Lake, a 232-acre lake bordered by a regional park with a swimming beach and public water access, achieved the phosphorus reductions necessary to be considered for delisting in 2017, after the first dose of a two-part alum treatment.
Alum treatments are applied in two half-doses to avoid a significant drop in pH, which could harm fish and invertebrates. Half-dose treatments also improve the efficiency of alum to bind to the phosphorus, locking it up within the upper layer of sediment.
Minnesota’s popular Fish Lake near Maple Grove poised to drop ‘impaired’ status Read More »
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