M.L. 2017 Projects

Geologic atlases provide maps and databases essential for management of water resources. Of the 16 county atlases covered by this grant, 5 are complete and 6 are past the halfway mark.

The grant funds have been completely expended. This grant funded work in 16 counties including: Lake and St. Louis ($583,175), Kandiyohi ($225,315), Hennepin ($117,254), Hubbard ($100,206), Aitkin ($227,156), Isanti ($37,780), Cass ($110,692), Rock and Nobles ($261,732), Steele ($60,389), Pennington ($27,824), Lac Qui Parle ($53,801), Lincoln and Pipestone ($18,167), and Otter Tail ($106,227) counties. An additional $36,000 supported initiation of work in new project areas and $34,277 was spent to characterize glacial sediments using geochemistry. Atlases for Kandiyohi, Hennepin, Hubbard, Isanti, and Cass are complete. At this time bedrock and surficial mapping in Lake and St. Louis counties is about 75% complete. Good progress has been made on associated databases. Federal cost-sharing has been applied to this work each year. Effort on Olmsted and Dodge counties have been shifted to another funding source, and both should be complete by the end of the summer. In Aitkin County, the bedrock map is nearly ready for review; the bedrock topography is about 75% complete. The Aitkin surficial map is nearly complete, and work on the cross sections and sand models is underway. For the Rock and Nobles CGAs the bedrock maps are about 85% complete and the bedrock topography is nearly ready for review. The surficial geology for both counties is complete, and the work on the cross sections and sand models is underway. Similarly, in Steele County all bedrock and surficial maps are near completion and work on the cross sections and sand models is underway. The work in Pennington, Lac Qui Parle, Lincoln and Pipestone, and Ottertail counties is still in the early stages with mostly field work underway to support maps. We will conduct rotary sonic drilling in all of these counties (underlined) starting this fall. Counties that are not yet complete have been shifted to the LCCMR18 contract funding.

Completed atlas products have been posted to the MGS website and linked to the University’s Digital Conservancy as noted above. PDF products as well as all of the related GIS data are available on these pages.
In addition, the MGS hosts an Open Data Portal on which many of our county geologic atlases are presented as "Story Maps" that allow for direct access of the data without any special software or interface.

The Hennepin County workshop was held on April 22 at the County Library in Ridgedale. An article about the atlas and related workshop was published by the SWNewsMedia. Formal presentations for Cass and Hubbard counties were held on March 6 in Backus and Park Rapids, respectively. An update to the Cass County Board was held last summer and written up by the Echo Journal.

Source Water protection is associated with multiple economic, environmental, and social benefits. We created new spatially-explicit datasets representing multiple socio-economic benefits of source water protection for all 821 drinking water management units in Minnesota. Our work gives practitioners a more complete picture of the outcomes of source water protection statewide.

The goal of the project was to collect and synthesize economic, social, and environmental data relevant to source water protection in Minnesota. We created new spatially-explicit datasets representing multiple socio-economic benefits of source water protection for all drinking water supply management areas in Minnesota. Project outcomes include:

1. Mapping land use change and land protection costs for all 821 drinking water management areas.
• Estimated trends in land use change in each DWSMA in order to identify potential threats to source water from increasing agricultural expansion or development.
• Obtained new spatial data based on estimated market values of hundreds of thousands of parcels in the state in order to quantify the opportunity costs of source water protection in each DWSMA.
2. Valuation of the multiple public benefits of land protection for clean water.
• Applied best-available estimates for drinking water treatment to calculate potential costs of contamination in each DWSMA as a function of population served.
• Implemented a methodology for estimating the potential health damages and associated monetary costs of drinking water contamination.
• Generated 19 spatially-explicit environmental benefit maps that can be used to assess the potential for co-benefits of protection or restoration in each DWSMA.
3. Assessing the equity implications of source water protection and community capacity to protect land and improve water quality.
• Developed a technique for linking source water protection areas to municipalities served, allowing us to relate census data and demographic characteristics to each DWSMA.
• Administered and analyzed data from a statewide survey of water values in order to identify perceived threats to water quality and preferences for different water-quality related values and uses.
• Completed a series of participatory water valuation exercises using a Q-sort methodology to understand stakeholder preferences for water-related expenditures and tradeoffs among water quality objectives.

We presented our work at venues targeting academic and state agency audiences, and held meetings with specialists at MDH and the interagency GRAPS team exploring application of the work in MN agency work. We shared findings with state agencies including MPCA, MDH, DNR, and BWSR, along with external stakeholders and advocacy groups such as Freshwater Society and the Environmental Working Group. Our work contributed to multiple students' master's theses and is being written up for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Our work is summarized in a report (available on our website) and includes appendices with data useful for further analysis.

We gathered seeds of prairie plants and shared them with producers who are expanding seed availability for restorations. We collected, identified and studied many microbes that prairie plants harbor, documenting their effects on their hosts. Our experiments have clarified the geographic scale of plant adaptation and genetics underlying ongoing adaptation.

Minnesota prairies harbor extraordinary diversity of plants and microbes, while also nurturing wildlife, retaining water and topsoil, and beautifying landscapes. Yet habitat loss threatens the persistence of the once vast prairies and their stunning biotic diversity. Limited understanding of this diversity and insufficient seed availability hinder sustainable management of this iconic Minnesota biome. We conducted Healthy Prairies (HP) Phase II to expand availability of seeds for prairie restorations and study approaches to increase success of restorations. Building on our prior accomplishments under ENRTF funding, we have:

1. Preserved diverse seed from 57 rarer prairie species, gathering them from widely separated locations.
2. Obtained, archived, and studied 2,600 naturally occurring microbial partners from two species.
3. Gathered data to assess the geographic scale important to plant survival and reproduction in MN.

Our extensive collections of source-identified seeds and microbes across a wide range of MN’s prairie region help to conserve the diversity of MN prairies. We have provided seeds to seed producers, who have, in turn, used them in establishing fields and are seeking certification of the seeds that they obtain from them.

Our studies of effects of microbial associates on prairie plants have indicated that the bacteria providing nitrogen to prairie clover (Dalea purpurea, D. candida) disperse widely across MN prairies. Consequently, we can recommend to growers an inoculum that need not be site-specific. In contrast, the communities of fungi associated with roots of S. scoparium are spatially restricted, indicating that a regionally-based inoculum may be preferable.

We continued our large-scale experiment to elucidate the geographic scale of adaptation of six prairie species. We gathered extensive data from this experiment and began analyses of the data. We implemented experiments to investigate genetic structure of two populations of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), including genetic variance for fitness and the fitness consequences of inbreeding and of crossing between populations.

HP team members have participated in varied opportunities to disseminate findings from this project. These include informal events to communicate with members of the public who are not all well-versed in science and may not be aware of prairies (Market Science), as well as workshops involving other scientists and land managers (Nature Conservancy ‘Science Slams’, Local Adaptation Workshop, held at UM-TC, March 2019, discussions of seed sourcing guidelines led by staff of MN DNR).

A paper providing an overview of the Local Adaptation Workshop has been published in New Phytologist (2020) 225:2246–2248. A manuscript reporting findings about geographic scale of local adaptation has been submitted to Restoration Ecology and has received positive reviews. A second manuscript reporting on a study that used focus groups to identify impediments to use of source-identified seeds for prairie restorations has been submitted to Restoration Ecology and has received positive reviews. Both manuscripts are under revision and will be resubmitted soon.

The Minnesota Biological Survey (MBS) collects, interprets and delivers foundational data on native plants, animals, plant communities and functional landscapes. These data help prioritize actions to conserve, manage and restore Minnesota's biological diversity and ecological systems.

MBS baseline terrestrial plant field surveys occurred in Lake of the Woods, St. Louis and Koochiching counties within the Border Lakes, Littlefork-Vermilion Uplands, and Agassiz Lowlands subsections. MBS baseline aquatic lake plant surveys occurred in lakes in central Minnesota counties. Plant surveys documented numerous rare and notable terrestrial and aquatic vascular plant species. Native plant community surveys occurred in areas that are either representative of the native vegetation in these counties and subsections or are rare, unique or unusual for these areas. MBS field surveys were also targeted in other northern Minnesota counties to address questions stemming from GIS mapping of native plant communities and sites of biodiversity significance.

Pollinator surveys in MBS sites of biodiversity significance focused on native and rare moths and butterflies in far northern, northwest, and southeast Minnesota. Over 3,000 specimens of at least 900 species were collected, some of which have potential to be new state records.

Targeted surveys occurred in southeast, east-central, and northern forests in MBS sites of biodiversity significance to update and expand MBS data from surveys that occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s. Likewise, similar surveys occurred in the Prairie Province to document new sites or expand on previous MBS surveys from the 1980s. This work resulted in the documentation of many new and updated records of rare species and high quality native plant communities.

Updates and improvements to the DNR Rare Species Guide continued that rely heavily on MBS data and technical expertise arising from this a previous MBS ENRTF appropriations. The book, Sedges and Rushes of Minnesota, was published by the MN Press and the final manuscript for the book, Minnesota Red River Valley and Aspen Parkland - A Guide to Native Plant Communities, was submitted to the UMN Press for publishing.

MBS data are stored in the DNR’s Natural Heritage Information System and biological specimens accessioned to the UMN Bell Museum of Natural History. This includes information on rare species, native plant communities, sites of biodiversity significance. MBS distributes survey results on the MBS website, DNR GIS QuickLayers, and MN Geospatial Commons. Presentations, technical guidance, biological reports, and published books are delivered that describe and interpret MBS results for use by local government units, conservation groups, citizen advisory groups, scientists, land managers, and students. MBS data, products, and staff expertise are used throughout the state to assist conservation decisions.

The Minnesota Wildflowers online botanical reference now covers over 80% of all Minnesota’s flora, providing the most complete, free, user-friendly plant resource for the state, targeting a wide range of users from all age groups and experience levels.

Minnesota Wildflowers, an online field guide to the plants of Minnesota, was launched in 2007 by an amateur botanist who grew frustrated with the lack of information and quality imagery specific to Minnesota's flora. The task of systematically seeking out each species, photographing the identifying characteristics, describing each in non-technical terms, and publishing on the web was undertaken with the goal of becoming a comprehensive reference for all of Minnesota's 2100+ plants. The need for such a reference, especially targeted to non-botanists, has been evident by the number and type of users of the website, virtually anyone asking such questions as: What is that plant? Is it native or a weed? How to distinguish it from similar plants? These users include natural resource managers, restoration specialists, educators from elementary school through university level, citizen scientists, native plant advocates, gardeners and the general public. In 2014 when initial funding began, 799 species (mostly forbs) had been published and the average traffic during peak season was 2,000 visits and 10,000 web pages viewed per day. During the 6-year funding period ending June 2020, the 2-member team traveled 65,000 miles visiting locations in nearly every Minnesota county, photographing over 1500 plant species. This field work resulted in significantly increased coverage. As of June 30, 2020, 1734 species have been published, 82% of all Minnesota’s vascular plants, including trees/shrubs, grass-like plants, ferns and aquatics. Traffic has more than tripled with average 8,000 visits and 33,600 pages viewed per day during 2020 peak season, increases of 60% and 45% respectively over 2017 when the second round of funding began. This clearly shows the website is a valued resource and the more species covered, the more valuable it becomes.

Usage of the website continues to grow; expectations are we will reach 1 million users in 2020. While word-of-mouth and Google searches are the source of much traffic, our web statistics show the single highest usage continues to come from the State of Minnesota, which includes multiple state agencies as well as the University of Minnesota. Our plant images are in high demand for other educational and outreach purposes, including interpretive signs, PowerPoint presentations and invasive species fact sheets, all of which promote the project via photo credits. Our field work puts us in contact with many state parks, nature centers and educational institutions across the state where we promote the project to their staff and visitors. During the past 3 years we collaborated with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum on their native plant program, began discussions with the Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association Foundation on contributing to their botany-related educational curriculum, manned a booth at the international Botany Conference in Rochester, had an interview on CCTV, and gave presentations about the project to Audubon, Wild Ones, and several other clubs and organizations. A marketing postcard was also developed and distributed to nature centers, educators, organizations and businesses across Minnesota.

The project improved our understanding of microbial and nutrient associations with self-sustaining wild rice wetlands. This information will be useful to develop management strategies for wild rice restoration success, which will improve long-term protection of native species and aquatic biodiversity, and support management of Minnesota’s culturally and ecologically important natural resource.

