GRANTS AWARDED

The Cottonwood-Middle Minnesota Comprehensive Watershed Management Plan began in April 2023 with planning grant funds awarded by BWSR, through the One Watershed One Plan program, in late August of 2022. Grant Administration/Coordination and Fiscal Management is being provided by the Redwood-Cottonwood Rivers Control Area.

The counties of Brown, Cottonwood, Lyon, Murray and Redwood, their respective SWCDS, Area II MN River Basin Projects, RCRCA and the City of Springfield comprise the 13 members of this Memorandum of Agreement (link). Blue Earth County and SWCD, and Yellow Medicine County and SWCD have opted out of the planning due to having <5% of their counties within the watershed boundary.  

RCRCA received a planning grant for the Redwood River One Watershed One Plan. More information under Grants - RR 1W1P page.

The Minnesota River-Mankato watershed, also referred to as the Middle Minnesota, will be assessed starting in 2024.  As part of that process, Intensive Watershed Monitoring (IWM) is done to collect biological and chemistry data on the watershed’s lakes, streams and rivers.  MPCA contracts with several local governments to help collect the needed chemistry data to determine if these waters continue to be impaired or have improved in the 10-year period since they were initially assessed.

In 2024 and 2025, RCRCA will collect water chemistry samples from 3 stream sites (Crow Creek, Spring Creek and Wabasha Creek) within the Minnesota River-Mankato watershed. From May through September of 2024, 11 samples will be collected from Crow Creek and 12 samples will be collected from both Spring Creek and Wabasha Creek. For 2025, 8 samples will be collected from Crow Creek and 9 samples from both Spring Creek and Wabasha Creek from May through September.

In 2019, the State of MN appropriated $7.3 million to RCRCA for the hydraulic dredging of 650,000 cubic yards of sediment from Lake Redwood. With a local contribution of $900,000 from the City of Redwood Falls, the budget has allowed for the purchase of a 140-acre parcel upon which a Confined Disposal Facility was constructed by Mathiowetz Construction in the fall of 2020. In the spring of 2021, bids were let for Phase 2 of the project – hydraulic dredging and pipeline construction. With five bidders, JF Brennan, Inc. was the successful bidder. The pipeline was constructed in late 2021 and early 2022 with dredging commencing April 22, 2022 (Earth Day). It is anticipated that the dredging will be completed within six months with pipeline removal and restoration to follow. Houston Engineering, Inc. is providing engineering and permitting assistance to RCRCA for this project.

RCRCA has been a local partner with the MN Pollution Control Agency since 2009 and is responsible for year-round monitoring and water quality sampling from 7 sites within our work area:

• Redwood River at Russell
• Redwood River – North at Marshall 
• Redwood River at Redwood Falls
• Minnesota River at Morton
• Sleepy Eye Creek at Cobden
• Cottonwood River at Leavenworth
• Cottonwood River at New Ulm

All information is maintained in a statewide database that provides valuable information on the wide range of flows encountered by the rivers and the pollutant loads that they carry. 

For more information or to access the state-wide collected data, use the link below:

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/water/watershed-pollutant-load-monitoring

RCRCA has been a local partner with MDA since 2012 and collects storm-based water quality sampling from 4 sites within our work area:

• Three Mile Creek at Green Valley
• Redwood River at Redwood Falls
• Sleepy Eye Creek at Cobden
• Cottonwood River at New Ulm

In 1987, the Minnesota Legislature amended the Minnesota Pesticide Control Law (MN Statute 18B.04) and directed the MDA to determine the impact of pesticides on the environment, including the impacts on surface water and groundwater. In response to this charge, surface water monitoring began in 1991. The MDA has one of the most comprehensive pesticide monitoring programs in the country. 

For more information, use the link below:

https://www.mda.state.mn.us/pesticide-fertilizer/surface-water-pesticide-water-quality-monitoring

Discovery Farms Minnesota is a farmer-led effort to gather field-scale water quality information from different types of farming systems and from differing landscapes across Minnesota.  Discovery Farms’ mission is to gather water quality information under real-world conditions. The program is designed to collect accurate measurements of sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus movement over the soil surface and through subsurface drainage tiles. This work leads to a better understanding of the relationship between agricultural management and water quality. The goal is to provide practical, credible, site-specific information to enable better farm management.

The latest Discovery Farms MN site is located in central Redwood County. In 2016, RCRCA was asked to partner with MDA and MAWRC to provide the monitoring and sample collection starting in 2017.

