Lower Mississippi River Basin Planning

Scoping Document

June 2001

balmm

Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota

About BALMM

A locally led alliance of land and water resource agencies has formed in order to coordinate efforts to protect and improve water quality in the Lower Mississippi River Basin. The Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota (BALMM) covers both the Lower Mississippi and Cedar River Basins, and includes a wide range of local, state and federal resource agencies. Members of the Alliance include Soil and Water Conservation District managers, county water planners, and regional staff of the Board of Soil and Water Resources, Pollution Control Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University of Minnesota Extension, Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota-Wisconsin Boundary Area Commission, the Southeastern Minnesota Water Resources Board, the Cannon River Watershed Partnership, and others. BALMM meetings are open to all interested individuals and organizations. Existing staff from county and state agencies provide administrative, logistical and planning support. These include: Kevin Scheidecker, Fillmore SWCD, Chair; Norman Senjem, MPCA-Rochester, Basin Coordinator; Clarence Anderson, Rice SWCD, Area 7 MASWCD Liaison; Bea Hoffmann, SE Minnesota Water Resources Board Liaison.

This Basin Plan Scoping Document is the fruit of a year-long effort by participants in BALMM. Environmental Goals, Geographic Management Strategies and Land-Use Strategies were developed by either individual BALMM members or strategy teams. An effort was made to involve those who will implement the strategies in developing them. Each strategy was presented at least once at a monthly BALMM meeting, and subsequently revised based on comments received, before being included in this draft document. Other parts of the document were prepared by the Basin Coordinator, who drew on a multitude of published sources to describe the basin’s geology, water quality, and land-water relationships.

CONTENTS

Page

I. Introduction..................................................................................................... 5

II. Basin Description....................................................................................... 10

A. Overview..................................................................................................... 10

B. History......................................................................................................... 11

C. Geology....................................................................................................... 15

D. Land Use, Landscape Features and Water Quality............................... 16

III. Water Quality................................................................................................. 19

A. Basinwide Surface Water Conditions and Trends................................. 19

B. Mississippi River Water Quality............................................................... 25

1. Lake Pepin and Upstream.................................................................... 25

2. Downstream of Lake Pepin.................................................................. 28

C. Water Quality of Major Tributaries........................................................... 29

D. Lake Water Quality.................................................................................... 35

E. Ground Water Quality................................................................................ 45

IV. Land-Water Relationships......................................................................... 49

A. Sediment..................................................................................................... 50

B. Nutrients (Nitrogen and Phosphorus)....................................................... 54

C. Fecal Coliform Bacteria............................................................................ 57

D. Pesticides................................................................................................... 61

E. Hydrologic Modification............................................................................. 61

V. Environmental Goals.................................................................................. 65

A. Water Quality Goals................................................................................... 65

B. Water Quantity Goals................................................................................. 65

C. Aquatic Ecosystem Goals........................................................................ 65

VI. Geographic Management Strategies...................................................... 66

A. Watershed Management........................................................................... 66

B. Aquifer Protection...................................................................................... 72

C. Floodplain Management........................................................................... 77

VII. Land-Use Strategies................................................................................... 85

A. Perennial Vegetation: Maintain/Increase Acreage............................... 85

B. Wetland Protection and Restoration....................................................... 92

C. Soil Conservation on Row-Crop Land.................................................... 96

D. Urban and Rural Residential Land Management................................ 102

E. Nutrient and Pesticide Management.................................................... 107

F. Animal Feedlot Management................................................................ 113

G. Mining Activities Management.............................................................. 117

VIII. Monitoring and Evaluation.................................................................... 119

IX. Future Directions..................................................................................... 125

TABLES

Page

303(d) List of Impaired Waters 1998.............................................................. 20

Long-Term Water Quality Trends.................................................................. 32

Lower Mississippi River Basin Lake Assessment.................................... 36

Lake Zumbro Water Quality............................................................................. 38

2000 Crop Residue Survey Results.............................................................. 50

Effect of Crop Residue on Soil Loss............................................................ 51

Agencies and Groups Involved in Water Quality Monitoring............... 121

FIGURES

Map: Lower Mississippi River Basin............................................................... 9

1998 Impaired Waters List............................................................................... 20

Lake Zumbro Summer Mean Total Phosphorus........................................ 39

Lake Zumbro Summer Mean Chlorophyll-a................................................ 39

Lake Zumbro Summer Mean Secchi Transparency................................. 40

Estimated Summer TP Loading Rate to Lake Pepin................................ 42

Lake Pepin Summer Mean Total Phosphorus........................................... 43