Wild rice (Zizania palustris), a native emergent aquatic plant, has a multitude of ecological functions and high cultural and economic value in Minnesota. Wild rice was historically abundant in northern Minnesota but its abundance and distribution have been reduced due to various factors. There have been collaborative efforts to restore wild rice wetlands for improved wildlife habitat and increased opportunities for wild rice harvest. Despite ongoing efforts, restoration has been met with mixed success. Much research was conducted on surface water and sediment chemistry that is conducive to wild rice growth. However, one ecological component of the wild rice ecosystem that remains under-explored is microbial communities that are involved in processing key nutrients. This project characterized microbial communities associated with wild rice wetland. Wild rice and coexisting plant samples were collected from 7 wild rice wetlands along with water and sediment. High-throughput DNA sequencing analyses indicated that wild rice-associated microbial communities were distinct from those found in water and sediment. Moreover, the influence of surface/porewater chemistry and nutrients on the microbial communities were evaluated. The project outcomes will allow the restoration partners to understand why restoration efforts are successful or not and can be immediately transferable to restoration managers for the development of applicable restoration practices. Likewise, if beneficial microbial groups associated with self-sustainable wild rice beds were identified from this project, the methods to encourage their abundance and functions for wild rice growth are needed through seeding with inoculants derived from successful wild rice stands and sediment amendments. If coexisting or invasive species alter nutrients and microbial community structure unfavorable for wild rice fitness by imposing some degree of selective pressures, targeted species control is essential prior to current restoration efforts. This will be useful to for the partners to develop effective management strategies for wild restoration goals.

The project findings have been disseminated via reports to LCCMR, publications, and regional and national presentations at conferences. We held four meetings with wild rice managers and the project partners for field sampling plan, project progress, consultation and outcomes. The project findings were shared with the public through the university's news article, public outreach activities (e.g. Lake Superior Youth Symposium), and student stories. Moreover, microbial DNA sequences of environmental samples collected from wild rice wetlands were archived at National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Grants provided to 12 103E public drainage authorities to advance local drainage records preservation and use for enhanced system management and provide hydrographic data in the statewide GIS Database. All grantees set up an account with Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) and uploaded public drainage system hydrography data to the Minnesota Geospatial Commons website.

Minnesota has an estimated 20,000 miles of Minnesota Statutes Chapter 103E public drainage ditches (Public Drainage Ditch Buffer Strip Study, Feb. 2006), and estimated thousands of miles of Chapter 103E public subsurface tile systems. Records for these public drainage systems are kept by the current 96 drainage authorities (a drainage authority (DA) can be a county, joint county board, or a Watershed district). The drainage system records are in various conditions, including deteriorating hard copy materials and scanned documents with limited electronic access.

Use of consistent GIS database capabilities are needed to advance local management of public drainage systems and to improve public access to statewide hydrographic data. Hydrographic data about the location, type (ditch or tile), dimensions and profiles of public drainage systems are often sought for watershed modeling and water planning but have not been easily accessible. Several hundred systems records containing several thousands of miles of open ditch and tile have been scanned, indexed, digitized and uploaded to local drainage databases and GIS layers as well as MnGeo Commons website. Many of the drainage authorities have completed this work for all systems in their jurisdiction, some have plans to continue their efforts until all systems are complete. A summary of the accomplishments from each grantee is in the attached spreadsheet.

All grantee organizations and hydrography data can be found at the Minnesota Geospatial Commons public website. This link provides one location to find all the individual datasets. It lets people find the GIS data from which maps could be made, but there are no ready-made maps. In addition, all organizations have updated and posted easily accessible information on their organizational website and a link has been provided on the BWSR Drainage Records Modernization webpage. This has advanced local drainage records preservation and use for enhanced drainage system management and provided hydrographic data about these drainage systems in the statewide GIS database.

The Minnesota Groundwater Contamination Atlas maps areas of groundwater contamination concern and tells the contamination story in a way that is understandable to the general public and is meaningful for technical users. The Atlas currently includes 92 of the thousands of properties where environmental contamination may exist in Minnesota.

In Minnesota 75% of the drinking water comes from groundwater, a source that is generally out of sight and out of mind. Minnesota properties that were once home to dry cleaners, metal plating shops, manufacturing plants and other industrial facilities in many cases have contaminated our groundwater from spills and leaks of hazardous chemicals. Frequently the contamination spreads off the property creating an area of groundwater contamination. When there has been contamination often costly treatment systems are needed to make the water suitable for use.

Information about the areas of groundwater contamination were contained in individual MPCA Superfund Program project files. The project was developed to expand access to information about groundwater contamination to improve protection of groundwater resources.

This project developed the Minnesota Groundwater Contamination Atlas. The Atlas maps areas of groundwater contamination concern and tells the contamination story in a way that is understandable to the general public and is meaningful for technical users. The Atlas also makes it easy for the public to download contamination testing results from individual wells. The Atlas establishes a public communication platform that can be expanded beyond the 92 superfund sites that were included in this project.

The project extracted well information from project files and loaded it into a state enterprise database,13,605 wells and loaded 3,700 groundwater contamination test results were loaded into the database. The data was used to map 92 contamination source areas and 60 distinct groundwater contamination areas of concern. For each source areas a contamination site story tells how the contamination happened, what the contaminants are, what cleanup work has been done, what additional cleanup work is planned, where drinking water in the area comes from, who to contact with questions and if there is related contamination in soil, sediments and underground vapor. A project development webpage and stakeholder group were utilized to help shape scope and format of the map contamination story elements of the Atlas.

A project webpage was used to provide project development updates and solicit stakeholder feedback as project elements were developed. The webpage invited interested parties to subscribe to the GovDelivery email distribution list for the project. The GovDelivery list currently includes 832 subscribers. Outreach during the project also include presentation at professional conferences and stakeholder meetings. A recorded presentation of the project presentation at that 2019 Minnesota Groundwater Association (MGWA) Fall Conference “No Longer ‘out of Sight, Out of Mind- Making Groundwater Science Visible to Citizens and Clients” is available on the MGWA website.

Launch of the Minnesota Groundwater Contamination Atlas was communicated through the project Gov Delivery distribution list as well as MPCA social media platforms. As of August 3rd the Minnesota Groundwater Atlas website has been visited by 1,162 non-MPCA users.

Landslides in five regions across Minnesota were mapped and inventoried to identify geologic and topographic conditions vulnerable to slope failures providing resource and emergency managers with better predictive tools to guide land-use decisions. Landslides are a dominant source of sediment to regional waterways, occurring frequently along steep valley walls.

In June 2014, widespread landslides occurred in south-central Minnesota; a similarly rainy period in 2012 caused two deaths. In June 2012, a two-day rain event in Duluth generated hundreds of landslides, extensively damaging Jay Cooke State Park and surrounding areas. In August 2007, a year’s worth of rain fell in 36 hours in southeastern Minnesota causing extensive landsliding. Weak clay soils in the Red River valley frequently fail, undermining homes and roads. All of these eroding, hazardous slopes present an acute natural resource and emergency management challenge, yet until now, the state lacked landslide hazard maps. Because mass wasting processes vary with geology, we defined five study areas in which we documented the distribution, failure mechanisms, and frequency of landslides in order to help resource managers make sound mitigation decisions.

Each region was mapped by a different partner institution using established data standards and protocols through: 1) historical research, 2) mapping known slides onto high-resolution lidar base maps, and 3) identifying additional landslides using lidar data; topographically-derived maps (slope, hillshade, and red relief); and aerial imagery. Slide sites were field-checked where possible for geology, hydrogeology, vegetation cover, and land use.

In northeastern Minnesota, where repeat lidar data were available, additional work was done. Repeat lidar data collected before and after a major 2012 storm event were properly aligned to allow erosion and deposition to be quantified, and Object-Based Image Analysis was used to define and classify types of change (erosion, deposition in different settings) across the landscape.

Landslide susceptibility modeling in that same, well documented area illuminated which landscape parameters were most important to slope stability: slope, distance to stream, and depth of glacial deposits overlying competent bedrock. The method developed in northeastern Minnesota can be applied to the other four areas of the state.

Project results were disseminated to local and regional stakeholders through presentations at meetings and to the scientific community through conference presentations. The full inventory database is being released through the U. S. Geological Survey with an accompanying U. S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet on Landslides in Minnesota. These products will be available to assist with emergency management planning and natural resource assessments of sediment loading in watersheds across the state. Details on landslide mapping methodologies and results across the state, and multitemporal lidar correction and Object-Based Image Analysis research in northeastern Minnesota will be published through publicly-available scientific papers.

New techniques were developed to allow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to efficiently home in on radio-collared animals and collect images of surrounding landscapes at multiple angles. UAVs, equipped with thermal and multi-spectral cameras, were then used to determine moose calving success and survival, characterize moose habitat, and estimate deer populations.

Broad-scale monitoring of populations and ecosystems is needed to improve wildlife conservation and management efforts; however, the required data are often expensive and time consuming to collect. The overall goals of the project were to develop Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) capabilities to collect novel and important data on wildlife and ecosystems using methods that reduce or eliminate negative impacts on wildlife by removing the need to closely approach or handle them.

We developed new methods to home in on radio-collared animals and collect fine-scale imagery from multiple angles to improve our ability to count wildlife and characterize their habitat. We equipped UAVs with thermal and multi-spectral cameras to test whether UAVs can: 1) remotely confirm moose calving success or mortality events, 2) identify fine-scale habitat selection behavior of moose (e.g., locations of calving, foraging, and mortality), and 3) estimate population densities of white-tailed deer in forested natural areas.

We found that UAVs are a promising tool for quantifying moose calving success, twinning rate, and calf survival. We also determined that analysis of UAV-derived imagery can produce reliable estimates of forage availability and horizontal visibility. Our results indicate that female moose choose calving sites with relatively low visibility (subsequent calf mortality events appear to be associated with large, high-visibility forest patches). In our survey of the deer population at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, we found that automatic detection of deer using software was not feasible, given the flight elevation required for the survey; however, we developed a methodology in which researchers count animals in a subset of images from the survey area to produce a repeatable count estimate. Overall, our methods provide safe, relatively inexpensive alternatives to traditional approaches of collecting critical data on wildlife populations.

This project resulted in four scientific presentations, two published conference papers, three accepted journal papers and one submitted journal article; the CSE graduate student working on developing an aerial robotic system and strategy to approach a radio signal beacon from a high altitude was awarded the UMII MnDrive fellowship award from the University of Minnesota. Our research into field applications of thermal imagery for assessing moose calving and mortality events was conducted in close collaboration with researchers from the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the MNDNR; we are continuing these collaborations and expect to submit another paper (detailing the calving habitat results) later this year. Our work to develop a new approach to sample deer populations using UAVs and thermal sensors grew out of a need at Cedar Creek to better understand their deer population. We tested our approach in the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve and compared population estimates generated from UAV data to those from more traditional pellet-count approaches; we are now working with researchers at Cedar Creek to validate their camera-trap estimates of deer population density. Finally, three undergraduate students, three graduate students, and two postdoctoral researchers received training as part of this project; results from this research have been added into teaching materials in two required Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology courses at UMN.

Minnesota's wolves are expanding southward. A new pack recently recolonized Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, which is one of the best-studied ecosystems worldwide. Our project assessed costs (e.g., unwanted impacts on pets and livestock) and benefits (e.g., impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, educational opportunities) of this unassisted wolf recolonization.

Minnesota's wolves (Canis lupus) are expanding southward. A new pack recently became established at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (henceforth Cedar Creek), which is one of the best-studied ecosystems worldwide, located just north of the Twin Cities. The goals of our project were to assess costs (e.g., unwanted impacts on pets or livestock) and benefits (e.g., potential enhancement of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, educational opportunities) of this unassisted wolf recolonization. Our project achieved the following outcomes: (1) determine wolf movements inside and nearby Cedar Creek; (2) experimentally test the impacts of wolves on wildlife, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning; and (3) provide educational programming to K-12 students and adults. We achieved these goals and outcomes by establishing a network of trail cameras, establishing a new experiment to assess wolf impacts on plants and soils, and bringing K-12 students to Cedar Creek for field trips and developing a website for engagement by citizen scientists. We found that wolf pack produced three litters of pups and grew to include up to 19 wolves, but was then lethally removed by federal trappers after preying on livestock and dogs (Mech et al. 2019). We also found that wolf cues shifted when, but not where, deer used the landscape (Palmer et al. 2021). Deer used risky areas at relatively safe times of the day, when wolves are typically less active, attenuating any cascading effects of wolves on plants or soils. Our Eyes on the Wild citizen science website has thus far engaged 12,625 registered citizen scientists who have provided 7,636,071 classifications of 4,153,218 images generated by our network of trail cameras. These data are being included in several national and global studies of wildlife (e.g., Suraci et al. 2021). More than 7,000 K-12 students and adults engaged in programming related to the project.

