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GREENWOOD TWP- The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, partnering with the Northern St. Louis County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Minnesota DNR, will be conducting intensive watershed …
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GREENWOOD TWP- The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, partnering with the Northern St. Louis County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Minnesota DNR, will be conducting intensive watershed monitoring in the Vermilion River watershed starting in May.
A public kick-off event, to explain the process and the data being collected, will be held on Wednesday, April 29 at 1:30 p.m. at the Greenwood Town Hall.
The monitoring is part of a statewide program, started in 2006 as part of the Clean Water Legacy Act, to accelerate efforts to monitor, assess, and restore impaired watersheds, and to protect unimpaired waters. The MPCA designed a 10-year cycle to monitor each of the 84 major watersheds in Minnesota.
According to the MPCA website, the testing is designed to measure the condition of upstream watersheds in an unbiased way. The intensive approach allows assessment of the watershed for aquatic life, aquatic recreation, and aquatic consumption use support of the state’s streams. The goals of the Clean Water Act are having “fishable, swimmable” waters. Sampling includes water chemistry, fish contaminants (mercury and PCBs), and biological sampling of the fish and invertebrate communities.
Derrick Passe, from the Soil and Water Conservation District, said that students from Vermilion Community College will be helping with the monitoring effort, which will include water testing in the East and West Two Rivers near Tower, and on the Pike and Sandy Rivers.
He invited the public to attend the kickoff event to learn more about the program.
Noting the mostly filled seats at the Greenwood Town Board meeting Tuesday night, he said he hoped to see as good a turnout.
For more information on the statewide water monitoring project, visit www.pca.state.mn.us and search for watershed monitoring.