Lake Pepin Summer Mean Chlorophyll-a.................................................... 44

Lake Pepin Summer Mean Secchi Transparency..................................... 44

Agro-Ecoregion Map of the Lower Mississippi River Basin................. 110

I: Introduction

In the summer of 1999 an ad-hoc group of county, state and federal agency representatives started meeting to discuss the possibility of creating a basin plan for the Lower Mississippi River and Cedar River Basins in southeastern Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, Governor Jesse Ventura launched the Water Unification Initiative, as a result of which seven Basin Teams composed of state and federal agency representatives were appointed to assist in the development of the next state water plan, called “Water Plan 2000” (the title was later changed to “Watermarks”). Thus two basin planning groups became established at roughly the same time in the Lower Mississippi and Cedar River Basins, with similar purposes and overlapping membership.

The Basin Team[1] produced a report that was provided to the State Planning Agency in February 2000 for inclusion in Watermarks. It focused on water quality goals, objectives and indicators for the basin. Watermarks was published in September 2000. Over the next two years, the seven Basin Teams will be responsible for developing strategies whereby the environmental goals and objectives outlined in Watermarks can be achieved. These will be included in a statewide plan scheduled to be published in September 2002.

The ad-hoc basin planning group that started meeting in August 1999 contributed to the development of water quality and land use objectives in Watermarks and, since February 2000, has been developing strategies by which these goals and objectives can be accomplished over the next decade. The planning group calls itself the Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota (BALMM). It meets monthly and is staffed informally by Kevin Scheidecker, Fillmore Soil & Water Conservation District Manager, who serves as chair; and Norman Senjem, MPCA-Rochester, who serves as basin coordinator. A secretarial position staffed by BWSR-Rochester currently is vacant. Membership includes most of those who belong to the Basin Team, in addition to representatives of many local, state, regional and federal agencies.[2]

In addition to the BALMM activities, two public forums were conducted by the MPCA to seek advice and comment on water quality goals and strategies. The first was held Feb 7, 2000, and the second on Nov. 8, 2000, in Rochester. Citizens who had participated in the May 1999 “The Governor’s Forums: Citizens Speak Out on the Environment” in Rochester were invited to attend a similar event to provide input into Watermarks on Feb. 7, 2000. County commissioners and water planners also were invited, as were members of the public through a widely distributed news release. Thirty-six people participated in the first forum, which made use of keypad technology to provide instant feedback on how the group voted on specific questions. Demographically, the group was evenly split among urban, rural-farm and rural-non-farm. Forty-six percent were citizens, 34 percent government staff, and 20 percent elected officials. Using the document Water Plan 2000 Objectives: Lower Mississippi/Cedar River Basins, the group evaluated the adequacy of the Water Quality and Ecosystem objectives as a whole, and then evaluated each of the land-use objectives from the standpoint of both effectiveness in accomplishing environmental objectives, and the feasibility of implementing them. In addition, the group suggested several additional objectives to add to the report, two of which were subsequently added to the Basin Plan Scoping Document Geographic Management Strategies: Groundwater Recharge Areas; and Floodplain Management). Comments also were used to modify existing objectives and indicators.

The second public forum was held on Nov. 8, 2000, to provide the public an opportunity to comment on the Draft Basin Plan Scoping Document. An informal Open House was combined with a keypad voting session similar to that used at the first forum. Once again, the discussion and voting focussed on both the effectiveness and feasibility of each strategy. Forty-two individuals participated, including citizens (61%); government staff (27%) and elected officials (12%). Results of the Citizens Forum were reviewed at the next BALMM meeting, and were used to revise the Basin Plan Scoping Document.

The final strategies for land-use, geographic management and monitoring included in this Basin Plan Scoping Document will be provided to the Basin Team for inclusion in the “Strategies” portion of Watermarks. In addition, they will be further refined and developed by BALMM sub-teams and through interaction with basin citizens and stakeholders to develop a final Basin Plan.

Purpose of Basin Planning

To an ever-increasing extent, water quality protection and improvement efforts in Minnesota are being organized by major drainage basin. Public and private funding sources are showing a growing preference for working through basin initiatives rather than funding a host of separate, uncoordinated efforts within the same basin. The purpose of BALMM is to create an organized, unified effort in the Lower Mississippi/Cedar River basins that will:

1. Make the case to the public, elected officials and funding sources for giving priority attention to water quality restoration and protection in southeastern Minnesota;

2. Establish ongoing coordination of local, state, tribal and federal agencies to plan and implement water quality protection and restoration activities that are economically and environmentally sustainable and reflect local and downstream issues and priorities.