Project results have been widely disseminated. The Eyes on the Wild website has engaged 12,625 registered users (and thousands more non-registered users), who provided 7,636,071 classifications of 4,153,218 images from our cameras. Project information and results have been widely shared through in-person and online lectures, K-12 school programs and field trips, summer camps, community events, art shows, educational curricula, and local workshops which reached more than 7,000 community members over the lifetime of the project. Additionally, the project has generated four scientific publications, and regular coverage by local print, radio and television outlets.

Our studies of how, where, and when wolves prey on beavers, moose, and white-tailed deer shed exciting new light on the interactions of these iconic denizens of Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota’s only National Park.

Gray wolves are widely known to prey on adults and fawns/calves of white-tailed deer and moose. Beavers also make up a large portion of wolf diet in areas where beavers are plentiful. Scientists have long pondered how the abundance of beaver prey can affect wolf predation on moose and deer. Voyageurs National Park - Minnesota’s only National Park – and the surrounding area offers the perfect natural laboratory to learn about wolf hunting behavior and how that affects deer and moose in an area of high beaver densities, as densities can be 2-10x higher here than anywhere else in the state. We captured and GPS-collared 42 wolves in at least 12 different wolf packs to follow their movements and find sites where they killed their prey during the spring-summer-fall period. We identified >1,045 kills, including kills of 335 beavers, 192 adult and 444 fawn white-tailed deer, 1 adult and 1 calf moose, and 65 kills of ≥12 other species including snowshoe hare, bears, muskrats, raccoons, swans, geese, ducks, and other birds. Some of our key findings include understanding how wolf predation can affect beaver abundance, pond creation, and even water storage; better understand how wolves use ambushing behavior and cooperative hunting techniques to hunt and kill beavers; how wolves use roads and trails and areas of recent timber harvest to target and kill deer fawns; and how wolves use a variety of other food sources such as fish and berries to persist in an environment where food can often be scarce. While issues surrounding management of wolves, deer, and moose tend to generate a variety of opinions, better understanding the summer ecology of wolves, especially in a relatively pristine environment such as in Voyageurs National Park, can only improve the ability for Minnesotans to better co-exist with wolves and their prey.

This collaboration between Voyageurs National Park and the University of Minnesota produced 15 scientific papers and other reports. Our findings have influenced the understanding of wolf behavior and the importance of beavers to forested landscapes in the U.S. and beyond. Research about charismatic species like wolves, beavers, moose, and deer are often very interesting to the general public. We capitalized on that interest by engaging the public through several social media outlets, most notably through a popular Facebook page created by the University of Minnesota. Check out the University of Minnesota’s Voyageurs Wolf Project website for project information.

Our project identified freshwater sponges are widely distributed throughout Minnesota’s lakes and rivers. Sponges are thought to be bio-indicators of good water quality, suggesting many rivers and lakes in Minnesota are of relatively good quality. We identified new species of freshwater sponges not described previously, so there is likely significant amounts of biological diversity not described in the state. As filter feeders, it doesn’t appear that freshwater sponges are accumulating pollutants that can be passed through the food chain.

Freshwater sponges are the simplest animals and play a vital role in the aquatic ecosystem by functioning as a filter feeder and providing habitat and nutrients for other aquatic life. As filter feeders, freshwater sponges could potentially accumulate pollutants and transfer them through the food chain to game fish and other economically important aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Furthermore, despite their importance, information on the distribution of freshwater sponges in Minnesota lakes and rivers is very limited. The primary goals of this project were to (1) determine the diversity and distribution of freshwater sponges in Minnesota’s water basins and watersheds and to (2) determine if these freshwater sponges are accumulating toxic pollutants.

From our sampling of freshwater sponges, we found freshwater sponges are widely distributed throughout the state of Minnesota. We sampled over one hundred locations and found freshwater sponges at over 75% of the locations sampled, resulting in a total of 169 individual freshwater sponges collected. The majority of the freshwater sponges collected are species that have previously been identified in the state. We identified one new species of freshwater sponge from this project, while potentially identifying a few more after additional follow-up analyses.

From the chemical analysis of collected sponges there does not appear to be an accumulation of pollutants within the sponge that could be passed through the food chain. Our chemical analysis did identify interesting and unique chemical compounds in the freshwater sponges that has the potential for having bioactivity and could be used for human purposes.

The results of this project showed that freshwater sponges are widely distributed in the state of Minnesota, supporting the notion that these animals are important for the freshwater ecosystem. We have identified new species of freshwater sponges, and importantly, it doesn’t appear that sponges are accumulating pollutants that could remain in the ecosystem. We were also able to train 18 undergraduate students in biological and chemical research. Many of these students have gone on to be scientists, nurses, doctors and other important jobs in Minnesota.

The dissemination of the project has occurred through multiple mediums. This project was highlighted in the Minnesota DNR’s Minnesota Conservation Volunteer Magazine. The project has also been shared with the general public by being added to the Minnesota State Parks and Trails Geocaching Aquatic Quest. An important aspect of this project was providing research opportunities for our undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota Crookston. The research involvement by students was highlighted in a number of publications. This results of this project were also presented at multiple scientific and non-scientific conferences by faculty and students.

We installed 20 pollinator plantings in the Minnesota tallgrass prairie regions to study the effectiveness of restorations for conserving native bees. We collected nearly 25,000 native bee specimens from approximately 156 species. We found at least three new state records. We also organized a grower-led field day.

We used these project funds in concert with federal funding (United States Department of Agriculture) to study the effectiveness of restorations for supporting native bees. Plots were typically in row crop agriculture prior to this study. We examined how the size and the location of the restoration (i.e., the amount of agriculture surrounding the restoration) influenced native bee abundance and richness. Previous studies on restorations have used sites planted by land management agencies prior to the research. This is problematic as researchers have little control over variables that could lead to confounding effects. We surveyed these plots for pollinators over four years. The summer of 2021 was limited due to COVID restrictions. We also examined plots to quantify the amount of the insecticide neonicotinoid in the soil and flowers. We collected and curated 24,657 native bee specimens which will soon be accessioned permanently into the University of Minnesota insect collection. The data associated with these specimens as well as other project data will be available to the citizens of Minnesota as peer-reviewed publications become available. We found that restorations were overall beneficial for native bees with abundance and species richness showing little effect of plot size or location. Further most sites did not have neonicotinoids in the soil and no flowers had a detectable level of this insecticide. Our results suggest that pollinator plantings benefit pollinators with small sites surrounded by agriculture providing similar benefits compared to larger restoration sites with little surrounding area in agriculture. This along with the low levels of neonicotinoids demonstrate the effectiveness of pollinator plantings for supporting native bees in Minnesota’s tallgrass prairies.

Each year we held outreach events for landowners as well as practitioners. These were focused on project updates and sharing our results. Our initial meetings were in person but had to move to Zoom with the COVID epidemic. On June 15, 2023, we held an in-person field day for project participants and the general public. This field day began at the Nobles Soil and Water Conservation District in Worthington. We then visited a farm to highlight our work to landowners and the general public. We are continuing to work on peer-reviewed publications from the results of this work.

The levels of quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs), which are used widely as disinfectants and for other purposes, were measured in Minnesota wastewaters and sediments. The QACs are present at microgram per liter levels in wastewater. While the QACs are slowly degraded in surface waters by bacteria and light, they accumulate in sediments. The QACs form specific suspected carcinogens during water disinfection in very low yield, and QACs are likely less important than other precursors for these toxins. The results provide information on current QAC levels and provide insights on how to lower them if desired.

Quaternary ammonium compound (QACs) are ingredients in personal care products, fabric softeners, disinfectants, and herbicides. QACs, which are biologically active molecules, are unintentionally and intentionally released into the environment. QACs kill bacteria and may affect microbial communities in wastewater treatment and algal communities in surface waters. In this study, the levels of QACs in the effluent from 12 wastewater treatment plants were determined. Plants with more advanced treatment processes had lower levels of QACs. Sediment samples in a lake demonstrated potential inputs from both municipal wastewater effluent and agricultural sources for QACs. In sediment cores taken from lakes, two distinct trends over time were observed. In lakes with large watersheds and mixed domestic and industrial wastewater sources, peak concentrations of QACs were found at depths corresponding to deposition in the 1980s and decreases after this time are attributed to improved wastewater treatment and source control. In a smaller lake with predominantly domestic wastewater inputs, concentrations of QACs increased slowly over time. In surface waters, QACs were found to degrade by reaction with reactive species (hydroxyl radicals) generated by sunlight and by microbial processes. Even with these loss processes, QACs likely persist from days to weeks in the water, leading to their deposition in the sediments. QACs were found to form low levels of a carcinogenic class of compounds (nitrosamines) when reacted with a drinking water disinfectant (chloramine), but this would be of greatest concern in wastewater potable reuse scenarios. The overall results of the work indicate that QACs are being released by wastewater treatment plants. Once in the environment, degradation by bacteria and by sunlight can occur in surface waters, but accumulation in sediments, where the QACs are persistent, is likely the main removal process. During the wastewater disinfection process QACs can form a carcinogen, but QACs are not as important as other chemicals known to form nitrosamines. The findings allow more robust assessment of potential impacts of QACs and insight into wastewater treatment processes that lead to removal, which is important given the increasing use of QACs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three papers were published: 1) the detection of QACs in wastewater and sediment (the paper and data set are available online); 2) Photolysis of QACs; and 3) Potential environmental impacts of elevated QAC usage during the COVID-19 pandemic (available online through ACS Publications or PubMed Central). A public lecture that incorporated data for the project was also given at the U of MN, and it is available on YouTube.

A group of bacteria (“anammox”) have received attention for their potential in wastewater treatment, transforming harmful reactive nitrogen into harmless dinitrogen gas. However, anammox perform poorly in typical wastewater environments. In this project we developed new materials to selectively enhance anammox growth/retention, supporting more sustainable removal of harmful nitrogen.

Anammox bacteria have received attention for their ability to completely transform harmful reactive nitrogen compounds in wastewater into harmless dinitrogen gas. In addition, when using anammox bacteria, much less oxygen and no supplemental carbon is needed for nitrogen removal, and there is little production of excess biomass in the form of sludge. This reduces costs and energy use for nitrogen removal. It is estimated that the anammox process saves 60% of the energy used in conventional nitrogen removal. Unfortunately, this process has been difficult to implement in typical wastewater systems. Anammox bacteria are slow growing and the ammonium and carbon concentrations in wastewater result in low anammox activity and competition from faster growing bacteria. This leads to the washout of anammox bacteria. In this collaborative research project, our goals were to develop new polymeric materials that could concentrate ammonium to create localized niches for anammox enrichment and retention. We developed two different materials in this project: (1) a porous polymer carrier and (2) a gas-permeable alumina membrane. Both materials were able to concentrate ammonium, while the membrane could also transfer low quantities of oxygen to the surrounding solution. Both materials were also able to enrich and retain anammox when added to a wastewater environment. Further optimization of these materials is needed to enable scale-up and deployment. Nevertheless, given that in the US, the energy used for wastewater treatment costs approximately $2B a year, the predicted energy savings if this technology was implemented would be significant. The impact within the state of Minnesota would also be large, saving millions of dollars and providing more complete removal of harmful nitrogen species. A patent was awarded and the University of Minnesota is exploring commercialization and licensing options. Three peer-reviewed manuscripts were published from this work and have been submitted to the LCCMR.

Information from this project has been shared with several water technology companies who may be able to assist in optimizing and eventually deploying this technology. As stated above, three peer-reviewed manuscripts were published from this work and have been submitted to the LCCMR. Multiple presentations about the research have been given to both regional and national/international conferences. Additional funding is being sought from a large infrastructure company. We anticipate submitting a proposal to the National Science Foundation for additional funding. The University of Minnesota Technology Commercialization Office is working with us to further the technology.

The Minnesota Zoo increased capacity for rearing mussels to more than 10,000 individuals and researched methods to improve husbandry, enabling us to better support efforts to recover depleted populations. The Show Us Your Mussels challenge engaged >2,200 students, with student-created content reaching >150,000 citizens and encouraging action to benefit conservation.