For more information or to access the real-time data, use the link below:

https://discoveryfarmsmn.org/

Partnering with the Redwood Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD), a $400,805 grant from received from the Board of Water & Soil Resources in 2021 to implement sediment-reducing Best Management Practices (BMPs) within the Plum Creek watershed, a subwatershed of the Cottonwood River. In addition, the Plum Creek also received federal Focus 319 grant funds for the same purpose. 75% cost-share (60% 319 funds, 15% CWF) is provided to cooperators to implement these BMPs to help reach the project goal of 1,470 tons/year of sediment reduction. If 319 funds are unavailable, the CWF grant can provide up to 75% cost-share alone.

Minnesota voters approved the Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment on November 4, 2008, to:

• protect drinking water sources;
• protect, enhance, and restore wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and      wildlife habitat;
• preserve arts and cultural heritage;
• support parks and trails;
• and protect, enhance, and restore lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater.

The Amendment increases the sales and use tax rate by 3/8s of 1% on taxable sales, starting July 1, 2009 and continuing through 2034. Those tax dollars are dedicated to 4 funds: Outdoor Heritage Fund, Clean Water Fund, Parks and Trails Fund, and Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

For more information about Clean Water Funds and success stories, use the links below:

https://bwsr.state.mn.us/cwf_programs

https://bwsr.state.mn.us/conservation-stories

In similar fashion to the Plum Creek CWF grant, and again partnering with the Redwood Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD), a $648,075 grant from received from the Board of Water & Soil Resources in 2022 to implement sediment-reducing Best Management Practices (BMPs) within the Pell Creek watershed, a subwatershed of the Cottonwood River. Pell Creek was identified in the Plum Creek Focus 319 grant and may utilize the federal grant funds if opportunities in Plum Creek are exhausted. If 319 funds are unavailable, the CWF grant can provide up to 75% cost-share alone.

The State of Minnesota has adopted a ‘Watershed Approach’ to assesses all of Minnesota’s 80, 8-digit HUC watersheds, within a 10-year cycle. This ‘Watershed Approach’ is also known as the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) process. Watershed monitoring and data collection in the Cottonwood River Watershed was conducted in 2017 - 2018. MPCA’s Environmental Analysis and Outcomes Division expanded the data collection to include extensive fish and aquatic invertebrate surveys. Analysis of the monitoring data followed to determine impairments, identify stressors causing those impairments, develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for impaired waters, identify pollutant sources, and utilize computer modeling and other techniques with stakeholder involvement to set water quality goals. Strategies to restore impaired waters and protect unimpaired waters were developed for future implementation by state and local governments, citizen organizations, businesses, and individuals as the process transitions into One Watershed, One Plan with prioritized, targeted and measurable goals for the Cottonwood River watershed. A grant of $200,000 was administered by RCRCA to oversee this process. The Cottonwood River TMDL and WRAPS documents will be Public Noticed Summer 2022.

An application for a One Watershed, One Plan planning grant was submitted to BWSR in June 2022. If successful, planning would begin in Fall 2022.

For more information, use the link below:

https://bwsr.state.mn.us/one-watershed-one-plan

The Cottonwood and Redwood Rivers were conducted at the same time. Watershed monitoring and data collection in the Redwood River Watershed was conducted in 2017 - 2018. MPCA’s Environmental Analysis and Outcomes Division expanded data collection to include extensive fish and aquatic invertebrate surveys. Analysis of the monitoring data followed to determine impairments, identify stressors causing those impairments, develop Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for impaired waters, identify pollutant sources, and utilize computer modeling and other techniques with stakeholder involvement to set water quality goals. Strategies to restore impaired waters and protect unimpaired waters were developed for future implementation by state and local governments, citizen organizations, businesses, and individuals as the process transitions into One Watershed, One Plan with prioritized, targeted and measurable goals for the Cottonwood River watershed. A grant of $200,000 was administered by RCRCA to oversee this process. The Redwood River TMDL and WRAPS documents will be Public Noticed Summer 2022.

An application for a One Watershed, One Plan planning grant is anticipated in Summer 2023. If successful, Redwood River watershed planning would begin in Fall 2023.

For more information, use the link below:

https://bwsr.state.mn.us/one-watershed-one-plan

To complete the intensive watershed monitoring and data collection in the Cottonwood and Redwood River Watersheds 2017 and 2018 (associated with the TMDL/WRAPS grants), MPCA partnered with RCRCA. To conduct this monitoring of the streams and lakes, a $76,111.61 grant was provided to cover labor and testing analysis expenses.

For the Cottonwood River watershed, 16 streams and 7 lakes were monitored.

For the Redwood River watershed, 8 streams and 2 lakes were monitored.

For more information about this program, use the link below;

https://www.pca.state.mn.us/water/surface-water-assessment-grants