Barb Liukkonen, Water Resources Education Coordinator, 612-625-9256

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is leading revision of Minnesota’s Nonpoint Source pollution Management Plan Program (NSMPP), which identifies needs; outlines technical, regulatory and educational responses; and guides grant funding priorities. This is a revision of the existing plan created five years ago. The goal is to bring it up-to-date, acknowledging new issues and needs, and incorporating advances in management techniques and opportunities. You can find the existing NSMPP on the MPCA web site.

Committees including state and regional agencies, the university, and local partners are working on different chapters in the document (e.g., lakes, rivers, groundwater, etc.), with a goal of having a review draft by late fall and a final draft that will be submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2006. Hopefully, both the EPA and state will approve the plan by summer 2006 so it can be posted on the Web and available for guiding 319 grant funding in autumn 2006.

Steve Heiskary and Pam Skon are leading revision of the lakes chapter. I am serving on that committee, together with Dave Wright, Department of Natural Resources; Dan Steward, Board of Water and Soil Resources; Pat McCann, Minnesota Department of Health; Paula West, Minnesota Lakes Association; Randy Anhorn, Metropolitan Council; Mark Zabel, Minnesota Department of Agriculture; and others. In addition to updating existing sections, we’ll be adding material on nutrient standards, advances in remote sensing techniques, toxic algal blooms, volunteer monitoring, bacteria, phosphorus fertilizer requirements, and several case studies. Our Big Sandy shoreline revegetation project will be included as a case study. It was originally funded with 319 funds and has been in place for nearly eight years, so offers a good opportunity to assess the longer-term success of revegetation projects.

From 2002-2004, Mary Blickenderfer and I received 319 funds to train volunteers to initiate and maintain revegetation projects; we were able to apply for those funds because the need for increased shoreline revegetation was prioritized in the NSMPP. With the $48,000 grant, 1,128 people from 41 different Minnesota counties attended 51 workshops during the three-years. Over 65,080 square feet of shoreland were revegetated through local projects or as part of a hands-on planting workshop.

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