Native mussels are aquatic engineers, providing important ecosystem services such as water filtration and creating habitat for fish and other wildlife. However, many populations are depleted in Minnesota due to factors such as overharvest and pollution. With this project, the Minnesota Zoo sought to support state-wide recovery efforts led by the DNR and improve mussel conservation by 1) increasing our capacity to rear juvenile mussels for reintroduction; 2) advancing our understanding of mussel husbandry to improve the growth and survival of individuals in our care; and 3) raising public awareness about and encouraging action to benefit our aquatic resources.

We constructed a new mussel rearing and research facility on the Zoo’s campus and installed associated systems for housing mussels. These improvements significantly increased our capacity for rearing mussels; we currently have space to accommodate >65,000 newly transformed mussels, surpassing our target of 10,000 individuals. This expansion significantly increases our conservation impact and positions us to better support ongoing recovery efforts that will restore ecosystem services.

We also conducted experiments to evaluate how substrate affects growth and survival of juvenile mussels. Our research documented that the presence of fine sand in rearing pans significantly increases growth rates for some species. As such, we have modified our husbandry methods to incorporate this finding, which will yield larger individuals more suitable for reintroduction and ultimately may accelerate reintroduction efforts.

To encourage local communities to take action on behalf of water quality, we established the Show US Your Mussel Challenge. This project engages middle and high school students in the creation of social media campaigns to expand communications efforts throughout local communities. To date, >2,200 students have participated in the challenge, sharing information about the importance of mussels, Minnesota’s aquatic resources, and actions the public can take to protect Minnesota’s waterways with >150,000 residents.

Communicating the importance of native mussels and water quality was a key goal of this project. The Minnesota Zoo engaged with Minnesotans to share information about mussels, their conservation, and stewardship of aquatic resources via a variety of platforms, ranging from in-person and virtual presentations at schools, camps, and other forums to free school curriculum and teacher professional development in association with the Show Us Your Mussels challenge. We developed an interpretive area on Zoo campus, outfitted with signs, videos, and a water quality activity, shared research findings at scientific meetings and hosted Smart Salt workshops to reduce salt use.

Strobin fungicides were detected in most water samples from the Whitewater River in southeastern Minnesota. Many citizen scientists were trained and continue to monitor stream sites. Stream habitats and fish and aquatic invertebrate communities ranged from excellent to poor, based largely on upstream versus downstream location and adjacent land uses.

Water quality in many trout streams in southeastern Minnnesota has been compromised by rain-event runoff, exposing sensitive trout to mixtures of eroded soils, pesticides, urban stormwaters/wastewaters, and animal wastes. The main goal of this project was to better protect at-risk streams by developing an improved water-quality monitoring infrastructure and network within the Whitewater River system. This was achieved by:

• Automated Water Sampling - establishing both continuous and rain-event sampling throughout 3 at-risk trout stream reaches (North, South, Middle Forks of the Whitewater River),
• Citizen Scientists - training an action network of citizen scientists to respond to episodic run-off events and to monitor water quality and aquatic life in these and additional trout stream reaches, and
• Baseline Surveys - conducting inclusive biotic inventories of fish and aquatic invertebrate communities throughout entire at-risk watersheds for broader, complete delineation of baseline conditions.

Water sampling detected various strobin fungicides in >80% of rain event and low-flow samples, with some concentrations above toxic levels for aquatic life. Strobin concentrations were higher in rain-event samples, but concentrations could not be predicted by rain volume or season. Increased monitoring and better chemical management are needed in these and other watersheds to protect our coldwater ecosystems.

More than 30 citizen scientists have been trained to monitor stream water quality and aquatic invertebrate communities with the Whitewater River and nearby stream systems. They assess their chosen stream sites four times per year, and upload their findings directly to the Izaak Walton League’s Save Our Streams web portal. In addition to regular seasonal monitoring, citizen scientists can respond to sudden events (e.g., floods, fish kills) to gather additional information as needed.

Based on surveys at 62 sites, stream habitats and biotic communities ranged from excellent to poor, influenced largely by upstream/downstream location, adjacent land uses, and proximity of springs.

Results from our project were the basis for two MS theses completed at Winona State University, and a chapter of a PhD dissertation completed at the University of Minnesota. At least two papers reporting our findings will be published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Our 30+ trained citizen scientists have reported and will continue to report their stream monitoring data to the Izaak Walton League’s Save Our Streams web portal, where they are continually available to the public.

Project results also have been reported to the scientific community at seven different state, regional, and national science meetings.

The groundwaters contaminated with chemicals from the decades-old crude oil spill and/or their breakdown products can adversely affect development and hormone and liver functioning if vertebrates were to be exposed to them sufficiently. This project advanced understanding of oil spill remediation and will help protect Minnesota’s natural resources/drinking water sources.

A fundamental issue in protecting ecosystem health in Minnesota is the degree to which waters impacted by, relatively common, petroleum releases (e.g., oil or gasoline spills) are toxic, both initially and over time as the oil breaks down into new chemicals. This study was the first to comprehensively screen the toxicity of groundwater from an aged crude oil spill site. The National Crude Oil Spill Fate and Natural Attenuation Research Site near Bemidji, MN is the site of a 1979 pipeline rupture that released 10,000 barrels of crude oil. This site has been extensively studied for over 40 years offering a unique opportunity to study the toxicity of groundwaters impacted by crude oil. Groundwater samples (collected 2016-2019) were analyzed for over 90 different chemical and toxicity parameters using cutting-edge techniques where living cells were exposed to water samples and screened for potential toxic effects. Analysis of the molecular/toxicity targets that were activated in cells indicated that (even 40+ years after the spill) the groundwaters contaminated with chemicals from the original spill and/or chemicals resulting from the breakdown of the oil compounds have the potential to cause adverse impacts on development, endocrine, and liver functioning if vertebrates (fish, turtles, birds, mammals) were to be exposed to them sufficiently. This work clearly shows the need to improve understanding of the identity and toxicity of oil breakdown products. Furthermore, this work shows that commonly used sampling and analysis methods (including sample extraction and clean-up protocols) can exclude or under-represent oil breakdown products and thus may underestimate risks from these chemicals. This finding is of importance to remediation managers and regulators in Minnesota and nationally because there is an active debate as to which methods and protocols are most suitable for hazard and risk assessment at petroleum spill sites.

We published three research manuscripts, presented at numerous research conferences, and raised awareness of the issue with Minnesotans statewide (reached circa 1200 individuals at the State Fair exhibits). We introduced oil industry, and managers and regulators in MN and nationally to a new toolbox of novel cell and artificial intelligence approaches that can streamline hazard assessment and facilitate identification of chemicals/hazards of concern and enhance oil spill remediation monitoring. Results of our work are relevant to Minnesotans as the analyses conducted herein advance an understanding of oil spill remediation and will help protect Minnesota’s natural resources/drinking water sources.

The outcome of this project will help expand the water reuse in Minnesota, which can reduce demands on groundwater aquifers and improve surface water quality.

Reusing water will reduce demands on groundwater aquifers and improve surface water quality. However, public perception of health risks associated with microbiological contaminants remains a key barrier to the expansion of water reuse. The goal of this project is to maximize the potential of water reuse in Minnesota by eliminating barriers to water reuse implementation. In this project, water quality of 25 water reuse systems around Minnesota was assessed by quantifying potential human pathogens. At each reuse facility, water samples were collected at the source and when available at the distribution site such as an irrigation tap. When treatment steps were in place, water samples were also collected before and after the treatment. Samples were collected more than once for some reuse facilities. As a result, 90 water samples were collected from the 25 sites. Bacterial and viral pathogens in these water samples were quantified using a high-throughput method. Most of the water samples did not contain detectable levels of pathogens. Some pre-treatment wastewater samples, contained potential human pathogens such as norovirus. Based on a preliminary quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) for norovirus, the risk for illness and infection is considerable for these samples. However, advanced water treatment removed these pathogens to the levels considered low risk of infection and illness for reuse. Due to the complexity of QMRA analyses and the variability of the results, the risk assessment is only done for norovirus. Potential health risks associated with pathogens other than norovirus should be analyzed in the future.

This project has produced two presentations: one at the EPA’s webinar on “Water Reuse and Reclaimed Water” and one at a national conference (Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors [AEESP] Conference). Two publications are being prepared: one as a peer-review journal publication and one as a white paper published from Minnesota Department of Health. These publications will be freely available to the public.

The outcomes of this research have been used to expand our water reuse research. MN Stormwater Research Council has provided additional funding to continue and expand the water reuse research. In addition, the outcome obtained in this project will be shared with other state and federal agencies (EPA, MPCA, etc.) as well as private sectors to establish safe water reuse in MN and other states.

This is the first study to comprehensively analyze Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CECs) within fish tissues, waters, and sediments in 28 Minnesota lakes and in Lake Superior. We found 117 CECs with 101 found in water samples, 67 in sediments, and 35 in fish tissues.

This is the first study to comprehensively analyze a large suite of Chemicals of Emerging Concern (CECs) across the three media of fish tissues, water, and sediment in a broad geographic extent in northern Minnesota. CEC’s are pharmaceuticals and personal care products that can linger in the environment and have been shown to affect behavioral and reproductive health of aquatic life. This study was focused on fish species and water bodies used for subsistence by the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa and recreational users of northeastern Minnesota. We described the spatial distribution of CEC occurrences in 25 Minnesota lakes and in Lake Superior. We consider our most important findings to be the number of detections and the classes of CECs that were detected. We found 117 CECs across all media types with 101 found in water samples, 67 in sediments, and 35 in fish tissues. The pharmaceutical classes that were most frequently detected included hormones (100% of sites), DEET insect repellent (100% of sites), antidepressants (80% of sites), and antimicrobials (80% of sites). These results were derived from surface water samples, sediment samples, and fish samples of walleye/yellow perch in inland lakes and lake trout/cisco from Lake Superior. We also related measures of fish health and parasite loading to CECs and land use. Our findings are consistent with early literature on CECs in Minnesota lakes that studied water samples only. We used Aquatic Toxicity Profiles (ATPs) to identify those chemicals that may pose risks to aquatic life. ATPs provide an overview of chemical-specific information such as acute toxicity, endocrine activity, physicochemical properties, and occurrence information in the aquatic environment. We found that even in undeveloped sites that had a fewer number of total contaminants, they often had a high percentage of high priority contaminants. More work is needed to determine the effects of CECs on aquatic life.

A video was developed from this project and posted to YouTube. There were three radio broadcasts on this work, WTIP, Grand Marais in 2016, WTIP, Grand Marais in 2017, and Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) in 2020. Various online and paper media outlets reported on this work as well including: The Circle (Part One and Part Two of their two-part series), The Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine News, Medium, City Pages, and the Grand Rapids Herald Review.

A combination of ground-based monitoring and satellite data were used to quantify freshwater in Central Minnesota. Quantification of stored water is essential to improve water resources management and planning.

Our freshwater resources reside in surface water bodies (ponds, wetlands, lakes, streams/rivers) and subsurface water reservoirs (soil and groundwater aquifers). Management of these freshwater resources has always been a challenge because we do not have a good idea of how much water is stored in these various entities. The objective of this project was to improve the methods for real-time quantification of the amount of water stored in these entities using existing ground-based measurement networks as well as satellite data. The study region stretched from St. Paul to Moorhead, and encompassed 17 HUC-8 watersheds. The study region has an area of about 53,000 km3. We collected archived ground-based measurements including streamflows, observation wells, and lake levels for the period 2002-2015. We also acquired satellite data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), SMOS/SMAP, and Landsat satellites. The GRACE satellite provides data on the total water stored in the earth. The spatial resolution of the data used in this study was 100 km by 100 km. The SMOS/SMAP satellites provide a measure of the surface soil moisture over areas of about 36 km by 36 km. The Landsat satellite provides visual images at a scale of 30 m, and can be used for measuring the surface area of individual lakes; this surface area data can be used to estimate the volume of water stored in a given lake at a given moment in time. The project demonstrated that the variation in total water storage can be monitored by the GRACE satellite, and variations in lake storage can be monitored by the Landsat satellite. For the period 2002-2015 the estimates of time-averaged water storage is 1,500 km3 for groundwater in the Quaternary (surficial) aquifer, 15 km3 for lakes, 20 km3 for soil moisture, and 1.5 km3 for wetlands. The GRACE satellite became inoperable in late 2017, far exceeding the original planned life for the satellite. However, in May 2018 a new satellite, GRACE-FO (GRACE-Follow On) was launched and it now is providing the same information about total water storage. One of the outcomes of this project is a new research activity to test the utility of water storage information gained from the GRACE-FO satellite to forecast flooding and hydrological droughts in Minnesota.