The Basin Plan Scoping Document is a guide toward the pursuit of these broad goals that the BALMM has developed in its first year. As such, it will be used by Alliance members to guide and coordinate implementation activities in the basin, even as it continues to be refined and elaborated into a more complete Basin Plan. This approach suits the implementation orientation of Alliance members while conforming to the state’s schedule for the development of basin plans in the context of Watermarks.

Making Connections

The core of the Scoping Document is found in the strategies that have been developed by Alliance members to manage the land in the context of watershed management, aquifer protection and floodplain management to achieve environmental goals and objectives. Goals for Water Quality and Quantity and Ecosystem Health are described in Part IV, while strategies for attaining these goals are described in Parts V and VI. Strategies have been developed at the basin scale, for use throughout the Lower Mississippi River Basin, but with a view to making connections with land-use planning activities at both smaller and larger geographic scales. Accordingly, goals and objectives from comprehensive local water plans from counties within the basin were collected, organized, and distributed to Alliance members to help guide the development of strategies. This should help to ensure that activities undertaken at the basin scale are compatible with and supportive of land-use activities undertaken by counties.

Similarly, an attempt has been made to relate strategies developed for southeastern Minnesota to those being developed for the larger, 189,000 square mile Upper Mississippi River Basin, defined as the drainage area upstream of Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi River. Toward this end the Alliance has reviewed the recently published strategy by the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee, entitled “A River that Works and A Working River: A Strategy for the Natural Resources of the Upper Mississippi River System.” This strategy lists nine objectives for the river system as a whole, which includes the drainage basin as well as the main channel and its floodplain. In particular, improving water quality for all uses (Objective 1), Reduction in erosion and sediment impacts (Objective 2), and Manage channel maintenance and disposal to support ecosystem objectives (Objective 7) are explicitly supported by the BALMM strategies. Other objectives, which deal with particular aspects of managing the Mississippi River and its floodplain, appear to be less directly related to the land-use management activities of local and state government participating in the Alliance.

In addition, the Alliance is keeping abreast of developments concerning hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, its

I: Basin Description

A: Overview

The Lower Mississippi River Basin, which includes the Cedar River Basin for planning purposes, is located in southeastern Minnesota. It includes all or part of 17 counties and has 12 major watersheds covering about 7,266 square miles (4,650,100 acres). Land use is diverse. On the western side lands are primarily cultivated, while the eastern landscapes are dominated by steep forested hill slopes. About two-thirds of the land in the basin is under cultivation, while about 13 percent is forested. Roughly 17 percent of the land use is open or pasture lands. Major agricultural crops include corn, soybeans and hay. Animal production includes dairy and beef cattle, hogs, sheep and lambs. Major population centers include the southern Metropolitan area of Dakota County in addition to Austin, Albert Lea, Faribault, Owatonna, Rochester, Red Wing and Winona. These and other urban areas are experiencing rapid population growth and commercial development.

The basin’s population grew 11.9 percent between 1990 and 1998, from 539,787 to 603,997, according to Minnesota Planning. Most of the growth has been in Dakota (23.3 percent), Dodge (10 percent), Olmsted (11.8 percent) and Rice (10 percent) counties.

Beautiful bluffs, springs, caves and numerous trout streams abound in the eastern basin, where steep topography and erosive soils increase the potential for pollutant runoff and sedimentation of streams. Sinkholes and disappearing streams highlight the close connection between surface water and groundwater in this part of the basin. The presence of fractured limestone bedrock lying close below the land surface, which is often referred to as karst topography, [3] presents a widespread risk of groundwater contamination in the eastern basin. In the southwestern basin, Mississippi tributaries emerge as small streams out of a prairie landscape once rich in wetlands but now extensively drained to support a productive agriculture. Further to the north, in the western Cannon River Watershed, remnants of the Big Woods hardwood forest intermingle with mixed crop and livestock farming in a rolling terrain interspersed with lakes and wetlands. On the basin’s eastern border, the Mississippi River is shaped by the lock-and-dam system, which converted a free-flowing meandering river into a series of navigation pools with a nine-foot-deep channel for barge traffic.

The character of rivers and streams in the Lower Mississippi River Basins changes considerably along the main direction of flow, west to east. The Cannon River originates in the lake area of eastern Le Sueur and western Rice County, a farming region of glacial drift and moraines. A major tributary, the Straight River, has its marshy beginnings near Owatonna. The headwater tributaries of the Zumbro, Root and Cedar Rivers ooze from till plains and moraines of Steele, Dodge, Mower and Freeborn counties once rich in wetlands, now extensively drained for agriculture.

