A local watershed district will accept an offer from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to work with neighboring watersheds to write a cleanup plan for the Cedar River.
The Shell Rock River Watershed District Board voted Sept. 11 to authorize staff to develop a work plan with the Cedar River and Turtle Creek Watershed Districts as well as the MPCA.
The three districts are the head waters of the Cedar River, which affects thousands of people downstream as it flows into the Iowa River, then the Mississippi and finally the Gulf of Mexico.
Cleaning up the Cedar River will require cleaning up the tributaries upstream.
Federal and state agencies use a tool called the Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, to:
- Measure pollutants
- Identify sources of those pollutants
- Implement activities to reduce those pollutants
TMDL, in short, is how much of a pollutant can enter a body of water, such as a lake or stream, and allow the water body to still meet federal standards for fishing and swimming.
The MPCA has offered $300,000 to the three area watersheds to conduct the TMDL, which is a both a measurement of pollutant loads and a process that involves the public in writing a plan to reduce those pollutant loads.
Once completing the TMDL, the watershed districts can qualify for state and federal grants to implement restoration projects.
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As this map of the entire Cedar River basin shows, the Shell Rock River, Turtle Creek and Upper Cedar River Watershed Districts are the headwaters for the entire basin.
The TMDL is a multi-step process, according to Cathy Rofshus, outreach director for the Shell Rock watershed. The Shell Rock has already taken many steps so it's ahead of many other watersheds.
The first step is water monitoring to measure the levels of pollutants in a lake or river. If the lake or river fails to meet federal standards, then the state and federal agencies list it as "impaired waters."
Once listed, the second step is to use computer modeling to identify sources of pollutants. The third step is to write a plan to reduce those sources of pollutants.
The final step is taking action, such as conservation practices on farm fields and erosion controls on construction sites, to reduce pollutants.
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The goal is to meet federal standards and de-list the lake or river, which means removing the body of water from the impaired waters list. Along the way, agencies continue to do water monitoring to gauge the success of cleanup activities.
The joint TMDL for the Cedar River offers several advantages to the Shell Rock River Watershed:
- Increases funding opportunities
- Completes the District's water monitoring program, which currently needs more data on streams and City of Albert Lea rain water runoff
- Builds cooperation with other government agencies, private groups and individual citizens
- Retains local control over the cleanup plan
- Increases efficiency, such as sharing some expenses and holding joint meetings
"If you use a house-building analogy, the TMDL is like a service that offers a blueprint that can be customized to your needs," Rofshus said. "It offers technical help and even financing. The water monitoring and modeling is your foundation of data. Your public process brings in ideas and support for the final product. Together, you build a better watershed, so to speak."
While joining forces with the other watersheds, the Shell Rock watershed will retain some autonomy, said District Administrator Brett Behnke. The initial thought is for each watershed to write individual plans and then combine them into one TMDL plan. |
Local lakes may make list for restoration |
Three local lakes may be listed as "impaired" by the state of Minnesota and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2008.
Water monitoring by the Shell Rock River Watershed District shows that Pickerel, Fountain and Albert Lea Lakes fail to meet federal standards for fishing and swimming all summer long.
Note that the data used for listing is an average for water monitoring done several times from May to September. Many times of the years, in the spring particularly before algae blooms, the lakes meet the federal standards for fishing and swimming.
"This is a bad news - good news scenario. While the bad news is that local lakes are impaired for recreation, the good news is that the listing opens up opportunities for technical and financial assistance in restoring the local lakes. The state offers several grants, along with expertise, for restoring impaired waters," said Cathy Rofshus, outreach director the Shell Rock River Watershed.
The state government is considering listing the lakes as impaired because of nutrient levels, namely phosphorus.
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See the table below for details on the nutrient levels.
Water monitoring shows that sediment and phosphorus are the top two pollutants in the Shell Rock watershed.
"You've heard the saying that a weed is a plant out of place. The same analogy applies to sediment," Rofshus said. "It is simply soil in the wrong place. On farm fields, soil provides the medium for growing corn and soybeans and other crops that support the local economy. When soil moves off a field and into water ways, it becomes sediment, a material that hurts water quality and thus harms fish, wildlife and our community."
Sediment, or soil, hurts water quality by filling in lakes. This aging process happens to all lakes over time, but human practices make it happen at a much faster rate. It happens in decades instead of centuries.
As mentioned before, sediment makes water cloudy or turbid. Then sunshine cannot penetrate the water to help make aquatic plants grow.
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Aquatic plants are essential to a lake's ecological health. They provide food and habitat for walleye, crappies, northerns, ducks, and many more species. Aquatic plants release oxygen into the water, helping fish thrive, while using phosphorus in the bottom sediment. They also hold the bottom sediment, or muck, in place, trapping nutrients that cause algae blooms and helping keep the water clear.
"Just like a weed is a plant out of place and sediment is soil out of place, phosphorus can be a nutrient out of place," Rofshus said. |
This is the information listed for local lakes in a nationwide data base. The information came from water monitoring by the Shell Rock River Watershed. |
Phosphorus is a nutrient essential for plant growth. However, this nutrient also fuels algae blooms, which make a lake unsightly and smelly. Algae can also make animals and people sick if ingested. An on-going study shows that local lakes suffer from too much phosphorus, both from streams feeding into the lake and from the bottom sediment. |
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