The project results have been presented at a number of different forums including the Minnesota Water Resources Conference (October 2019), the Water Resource Sciences Graduate Seminar at the University of Minnesota (September 2019), and the Western Regional Project 4188 Meeting in Las Vegas (January 2020). Two MSc theses were completed based on the work in the project, and the work of two Ph.D. students got started (one to finish in December 2020 and the other to finish in December 2021) based on work in the project.

A methodology for quantifying the volume of water in a lake based on the surface area of a lake was adapted from previous work and was tested during this project for the project study region. This tested methodology was then used in a separate LCCMR funded project in which the volumes of lakes across the State of Minnesota were estimated. This objective of this other project was to use remote sensing to quantify the water quality of lakes and the lake volume estimates were needed to examine lake processes affecting lake water quality.

A methodology was developed for quantifying the volume of water stored in the Quaternary aquifer spanning across the study region. The methodology uses observation well data and lake level data to map the water table across the region. This methodology will be shared with the MNDNR, but also it will also now be used in some immediate future research to assess the water table mapping in quantifying the forecasting of floods, and possibly in forecasting hydrologic droughts.

Objectives were to determine if peatland degradation from increased temperatures will exacerbate mercury and sulfur impairments of surface waters. Results predict slightly decreased export of sulfate and methylmercury, slightly increased export for total mercury, and large increases in mercury volatilization to the atmosphere, with negligible local impact to surface waters.

Mercury contamination of surface waters constitutes a human and ecological health problem in Minnesota. Peatlands have accrued substantial quantities of mercury and sulfur from atmospheric deposition over thousands of years. Will they become sources of legacy contamination to the environment if peatlands degrade under future, warmer climates, as hypothesized? Increased export of mercury and sulfur to surface waters could further contaminate already impaired surface waters and exacerbate existing human health problems in northern Minnesota. The study was conducted at the SPRUCE ecosystem warming research site located on a bog north of Grand Rapids, MN. We collected peat outflow waters and peat porewaters from multiple depths in the bog from 2017-2019 and analyzed them for total mercury, methylmercury, and sulfate concentrations. We also measured rates of volatilization of mercury to the atmosphere with passive atmospheric mercury collectors. Regional climate estimates from the USGS Climate Change Viewer were used to estimate future changes in peatland water export, which is predicted to decrease by about 15% by 2100. Methylmercury and sulfate concentrations were unaffected by temperature, whereas total mercury increased approximately 15% with a 9°F increase. When combined with a small decrease in water export, methylmercury and sulfate exports should remain the same or decrease slightly from current levels. Total mercury exports are expected to remain the same or increase no more than 10-20%. Warmer temperatures caused large increases in mercury volatilization rates to increase to the point where peatlands becoming sources of mercury to the atmosphere. Overall, future environmental and human health impacts from peatlands to surface waters should be relatively similar to current day impacts. Increased mercury release to the atmosphere will have negligible local to regional impacts.

Numerous oral presentations have been given to citizen groups, high school and college classes, the Minnesota Tribal Environmental Council, TV news and interest programs, and numerous visitors to the SPRUCE project site. Project members have also made presentations at national and international scientific meetings and to the SPRUCE project annual meetings. Three peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts of related work have been published and a fourth is in revision. Future plans are to share our final report to the ad hoc state agency mercury group (MPCA, MDH, MDNR) and the Minnesota Tribal Environmental Council and to meet with them if desired.

The Floating Classroom served more than 25,000 Minnesota youth by creating opportunities to engage in environmental science through accessing Minnesota waterways and public lands. Youth assessed natural resources, collected scientific data, developed a stewardship ethic, and learned about outdoor employment opportunities, becoming Minnesota’s next generation of natural resource protectors.

All told since the beginning of the project in June 2017, Wilderness Inquiry’s Floating Classroom connected more than 25,714 Minnesota youth to environmental science and Minnesota’s abundant waterways and public lands.

On live outdoor events, Wilderness Inquiry’s Floating Classroom served 24,421 diverse Minnesota youth through placed-based, educational experiences, creating opportunities to engage in environmental science through accessing Minnesota waterways and public lands. Of these youth, 23,600 youth engaged in hands-on exploration, recreation and assessment of said waterways and public lands and 821 youth participated in a multi-day expedition, learning to restore and maintain public lands and discover pathways into outdoor-related employment.

When COVID-19 forced Minnesota schools into distanced learning and limited the gathering of groups, the Floating Classroom quickly pivoted to meet the needs of educators and families educating and learning from home. Wilderness Inquiry’s Online Learning Resources were created and this website has been visited by 1,254 unique visitors. Some highlights include pages dedicated to Environmental Science and Natural Resources (visited by 353 visitors) and Jobs in the Outdoors (visited by 126 visitors). The full scope of these resources goes much further with downloadable activities and additional pages being shared among virtual classrooms.

As COVID-19 continued to impact the Floating Classroom’s ability for in person programming through summer 2020, Wilderness Inquiry and the National Park Service partnered together to create a free virtual summer camp to connect youth to the mysteries of the Mississippi River. 39 Minnesota Youth took part in this camp focused on the ecology of the Mississippi River.

While participating in Floating Classroom activities, students collected water quality data and this data was reported back and disseminated through a citizen science online portal Canoe Quest via GLOBE, a national database for citizen science.

Wilderness Inquiry worked with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) to evaluate the project. CAREI produced two reports over the course of the three years which were shared directly with partners and stakeholders, presented at conferences, and can be found on the Wilderness Inquiry website.

Lastly, many local media outlets covered the Floating Classroom’s arrival throughout the state. Many of these are included in the Wilderness Inquiry blog, including this story from MPR.

The Increasing Diversity in Environmental Careers (IDEC) program fosters the next generation of environmental and natural resources professionals and enthusiasts. From 2019 to 2022, 32 students enrolled in the IDEC program learned about and gained hands-on experience in the environmental/natural resources field. As a result, as these students become professionals, they will bring diversity and innovation to natural resources management and conservation.

While Minnesota's population continues to diversify and STEM-based jobs continue to increase, there has been no increase in the diversity of the nation's STEM workforce for more than a decade (As of 2016). Likewise, the State has been unable to attract representative numbers of ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, or women into the professional and technical STEM positions that make up nearly half of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) jobs. Over the next ten years (2016-2026), a significant percentage of positions with the State's environmental agencies will be at risk of retirement-related turnover.

Through a strategic partnership between the DNR, Conservation Corps Minnesota and Iowa, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, this collaborative program aims to reduce and eliminate barriers that inhibit under-represented students from completing STEM degrees and obtaining environmental careers after graduation.

1. In 2019, a cohort of 16 students enrolled in the IDEC program. Of the 16 students, 12 graduated and obtained their STEM degrees, and 2 are completing their STEM degrees. Of the 12 students who graduated, 5 are in graduate school, 5 are working in environmental careers, and 2 are seeking employment.
2. In 2020, a second cohort of 16 students enrolled in the IDEC program. Of the 16 students, 6 graduated and obtained their STEM degrees, and 9 are still enrolled in the program, completing their STEM degrees. Of the 6 students who graduated, 4 are working in environmental careers, and 2 are in graduate school.

Project information has been shared through CCMI’s website, recruitment activities, and interviews with radio stations. When the project started, the Project Manager and Program Manager interviewed with Minnesota Public Radio Station. In 2020 the project manager completed an interview with Sahan Journal. More information about the program can be found Here. A student in the program shared her experience with her school and can be found Here.

Water flows out of Minnesota in three directions, and our personal and public choices have impacts far beyond our borders. With Minnesota Water Stories, citizens tour Minnesota in planetariums across the state, to learn about issues in each region and understand what they can do to protect this natural resource.

The planetarium dome is an ideal place to provide an immersive venue for citizens to understand complex topics such as time, scale, and geographic perspective as they relate to water. The shape of a dome fills our peripheral vision and mirrors the way our eyes see the world around us, which allows the audience to feel they are part of the story, connected to the decisions made by themselves and others. A skilled presenter can tailor the show to the needs of the audience, so each experience is unique. Minnesota Water Stories includes a mixture of animation and live-action video from a dozen locations around the state including Park Rapids, Halstad, Breckenridge, Redwood Falls, Waseca, Wabasha, and Tofte.

The outcomes for citizens attending Minnesota Water Stories were to increase awareness of challenges facing our waters, understand the challenges’ relations to the larger system, and becoming aware of community resources to work toward addressing these problems. Due to the pandemic, we were not able to do a full-scale evaluation of the show in planetariums around the state. We created an online version with similar content as the planetarium show to measure how it meets these outcomes. According to the evaluation report, “general audience and student participants increased their understanding of challenges facing Minnesota waters.”

Almost 1,000 Minnesotans saw the interactive and audience participatory experience of Minnesota Water Stories in its initial run at the Bell Museum’s Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium, and 231 students and public reviewed the web-based version. Over the next few years Minnesota Water Stories will show to thousands of people at planetariums in Baxter, Duluth, Hibbing, Mankato, Marshall, Moorhead, Rochester, St. Cloud, and St. Paul.

This project produced a planetarium show and an online StoryMap that all Minnesotans can access. To date, over 900 Minnesotans have seen the show at the Bell Museum. In fall 2022 it will be available for audiences in planetariums in nine cities around the state and can travel to any region with the University of Minnesota’s portable planetarium system. In the years to come, thousands of Minnesotans will view Minnesota Water Stories.

Expanding Raptor Center Online Education reached 520 teachers in 28 counties throughout Minnesota serving more than 15,000 students with a state-of-the-art education program to engage students in authentic outdoor learning and science to equip and inspire Minnesota’s next generation of conservationists.

If Minnesota students are to grow into adults who are capable of making meaningful contributions to conservation, both they and their teachers need effective tools to foster meaningful outdoor experiences. This project expanded Raptor Center Online Education to give both teachers and students those much-needed tools with a goal of facilitating experiential outdoor learning and inspiring conservation mind-sets.

The major project objectives were to expand a current education program (Raptor Lab) to support students in conducting an investigation, provide teachers with demonstrations on how to use the learning module, and bring in environmental education experts to teach teachers skills and techniques to facilitate meaningful outdoor learning experiences for their students.

We partnered with University of Minnesota Extension and Learning Technologies Media Lab to build an interactive environment for students, based on a proven curriculum developed by Extension, Driven to Discover. We created a web-based interactive version titled “Outdoor Investigator.” Outdoor Investigator is six-part educational tool engaging students, step-by-step, though the scientific method to complete an outdoor investigation.

Once Outdoor Investigator was completed, The Raptor Center, Extension, Eagle Bluff and Wolf Ridge worked together to design and develop teacher demonstrations. Demonstrations explored each section of Outdoor Investigator, the technology and functionality of the online environment, integrated outdoor teaching techniques, and expanded Teacher Toolbox with extra materials and resources. Three model conservation projects were also created and included in the Teacher Toolbox to guide teachers in the process of conducting a Citizen Science-based outdoor investigation.

Over the course of the 2018 – 2019 school year demonstrations were provided to 520 teachers in 28 counties throughout Minnesota. These teachers will serve an estimated population of 15,000 to 25,000 students. Minnesotans will benefit from this work when as many as 25,000 children a year, throughout the state of Minnesota, engage in authentic and meaningful learning experiences in their local environment to inspire our next generation of scientists and future conservationists.

Throughout the two year grant period we have been intensively disseminating Outdoor Investigator in a number of venues where we would be interacting directly with teachers. We presented and/or exhibited at numerous conferences, such as Minnesota Education Academy Conference (MEA), the Minnesota Science Teachers Association Conference, Sci/Math and Ignite After school conference, the Agriculture Teachers Tech Conference, Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators, the Conference of Middle and High School Principles, Minnesota’s Grand Challenges Conference at the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Forest School Program Conference, the 3M Visiting Wizards Teacher’s Workshop (hosted by 3M), Bell Museum’s Educator’s Open House, Prior Lake Teacher Development Workshop, University of Minnesota Extension Driven to Discover Teacher Training, and the Minnesota Field Trip Fair.

During these exhibits we had printed materials to highlight the main components of Outdoor Investigator, a computer for teachers to see and interact with the Raptor Lab and Outdoor Investigator, and forms to capture teacher information to contact them directly with information to access the website and to communicate important information about upcoming Teacher Demonstrations.

Through Bird City Minnesota, Audubon Minnesota has engaged communities in improving the habitat and protecting birds. Nine communities completed the certification program, while many more have been using this conservation roadmap to leverage resources and achieve results in making their communities friendly for birds and wildlife.

