by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleasders.com
A public open house about the comprehensive watershed project starting this spring will take place from 4-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 27 at the Rice Lions Club Building, 101 Fourth Ave. NW in the city of Rice.
At the open house there will be maps, printed information and a question-answer session and time for comments. A short overview of the watershed project will be given at 6:30 p.m.
People from the Rice and Sartell area are encouraged to attend, especially those who live at or near Little Rock Lake or the Mississippi River. What will get underway this spring is known as the Intensive Watershed Monitoring project, which will analyze the entire watershed and its water quality and other factors, data that will be used to draw up a long-range water quality plan. The study and its recommendations will have a direct influence on people who live in this area.
The study will be done by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency starting sometime next month. The work is funded by the Clean Water Fund, part of a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2008. The biological monitoring of streams will be done by the MPCA’s Brainerd Regional Office, led by Tony Dingmann, a water-control specialist and Sartell resident.
The Mississippi River-Sartell Watershed covers a large area southwest of Albany to northeast of Pierz across portions of Benton, Crow Wing, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Stearns and Todd counties. The watershed includes 879 river miles and 232 lakes. About 60 monitoring stations will be scattered throughout the watershed on waterways that include Spunk Creek, Watab Creek, Little Rock Creek, Platte River and the Two Rivers system, among many others. The monitoring is designed to measure and evaluate the condition of rivers, streams and ditches by studying the biology, which includes fish, aquatic invertebrates as well as habitat, flow and water chemistry. Examples of aquatic invertebrates include insect larvae, crayfish, snails, small clams, worms and leeches.
Water-chemistry sampling will provide information about the quality of the water in which these fish and invertebrates live and the recreational suitability of the water. In addition, MPCA lake-monitoring crews will sample all lakes greater than 500 acres in size, and as many lakes more than 100 acres as possible.
The lake-monitoring teams will focus on water clarity, nutrient concentrations and other water-chemistry parameters to assess the lakes for their ability to support recreational uses, such as swimming. The MPCA partners with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for the collection of fish and plant data to help determine the support of aquatic life use (i.e. the health of the community in the lake). The MPCA has standards for what the biology and water chemistry should look like at a given sampling location. If a specific sample does not meet those expectations, the sampling location could be considered impaired, and restoration activities will follow. For lakes and streams that are meeting standards, protection strategies may be warranted. The MPCA relies on a large contingent of volunteers and local partners to collect water-quality data on lakes and streams as well as assist in the overall planning of the monitoring.