The extent of presettlement wetlands in Lower Mississippi Basin counties has been estimated to be approximately 880,000 acres. Good estimates of remaining wetland acreage are not available, but considerably less than half of the original wetlands are believed to exist today (Anderson and Craig, 1984). The vast majority of original wetland acreage is located on the western side of the basin in Dodge, Freeborn, Mower, Steele and Waseca counties. Seventy-nine percent of the landscape in southeastern Minnesota is classified as well-drained, and much of the land that was poorly drained has been tiled for agricultural production.

After leaving the till plains, the Cannon, Zumbro and Root drop down into deeper valleys starting near Northfield (Cannon), Zumbrota (Zumbro) and Spring Valley (Root). Hereafter the network of rivers and tributaries is fed by ever-deeper reserves of ground water. In certain streams, a combination of swiftly moving current, streambeds formed of boulders, cobble and gravel, and stable flows of cool, oxygen-rich waters support trout and the aquatic insects on which they feed. Deep pools and undercut banks provide refuge during sunny days and low waters, while riffles provide a continuing source of food.

Stream gradients become steeper as the rivers approach the Mississippi Valley. The upper stream valleys in this driftless area, which the last glaciation did not reach, are formed by vertical limestone bluffs, the product of millenia of erosion through highly soluble limestone. Snowmelt and heavy rainfall can induce flash floods in this topography. Finally, the rivers near the Mississippi Valley begin to slow down, lose energy and drop their load of sediment in alluvial floodplains that have been inching higher ever since glacial times. In recent decades, however, dikes along the lower reaches of the Root and Zumbro have disconnected the rivers from their alluvial floodplains, making farming of the rich soil possible, at the cost of increased sedimentation of the Mississippi and the degrading of a rich ecosystem.

B: History

The Mississippi River valley is the product of thousands of years of glacial activity and water and wind erosion. The first people that lived along the Upper Mississippi River Valley (the stretch between Lake Itasca and the confluence with the Missouri River above St. Louis) arrived 12,000 years ago. These early inhabitants were followed by a succession of native cultures that lived near the Mississippi and relied on the river for food.

Some later cultures also farmed on the Mississippi floodplains and islands. For example, early European explorers wrote of native farming practices on Prairie Island, Minnesota. These early explorers also documented the bounty of the Mississippi River in terms of fish and game:

“Radisson went with hunting parties, and traveled "four months...without doing anything but go from river to river." He was enamored of the beauty and fertility of the country, and was astonished at its herds of buffaloes and antelopes, flocks of pelicans, and the shovel-nosed sturgeon, all of which he particularly described. Such was the first year, 1655, of observations and exploration by white men in Minnesota, and their earliest navigation of the upper part of the Mississippi River.” (Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Volume 10, Part 2, pp. 462-463)

Following the early exploration of the Mississippi River in what is now Minnesota, additional Europeans began to trickle into this part of the continent. Eventually that trickle became a flood, and European settlers became the predominant residents of the river valley.

Land-Use Changes

As European immigrants advanced across the U.S., they left changing landscapes in their wake. In Minnesota, settlers plowed under the prairie and cut down the forests. Outposts, then towns, then cities grew up on riverbanks. Industry was established on the banks of the Mississippi in St. Anthony/Minneapolis, then in St. Paul. All of these activities took their toll on the health of the Mississippi River.

European settlers weren’t the only sources of landscape changes in the Lower Mississippi River basin, however. Pollen analysis of sediment cores taken from Lake Pepin shows an increase in “Big Woods” plant species such as sugar maple and basswood trees long before the arrival of most Europeans. This landscape change is associated with a climatic shift to cooler, wetter conditions that occurred several hundred years before Europeans began to settle this part of the continent.

During European settlement, the landscape changed again. Pollen analysis (again on Lake Pepin sediment cores) shows a shift from primarily pine, oak, birch, and big woods species to greatly increased amounts of pollen from plants like ragweed, which grows well in open fields and cleared areas (Engstrom and Almendinger, 2000). While the exact timing of this shift is not known, the co-occurrence of this change with the first appearance of corn and wheat pollen suggests that it happened at about the same time that widespread cultivation came to Minnesota, in the 1850’s.

At roughly the same time that agricultural activities were changing the landscape of southern Minnesota, logging was altering the Mississippi and St. Croix River basins to the north, both of which flow into the Lower Mississippi. Massive logging operations were active in the Upper Mississippi b

FIGURES

Purpose of Basin Planning

Pool Planning

A: Overview

B: History

Land-Use Changes