Bird City Minnesota has worked to enhance conservation efforts to protect birds and habitats in Minnesota communities. A total of nine communities have received the Bird City Minnesota designation, while many other communities have showed interest and start working to complete the requirements of the program. Bird City Minnesota requirements lead communities in taking steps to accomplishment conservation efforts that improve habitat through restoration, reduce threats to birds, and engage local citizens through projects, training and birding events. Many of the communities that participated made substantial progress in protecting habitat in local parks and engaging citizens in hands-on conservation work that creates a healthier environment for birds. By focusing on these efforts, local communities have engaged their residents in citizen science and conservation. Through public events, residents have learned how to take simple actions that result in improving the landscape for birds and ensuring appropriate habitat.

During the course of this project, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the progress that communities were making in attaining Bird City Minnesota recognition. Staff have been flexible to support communities as necessary, made adjustments where appropriate, and encourage continued work towards completing the program event after the funding of this project has ended. Minnesotan’s have benefited from this work by learning simple steps that they can take in their own communities to make a difference for birds, and what they have learned in this process will benefit communities and birds for decades to come.

While the project was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been able to successfully promote the achievements of communities through significant local news media coverage for cities who have achieved the Bird City Minnesota recognition. Additionally, signage and flags are now displayed in each of the communities that have completed the Bird City Minnesota requirements and were awarded recognition. Application materials have been shared with communities to assist in their continued fulfillment of program requirements, as well as to serve as historical records of the conservation efforts taken.

The project entitled Developing Youth Watershed Stewardship in Northern Minnesota established the Environmental Science Club. Goals were established, pursued and met:
skill development, enhanced understanding, recognition of relationships between actions and outcomes, provided positive experiences, shared similar information through presentations, and demonstrated deeper understanding of ecosystems.

Environmental Science Club was established in early 2019 for 10 to 18 students led by HSC staff in each of 2-hour club sessions. Members came to HSC from two sources: Boys & Girls Club of Bemidji with students from fifth grade to eight grades along with HSC’s youth participants. Students explored ground-water, examined rivers & built models of watersheds; culminating with a lakeshore clean-up. The club was expanded into summer where Voyageurs Expeditionary High School students participated in a four-day outdoor ecological study as part of their summer school course curriculum requirements.

Club activities resumed heading into the fall and winter of 2019. Specimens from area water were gathered and examined. Eighteen students participated in Environmental Science Club.

With the turn of the new year, HSC headed into 2020 with twelve more club sessions in January, February, and early March. Then Covid-19 struck & we were soon surrounded by uncertainty with hybrid models for students attending class & afterschool activities virtually. In this phase we co-opted our “Daily Live Science Show” -once a week- with labs testing for chloride & then showing E. coli sampling & lab technique for various local stream studies.

Our hybrid approach shifted again to macroinvertebrate assays, crowd sourced, demonstrating how to gather, sort, classify & count organisms for our pollution intolerance index. With this scale we were able to determine water quality by presence, or lack thereof, pollution intolerant organisms, as well as diversity. This scale allowed us to determine, and present electronically degree of ecological integrity. Despite most environmental news being dire and even depressing, we are pleased to present our findings of excellent condition for many streams and even found pollution sensitive organisms in places way downstream. We are thankful that this LCCMR grant allowed us to share these insights.

Club participants always focused on results -via exploration & the scientific method- utilizing various skills learned for water examination. In the first thirty months of the project, participants presented knowledge they had gained at science fairs & peer-to-peer feedback sessions. Student field journals, notes & posters accompanied project presentations. Final professional production of posters was not completed. Funding for this portion of the project was remains unspent and this portion of the grant should be returned to the ENRTF.

During the last six months of the grant cycle the pandemic overtook us, so we shifted to a hybrid virtual model. Our 3:30 show became a regular afternoon session on three platforms: YouTube, Facebook and Twitch TV with final selected videos appearing on the hscbemidji.org Website.

This project connected 1,254 K-12 Minnesota students to nature through multi-day environmental learning experiences at Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center (formerly Audubon Center of the North Woods). This was accomplished through translating fieldtrip forms into three new languages, purchasing and lending outdoor gear to students, and providing K-12 student scholarships.

Today’s students are increasingly being left out of nature learning experiences with children today spending far less time outdoors than any other generation in human history. For students that are low on the socio-economic spectrum, this is compounded as there are typically no outdoor areas near where they live, or adults who spend time with them in natural areas. Many schools do not have the financial resources to make environmental field trips possible. Additional factors impeding their participation are the cultural and language barriers increasingly seen with immigrant populations. Parents do not understand what the experience is, and are wary of sending their child away on an overnight field trip. Students coming from low economic families cannot afford to pay the student fee, or buy winter outerwear or a sleeping bag for use in the dormitory. We as a society have a responsibility to foster environmentally literate citizens from all backgrounds and it starts with our children. They will make the decisions for our society’s future.

We wanted to engage with the diverse and changing demographics of MN’s schools through this project by offering scholarships to financially strained schools to attend Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center for environmental learning experiences. This project’s goal was to make residential environmental learning experiences more accessible by: 1) providing a minimum of 1,000 K-12 scholarships to Minnesota students for residential programming at Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center, 2) purchasing outerwear (snow pants, coats, hats, mittens, scarves, winter boots) to lend out to K-12 students when attending to keep them comfortable and safe, 3) translating all K-12 trip forms into Spanish, Hmong, and Somali.

Through this project, we were actually able to provide 1,254 K-12 scholarships to Minnesota K-12 students, exceeding our goal of 1,000 student learning experiences with this project.

The ongoing results of this project have been shared through our newsletters, our annual reports and social media accounts. Through these platforms, we have updated our constituents on the goals of the program, and the number of participants served. Some of our newsletters and annual reports are available online including: the Spring/Summer 2018 Newsletter, the Spring/Summer 2019 Newsletter, and the Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report.

Sub-Projects M.L. 2017, Subd. 06a:

• 4.3: Social Learning and Carp Removal - Przemek Bajer - $189,475
  
• 8.2: Impacts of Invader Removal on Native Vegetation Recovery - Daniel Larkin - $119,034
  
• 12.2: Historical Analyses of Spiny Water Flea Invasion Patterns - Donn Branstrator - $53,795
  
• 15: Determining Highest Risk Vectors of Spiny Water Flea Spread* - Valerie Brady - $26,581
  
• 16.2: AIS Impacts on Walleye Populations and Mercury Concentrations - Gretchen Hansen - $199,862
  
• 18.2: Genetics to Improve Hybrid and Eurasian Watermilfoil Management - Raymond Newman - $236,423
  
• 20: A Novel Technology for eDNA Collection and Concentration* - Abdennour Abbas - $96,264
  
• 21.2: Field validation of mulitbeam sonar zebra mussel detection (Year 1)** - Jessica Kozarek - $14,247
  
• 22: Copper-Based Control – Zebra Mussel Settlement and Non-Target Impacts* - James Luoma - $152,090
  
• 23: Public Values of Aquatic Invasive Species Management* - Amit Pradhananga - $110,245
  
• 24: Genetic Method for Control of Invasive Fish Species* - Michael Smanski - $140,004
  
• 25: What’s in Your Bucket? Quantifying AIS Introduction Risk* - Nicholas Phelps - $84,094
  
• 28: Evaluating Innovative Coatings to Suppress Priority AIS - Mikael Elias - $51,234
  
• 30: Managing Midwestern Aquatic Invasions in a Changing Climate - Ranjan Muthukrishnan - $39,000
  

                                                                          *Subproject is split between M.L. 2013 and M.L. 2017 funding, only M.L. 2017 funds are reflected.
                                                                          **Subproject is split between M.L. 2017 and M.L. 2019 funding, only M.L. 2017 funds are reflected.

SOUND BITE OF PROJECT OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

This project continued MAISRC’s work to develop research-based solutions that can reduce the impacts of aquatic invasive species in Minnesota. Through this appropriation, MAISRC has supported 15 subprojects on many of Minnesota’s most important AIS, significantly advanced our scientific understanding and ability to manage AIS and engaged thousands of stakeholders and partners.

OVERALL PROJECT OUTCOME AND RESULTS

The Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center (MAISRC) continued to develop research-based solutions that can reduce the impacts of AIS in Minnesota and advance AIS knowledge among natural resources managers, the research community, and the public. In total, 15 subprojects were supported from this project – significantly advancing our scientific understanding and ability to manage AIS. New tools have been developed and knowledge gaps filled on many of Minnesota’s most important AIS, including zebra mussels, spiny water flea, bigheaded and common carps, and starry stonewort. The results of this work have been broadly disseminated via research reports, peer-reviewed manuscripts, fact sheets, white papers, news media, newsletters, social media, and direct stakeholder engagement through presentations, workshops/trainings, and public events. Highlights of project outcomes include identifying the highest risk methods of introduction and spread of spiny water flea and baitfish viruses, advancing innovative control tools for established AIS like zebra mussels and common carp, and defining the impact of AIS on ecosystems and sportfish populations. Throughout this project, MAISRC has continued to serve as a global leader in the field of AIS research and a go-to resource for managers, researchers, and members of the public.

This project also supported MAISRC’s work to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of a center-based research model. Progress in this area included an ongoing, comprehensive process for prioritizing research needs; stronger collaboration and coordination between researchers and managers; a competitive, peer-reviewed annual proposal competition; and increased communications and outreach capacity to help managers and community members translate research findings into on-the-ground management.

MAISRC continues to advance Minnesota’s resiliency and ability to address AIS issues facing our state through research, collaboration, and stakeholder engagement. This project will continue with Phase II and III appropriations awarded in 2019 and 2021.

PROJECT RESULTS USE AND DISSEMINATION

The MAISRC website has become a resource for AIS stakeholders across the state with an average of 40,000 users visiting the site each year. MAISRC and the AIS Detectors program also have active social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. MAISRC and AIS Detectors’ videos on YouTube, including webinars and project spotlights, have collected nearly 94,000 views, totaling an estimated 2,700 hours of watch time. MAISRC’s Twitter account has grown into a popular means of connecting researchers, legislators, community organizations and nonprofits, and other AIS stakeholders. Social media posts continue to disseminate research findings, highlight behind-the-scenes project activities, promote MAISRC events and AIS Detectors workshops, and share invasive species news. In addition, the MAISRC e-newsletter delivers in-depth stories about MAISRC research and management tools to more than 5,300 people and growing.

Biological control has been effectively implemented, which has led to increasing recoveries of parasitoids over time. Cold tolerance testing of Spathius galinae resulted in a forecasting model of survival in North America. The Buprestidae of Minnesota guide was created and provides baseline data on jewel beetles present in Minnesota.

We have successfully completed all activities. We are pleased to report that the effective implementation of EAB biocontrol has led to increasing recoveries of the larval parasitoid Tetrastichus planipennisi and the egg parasitoid Oobius agrili through time based on data analysis in Activity 2. We produced several peer-reviewed scientific publications (with full credit to LCCMR) on Activities 3 and 4. For Activity 3, we evaluated the cold hardiness of the larval parasitoid Spathius galinae and published a study forecasting its survival in North America (Wittman, Aukema, Duan, and Venette (2021) Forecasting overwintering mortality of Spathius galinae in North America. Biological Control. 160: 104694). The insect will survive best in areas where winter temperatures remain above -20 Fahrenheit. For Activity 4, we published two journal articles detailing a checklist of buprestids found in Minnesota (Hallinen, Steffens, Schultz, Aukema (2021) The Buprestidae (Coleoptera) of Minnesota, with a discussion of the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire. The Coleopterists Bulletin 75: 173-190) as well as a study on their habitat features (Hallinen, Wittman, Aukema (2020) Factors associated with diversity and distribution of buprestid prey captured by foraging Cerceris fumipennis (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) (Environmental Entomology 49: 1363-13763). These works provide critical information on what is here, now, so we have a basis of comparison for when a new invasive wood-boring beetle in the same family as emerald ash borer arrives in the future. We then published, from the scientific checklist, a free and accessible guide (The Buprestidae of Minnesota) that can be downloaded from permalink. This latter guide contains not only specimen photos but also maps of the distribution record and dates of last collection by decade. All four publications are submitted with this final report.

