Copyright Austin Daily Herald
A report released in September by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reflects a good amount of improvement among the state’s rivers, streams and lakes. “Flowing forward: Trends in Minnesota’s lakes and rivers” reflects those improvements in a number of different areas throughout the state over the past 10 years, and marks the second 10-year cycle to collect and monitor data. According to the report, phosphorus concentrations in the state’s larger rivers saw a general decrease or stayed the same. At the same time, nitrate levels have generally increased across the state, but the number of significant increases dropped. During a span between 2008 and 2020, significant increases were recorded across 14 monitoring sites. Expanding that data through to 2022, however, the number dropped dramatically to five. “We’ve seen slowing of sediment into our systems,” said Kimberly Laing, MPCA surface water monitoring manager, who explained that there have been a number of factors in the diminished effect on Minnesota’s bodies of water, including best management practices such as buffers running alongside waters. “That’s what’s so important about having folks at the local level. They can help us understand the statewide perspective. Understand what’s going on at a local level.” The MPCA has worked closely with watersheds across the state, including the Cedar River Watershed District and Laing said that partnering with watersheds across the state is key in formulating the data needed. In particular, she said that the CRWD has been a prime example of not only getting quality data to the state level, but also an example of how best practices can be put to good use. “The Mower County CRWD has done absolutely great things for water quality and water storage,” she said. “We could not do all the different things without all of the people on board and having those relationships with people to make changes in our environment that affect the water environment.” Locally, Mower Soil and Water Conservation District Watershed Technician James Fett said simply staying even keel is a sign that things are progressing in the right direction. “I think the best thing to glean out of it is as long as things aren’t degrading like they are in other parts of the state, I think that’s a sign of success,” he said, but added that there is no apples to apples comparison. “It’s still hard to compare two watersheds to one another unless the exact same thing happened. There’s a lot of variability. For us, we just keep trying to do more and more. Eventually, hopefully, it will show better correlations with the data.” While on a broad basis the MPCA is seeing an overall positive improvement, there are variables that can muddy the picture somewhat, including changes locally compared to other parts of the state as well as big climate swings from one year to the next. To date, the Austin area has totaled 36.57 inches of observed precipitation including a rain event in late June that caused wide-ranging flooding across the state. That number is three inches above the 33.60-inch normal, while last year the area suffered from drought conditions throughout a large amount of the state, even though the area still finished above normal. Additionally, 20 years total of data gathering still represents a fairly small slice of the pie. Still, it’s hard to take away from the improvements locally as initiatives such as water retention ponds upstream that have stemmed rushing flows during flood events and the reintroduction of mussels to water bodies locally have produced positive steps forward. “I think we’re on the way for a lot more improvements, especially for Dobbins,” Fett said. “The major take away is there are other watersheds degrading and ours is improving or staying the same. That’s something to hang our hat on.” “Just have to spend more time and money collecting and analyzing data,” he added. Meanwhile, the state will continue leaning on area partnerships to keep the effort going in the coming years in order to clean up more of Minnesota’s water. “We’re going to continue to monitor. Continue to get more information,” Laing said. “We have more in the state where we’re going to add to that information to say what has changed.” “Volunteer efforts and local partners are making a tangible impact,” she continued. “We could not do the work we do without our volunteer local partnerships.”