Throughout the duration of the project, results were disseminated through a variety of venues. A wide and diverse audience was reached through interviews with local press, informational webinars, outdoor training sessions held throughout the state, and at academic and natural resource professional conferences and meetings. Parasitoid release and recovery results from activity 1 and 2 can be viewed through an interactive online map. Through the work on activity 3 of this project, models have been created and published forecasting the expected overwintering mortality of the introduced larval parasitoid Spathius galinae. This information is of vital importance to the successful implementation of EAB biological control throughout North America (Wittman, Aukema, Duan, and Venette (2021) Forecasting overwintering mortality of Spathius galinae in North America. Biological Control. 160: 104694). Activity 4 of this project produced tremendously valuable baseline data on the buprestids found in Minnesota. Two journal articles were published detailing a checklist of buprestids found in Minnesota (Hallinen, Steffens, Schultz, Aukema (2021) The Buprestidae (Coleoptera) of Minnesota, with a discussion of the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire. The Coleopterists Bulletin 75: 173-190) as well as a study on their habitat features (Hallinen, Wittman, Aukema (2020) Factors associated with diversity and distribution of buprestid prey captured by foraging Cerceris fumipennis (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) (Environmental Entomology 49: 1363-13763). A free and accessible guide was created from these publications called The Buprestidae of Minnesota and can be downloaded from the permalink.

Over the past four years, this project tested new capture methods, learned locations where invasive carp are vulnerable to capture, and removed over 150 fish. Our goal in learning how best to remove invasive carp is to disrupt the potential for spawning that could lead to their establishment in Minnesota waters.

Invasive carp have caused severe ecological damage to the Illinois, Missouri, and lower Mississippi River ecosystems, and threaten to do the same if they become established in Minnesota. Increased monitoring by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resource (DNR), funded in part by ENRTF, has found invasive carp becoming more numerous and widespread in Minnesota in recent years. However, our mulit-year monitoring of larval fish has not documented any reproduction in Minnesota waters to date, indicating they are not yet established. ENRT funding has led to significant gains in our understanding of where, when and how to capture and remove these fish and disrupt their establishment.

An array of receivers used in tracking tagged fish has been instrumental in identifying movement patterns and season habitat preferences of invasive carp and native species. We are learning the seasonal use of invasive carp habitats, which has proven useful in removal and management efforts. Tracking of a radio-tagged invasive carp allowed us to know when and where to target removal efforts, and has directly led to the capture of six invasive carp. Applying what we have learned to places where we don’t have tagged fish, ENTRF funded staff conducted 364 days of field sampling, including over 139,000 feet of gill net deployed, over 7,300 minutes of electrofishing and over 134 days of monitored/contracted commercial fishing. This resulted in the removal of over 150 invasive carp during the grant period.

Our tracking tagged native fish assessing their habitat use through stable isotope analysis will be useful in the future to learn what effect invasive carp have on the native species.

MN DNR invasive carp staff have provided a yearly Invasive Carp Sampling Report in which all sampling data is shared for anyone to view. MN DNR invasive carp staff also shares data with other state and federal agencies as well as Universities. In addition, numerous news outlets have covered the work done by the invasive carp crew over the last four years. Those articles and news stories can be located by doing a quick google search of Invasive carp in Minnesota.

We developed a new, practical and largely automated technology for removing common carp during seasonal migrations with minimal human labor. The technology includes electric guidance systems to aggregate the carp and submersed conveyers to remove them. This system is ready for commercial applications to manage carp across Minnesota.

As a result of this project, we developed a new technology for managing the invasive common carp that is currently being commercialized by the University of Minnesota. The technology is easy to implement in various field conditions, requires minimum site engineering, and can be operated by a crew of two, which substantially reduces labor costs. This project started by testing whether the Whooshh system developed for migrating salmon might be adopted for common carp removal during spring migrations. Over the course of two field seasons we determined that the Whoosh technology is not easily adaptable for carp management because it requires that carp voluntarily swim into the Whooshh through a system of fish ladders, which proved problematic. However, we developed an alternative technology that appears to be effective and practical. Our technology is comprised of a low-voltage fish guidance system (available commercially) that guides the migrating carp into a large fenced in enclosure along the bank constructed using PVC pipes that slide into the stream bottom via horizontal support beams, a system of additional low-voltage electrodes placed inside the enclosure that can be activated as needed to crowd the carp and then briefly immobilize them, and a system of partially-submersed conveyers that collect the immobilized carp and carry them on land. All elements of this technology were rigorously tested over two field seasons using over a 1,000 carp marked with electronic micro-tags. The entire system was then successfully tested in summer 2019 and spring 2020. The technology appears to be ready for management implementations. In addition to its applications for managing common carp throughout Minnesota, the technology we developed might be also applicable for managing other invasive fish, including the bighead and the silver carp that are advancing up the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers.

The main results if a new technology for managing common carp described above. The technology is currently being commercialized by the University of Minnesota. In addition, our efforts to disseminate the results of this work include one manuscript published in peer-reviewed literature that described our early tests of the electric guidance system, another manuscript that describes the entire system and its performance during spring migrations of 2018 – 2020 that is currently in preparation, two TV interviews for local stations, three press articles including one in the New York Times, four regional or national conferences, four MAISRC presentations or publications.

To protect natural resources from the damaging impacts of invasive plants and improve the efficiency and efficacy of invasive plant management, we developed a plan that identified regional priorities for invasive plant management and provided interactive tools to communicate best practices.

A Tactical Invasive Management Plan was developed for 14 species to improve the coordination and efficacy of managing these species at state and local levels. This plan offers guidance to decision-makers for prioritizing invasive plant management activities. It is recognized that there are insufficient financial and personnel resources to control all invasive plant populations in Minnesota. The aim was to provide information in the form of invasive plant distribution modeling, prioritization maps based upon multiple criteria, identification and management timing guides, and tools for reporting invasive plants and tracking management activities. Decisions about which invasive plant infestations are controlled are made at all levels from federal to local, but the majority of decisions are made at the local level. We made these tools available by integrating them into MDA’s webpages for the selected species. The plan document is also available on the web and can be downloaded and printed.

Fourteen species were selected for assessment because they are designated noxious weeds in Minnesota and not considered early detection within the state but may be considered early detection at a regional or local level. The following species were selected: Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), common/European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), glossy buckthorn (Frangula alnus), Japanese (Polygonum cuspidatum) and Bohemian (Polygonum × bohemicum) knotweeds, leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula), multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), narrowleaf bittercress (Cardamine impatiens), plumeless thistle (Carduus acanthoides), purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe), and wild parsnip (Pastinaca sativa).

Training on this plan was provided to land managers. In person, regional workshops with a field tour were developed for this training scheduled for spring 2020. Sadly, the in-person workshops could not be held due to COVID 19. Instead, we developed an online course and held four, regional virtual workshops. The Tactical Invasive Management Plan online course was delivered to 146 individuals representing federal, state, county, municipal and tribal natural resource and agricultural agencies. Individuals also represented nonprofits, private companies, and academic institutions. The online course was approximately four hours in length and was organized into eight different online modules to facilitate learning. Five videos were recorded for the online course and are available as a YouTube playlist. The workshops were held on 06/09/20 for the southwest (25 participants), 06/10/20 for the northwest (47 participants), 06/11/20 for the southeast and greater metro (38 participants) and 06/11/20 for the northeast (25 participants).

We presented on topics related to this Tactical Plan at 3 field workshops, 2 field tours, 3 conference booths, 9 Noxious Weed Advisory Committee meetings, 6 County Agricultural Inspector meetings, 14 Cooperative Weed Management Area meetings and gave 38 presentations to a wide range of audiences.

Training to use this plan was provided to land managers. In person, regional workshops with a field tour were developed for this training scheduled for spring 2020. Sadly, the in-person workshops could not be held due to COVID 19. Instead, we developed an online course and held four, regional virtual workshops (135 participants). The Tactical Invasive Management Plan online course was delivered to 146 individuals representing federal, state, county, municipal and tribal natural resource and agricultural agencies. Individuals also represented nonprofits, private companies, and academic institutions. The online course was approximately four hours in length and was organized into eight different online modules to facilitate learning. Five videos were recorded for the online course and are available as a YouTube playlist.

A peer-reviewed journal article highlighting the distribution modeling work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports. This paper describes the model distribution process and integrates it with future climate scenarios. The paper was led by Jason Reinhardt and co-authors.

Project dissemination will continue long after the project completion date. Materials developed for this project and the plan document are available on MDA’s webpages. A draft of a peer-reviewed publication containing the multi-criteria decision results is complete and will be submitted. At the Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference (11/02/20 – 11/06/20), an interactive poster on ISMTrack and a talk on the ISMTrack app will be presented. A presentation on the finalized Tactical Plan will be given to MDA’s Noxious Weed Advisory Committee on 11/17/20.

Audubon Minnesota undertook a three-year hybrid-cattail management project at the Agassiz Valley Impoundment. The three-phase management approach increased the amount of open water available to birds and other wildlife. Vegetation measurements (NDVI) decreased in 78% of the plots and the total number of bird species seen or heard increased overtime.

The Agassiz Valley Impoundment, located near Warren, MN, is a 2,560-acre impoundment with a gated water storage area of 6,840 acre-feet that is managed by the Middle-Snake Tamarc-Rivers Watershed District (District). The primary purpose of this impoundment, like the many others across Minnesota, is for floodwater storage, however, they serve many other secondary functions including important wildlife habitat for migrating and breeding species. Due to their primary purpose, impoundments normally follow a hydrologic regime that includes water-level drawdown during the summer months to increase the impoundment’s holding capacity for the fall and following spring. This draw down cycle can stimulate the germination of emergent wetland species, especially the non-native hybrid cattail that can form dense monocultures which crowd out native species and degrade habitat quality. Audubon Minnesota and the District collaborated on a project to test the effectiveness of a cattail management regime and the corresponding bird use throughout the treatment cycle. From 2017-2020, Audubon used a three-phase management approach that included conservative herbicide application, structural biomass reduction, and water management in an attempt to control and reduce the hybrid cattail population. Furthermore, Audubon acquired high-resolution orthophotography in 2019 and 2020 from drone flights to further delineate cattail populations and to allow for precise treatment. From 2017 to 2019, the normalized vegetation difference index decreased in 78% of vegetation points within the treatment area, indicating that the management regime was effective in areas that were able to be inundated. Avian response showed promising results; species diversity initially declined the first year following mechanical treatment (2018) but rebounded in 2019 and 2020 with respective increases of 27% and 41% when compared to the pre-treatment numbers in 2017.

This management regime shows promise as a long-term strategy to improve the habitat quality of impoundments across Minnesota while still allowing them to serve their primary purpose of flood mitigation. Hybrid cattail reduction in impoundments benefits the longevity of the impoundment, and thus, the surrounding Minnesotans depending on it for floodwater mitigation.

Site documentation through photos occurred 2018-2020 during the growing season, especially concentrating on times with significant water level changes like spring flooding or coinciding with other management actions. A selection of those photos are included in the final report. Audubon Minnesota created a project webpage highlighting the work we are doing at the Agassiz Valley Impoundment. A summer update on progress was posted to the project webpage mid-June E-news updates about the project went out to over 25,000 Audubon Minnesota e-newsletter subscribers over the course of the project.

We have also posted updates about the project to Audubon’s social media platforms. Audubon has reached out to the Watershed District about adding a segment to the Agassiz Valley Impoundment Page about this project and they are open to it so we will continue to work on website additions to their webpage. Dissemination of the summary fact sheet on the project to area watershed districts is underway along with updates on the culmination of the project in our next e-newsletter and on social media. Our project webpage will also be updated with more photos and project summary information.

Recommendations and Ways to Improve Wildlife Habitat in Impoundments:

• A three-phased approach was most effective in treating and controlling hybrid cattail. The areas that experienced prolonged control were areas that could be inundated during prime cattail germination periods.
• Winter mowing was an effective method to reducing the standing dead cattail structure when fire is not an option.
• Follow up herbicide treatments are likely to be necessary if the area experiences a dry period during the growing season allowing hybrid cattail to germinate.
• Managing invasive non-native species and noxious weeds on the dikes through herbicide use or spot mowing allows delayed overall mowing or haying to occur to benefit ground nesting birds and reduce population sinks.
• Plan new impoundments with habitat management in mind.

We developed a novel solar particle receiver technology for absorbing, storing, and utilizing solar thermal energy. Extensive experiments utilizing innovative imaging techniques on laboratory apparatuses, assisted by state-of-the-art simulations on supercomputers, have been conducted. Valuable data have been collected for solar energy applications specifically for the sun conditions in Minnesota.

The objective of this project is to develop a novel solar particle receiver technology as a low-cost, high-efficiency way to absorb, store, and utilize solar thermal energy. Traditional concentrated solar thermal systems use mirrors to concentrate solar radiation. However, at Minnesota's latitudes the sun radiation is not sufficiently strong to achieve this goal with the standard type of solar thermal systems. Almost all solar energy installations in the state are photovoltaic (PV), but the PV systems require sophisticated materials for energy conversion and energy storage is more difficult than solar thermal systems.

In this project, we have conducted extensive experiments to study how to design, build, and test a prototype of solar particle receiver. Leveraging on laboratory apparatus that our team built, we measured the motions of solid particles in a duct to obtain valuable experiment data using advanced laser illumination and high-speed camera imaging technologies. A specialized solar particle solar receiver was constructed and calibrated, in which we have developed a three-dimensional riser with a controllable airflow and particle mass flow rate. We have also developed a predictive tool for the computation of the interactions between solar particles and air flows, which provided valuable data to reveal the flow physics and reduced the design cycle of solar particle receiver. Utilizing the above research approaches, we have performed extensive tests on the solar particle receiver prototype under various conditions that replicate the high temperatures, gas atmosphere, and heating rates involved in a concentrated solar facility. A laboratory scale solar receiver has been developed to study heat transfer in concentrating solar power systems. The research results obtained in this project greatly facilitate a meaningful transition from laboratory experiments to operations under concentrated solar radiation for solar energy applications particularly suitable for Minnesota's environment.

In this project, substantial efforts have been put into sharing the knowledge gained from the research. The research results were shared with the specialists in concentrated solar power generation at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the Department of Energy. The findings of this project were presented at the national conference of the American Physical Society for multiple years. A paper has been published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (“Velocity and spatial distribution of inertial particles in a turbulent channel flow” by Fong, Amili and Coletti, vol. 872, pp.367-406), which is a leading journal in the field.

Air pollutant concentrations cannot be assumed to be the same across all zip codes in the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. There are local differences observed and these can influence quality of life where one lives. Monitor placement is very important in being able to detect these differences in neighborhoods.

Understanding small-scale differences in air pollution in urban areas is important for minimizing exposure to harmful air pollutants, particularly for vulnerable communities. This project is using new air-monitoring sensor technology to broaden our knowledge about air quality in Minneapolis and St. Paul. A total of 47 AQMESH air monitors were installed in the study area. 10 of these were co-located with existing MPCA regulatory monitors in order to more closely evaluate the use of sensor technology for accuracy. 14 monitors were located on parking lot light poles, in St. Paul public schools. 23 monitors were placed on Xcel light poles in Minneapolis in residential areas. Pollutants monitored were CO, NO, NO2, SO2, O3, PM2.5 and PM10. Data was collected from June 2019 to June 2021. In addition to the overall goal of seeing small scale differences in urban neighborhoods, this project had 3 main goals:

• Are there significant differences in pollutant concentrations between ZIP codes in the urban core?
• Are there areas with unusually high pollutant concentrations?
• Is this technology suitable for measuring small differences in air quality?

To investigate the last question, data from collocated sensors was compared to the regulatory monitoring data and it was found that there is a reasonably moderate confidence in the sensor data as they compare to the regulatory grade monitors. A strong relationship was also found between the sensor pods themselves, indicating that these would be a good tool for highlighting the differences in pollutant concentrations across the study area.

To further investigate the first 2 questions, data collected from all the sensors for all zip codes was analyzed using R (v 1.4.1717). Data was divided by region into North Minneapolis, South Minneapolis and St. Paul, based on the sensor location. Basic data statistics were computed, pollutant level charts were plotted and a generalized additive model was applied to look for trends and differences across the entire study area.

The analysis showed that although minimal, there are indeed micro level differences that can be observed. A very clear seasonal pattern can be seen for CO and O3 concentrations across all regions. Local events like the wide spread fires in May/June 2020 and July 4th fireworks tend to slightly increase the particulate counts for a short period. Sensor placement is very important as it affects the measurements.

Residents can use this data to be more cognizant about activities that happen around them in their neighborhoods, especially on days with bad AQI, which adds more particulates into the air making it unhealthy, and make appropriate changes for a healthier lifestyle. In St. Paul, monitoring was done in school parking lots, making these results suitable for education purposes and to understand how idling cars and buses effects short term air quality. Results specific to outdoor activities coinciding with drop off and pick up times can be useful. Extensive monitoring along roadways was not part of this project but some monitors along busy roads did show higher NOx levels. Overall, the air quality in Minneapolis and St. Paul is good but depending on where you live and any preexisting health conditions, it may affect ones quality of life. This study can inform future monitoring projects, specific areas where traffic could be examined more closely and looking at other local neighborhood sources of pollution.

Over the past two years, various efforts were made to communicate results as and when they were analyzed. A project website was developed which is available on the MPCA’s website. A tableau workbook is available with all the monitoring sites and data for all the pollutants being monitored. These can be filtered by site, pollutant and dates if desired.

Six month quarterly updates were provided to the LCCMR. In fall of 2018, project presentations were made in Minneapolis and St. Paul to solicit feedback on monitor placement. In Fall/winter 2019-2020, one year study results were presented at several meetings in Minneapolis and St. Paul to give residents an overview of what the monitors were showing in their respective zip codes. These results were also presented to the Metropolitan Council and other stakeholders.

Presentations will be made to community groups, stakeholders and interested parties. Community concerns, comments and additional analysis done, will be incorporated in the final report and published on the MPCA project webpage.

The project benefited lakes and streams through the development of novel methods to reduce energy usage on farm and integrate cattle grazing and solar systems. We evaluated technology that that will reduce the carbon footprint through energy reduction from dairy farms in Minnesota that will improve environmental impact.

The work conducted at the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris was were to investigate electrical energy use on dairy farms located in west central Minnesota and to evaluate the effects of shade use by cattle from solar photovoltaic systems. Measurements of baseline fossil fuel consumption within dairy production systems are scarce. Therefore, there is a need to discern where and how fossil fuel-derived energy is being used within dairy production systems. Baseline energy use data collection is the first step in addressing the demand for a reduced carbon footprint within dairy production systems. Energy use on five Midwest dairy farms was evaluated from July 2018 to June 2021. Through in-depth monitoring of electricity-consuming processes, it was found that electricity use can differ quite drastically in different types of milking systems and farms. Electricity on an annual basis per cow ranged from 400 kWh/cow in a low-input and grazing farm to 1,145 kWh/cow in an automated milking farm. To reduce electrical energy consumption as well as reduce the effects of heat stress in pastured dairy cows, producers may investigate using an agrivoltaic system. Biological effects of internal body temperature, milk production, and respiration rates and behavioral effects of activity, rumination, fly avoidance behaviors, and standing and lying time of the solar shade were evaluated. Results of this agrivoltaic system suggested that grazing cattle that have access to shade had lower respiration rates and lower body temperatures compared to cattle that do not have access to shade. This project suggests that improvement in Minnesota waterways and environment may be achieved through reduced use of fossil energy through integrating livestock and solar energy production systems.

We have provided tours of the agrivoltaic system at the WCROC to legislators, farmers, and industry representatives. We have also hosted dairy field days and the Midwest Farm Energy Conference at the WCROC that have shown the results and solar system to the public as well. Over 10,000 people have viewed the solar system and have responded with favorable interest in the system. A graduate student on the project presented an abstract at the ADSA Meeting and Waste to Worth conference. So far, 3 peer reviewed papers have been published with more to follow. The WCROC website provides the results of the project and YouTube videos for promotion of the project. A presentation was made at the global Virtual AgriVoltaics conference in 2021. This applied dairy energy and agrivoltaics projects was the Master’s thesis of Kirsten Sharpe in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Minnesota and she defended her thesis in 2020.

The scope of this project was to install a biomass heating plant that would service seven buildings, including mechanical and distribution systems. We received an architect estimate and the base cost for the project in total was $7,122,035.

Back Ground: The scope of this project was to install a biomass heating plant that would service seven buildings, including mechanical and distribution systems. We received an architect estimate and the base cost for the project in total was $7,122,035.

Issue: Due to project estimates (steel and metal prices,Piping, and lumber prices, etc.), we reduced the scale of the project to just the biomass heating plant and underground piping and connections to two facilities, and that bid estimate came in at $4,407,008.

The National Guard Bureau and DMA leadership requested that we reassess the Life Cycle Cost Analysis numbers on this project. The Savings-to-Investment Ratio (SIR) changed from 2.31 during the planning phase to 0.32,largely due to the cost of construction and the reduction in buildings being included. Since there were only $2.5 million available from federal sources and $1 million in state LCCMR funds, we legally can no longer implement this project because it would have crossed budget thresholds. Only the design of the biomass facility has been completed.

• The funds spent for the Biomass project enabled the MNARNG to design a 5,000,000-BTU centralized biomass boiler system that was intended to heat two buildings on Camp Ripley. The design process started with seven buildings, but due to increases in material costs we had to decrease the scope to only two buildings. The design is complete and on the shelf and available to others.
• No information or the project design has been disseminated.

This project demonstrated that energy efficiency can be used to reliably offset utility infrastructure expansion, thereby saving money and decreasing the amount of air pollutants from Minnesota’s electricity generation.

This pilot project demonstrated that energy efficiency and demand response are cost-effective tools to increase the use of clean electricity technologies while reliably deferring investments in grid expansion. While Minnesota has relatively low distribution grid expenditures today, peak demand is predicted to increase due to population growth, electrification of end uses like transportation and space heating, and warmer temperatures. This pilot demonstrated that adopting longer time horizons and multiple scenarios for planning forecasts will allow distribution planners to integrate non-wires alternatives, therefore saving money and advancing clean energy throughout the state.

This pilot successfully saved 576 kW of peak electricity across two small communities, higher than the pilot goal of 500 kW. This was the result of enhanced incentives, increased and geotargeted marketing, as well as a higher than average baseline participation in commercial lighting programs. Participation was also boosted by smart thermostat incentives which were available upon enrollment in a demand management program. The pilot cost (incentives + direct labor) came to $163,000, within the estimated value of a one-year deferral.

Minnesota has a modest technical potential for non-wires alternatives, but this is expected to increase. With current growth forecasts and distribution system expenditures, we calculated a low to modest potential for non-wires alternatives in Minnesota, estimated at between one and four million dollars per year. This will save between 4,000 and 17,000 tons of carbon per year, or the equivalent of the annual pollution caused by 800-6,000 passenger vehicles.

Additional information is included in the final technical report for this project on the CEE website.

This pilot is summarized in a technical report and project summary document that outlines the process, major findings, and recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders. Results have been included in policy processes at the Public Utilities Commission to help inform regulatory decisions. Pilot outcomes have been presented at multiple conferences of industry professionals and to Minnesota utilities.

This research shows that, from a nutritional perspective, Minnesota roadsides are promising habitat for native bees and monarchs. To minimize the negative effects of roadside pollutants on insect pollinators, managers should prioritize low- to moderate-traffic roads for restoration, mow a buffer strip, and support efforts to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos.

Insect pollinators have suffered steep declines over the last two decades. Roadsides are a promising opportunity for pollinator conservation, potentially providing millions of acres of habitat, and acting as dispersal corridors. However, roadside habitat also contains pollutants such as heavy metals from car wear and past leaded gasoline use, sodium from road salt application, and pesticides from adjacent agriculture. In this research, we combined surveys of roadsides across Minnesota, with controlled lab and field experiments, to test how such roadside pollution impacts insect pollinators, and implications for restoring roadside habitat for monarch butterflies and native bees. Our results suggest that plants alongside the majority of Minnesota roadsides have sodium and metal content below which is worrisome to bees and monarchs. However, plants along very high traffic roads, especially those right next to the road, likely have negative effects on pollinator health. Our data also suggest that pesticides may be a significant concern for 5-10% of roadside plants. This research suggests roadside restoration efforts should focus on roads with low to moderate traffic volumes (<20K cars daily) and that mowing a buffer on the road edge should eliminate the most toxic plants. Recent national efforts to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos would also be beneficial for Minnesota roadsides as this was the most commonly detected insecticide. Finally, this research suggests benefits to planting a diversity of roadside plants as species accumulate different toxins to different degrees, although on higher traffic roads, managers may want to avoid a handful of high accumulating species (e.g., yellow coneflower). Overall, from a nutritional perspective, Minnesota roadsides are promising habitat for insect pollinators, for instance, potentially producing 14M migratory monarchs annually. Future work should consider management methods that may minimize vehicle collisions, as currently pollinator mortality from collisions likely far exceeds that from plant toxicity.

This project directly led to six publications in print and twelve in progress. Data are publically available on either DRYAD or Mendeley. This work was presented in over 25 seminars, conference presentations, and webinars presented locally, nationally and internationally. The conclusions of the work are available in online talks, such as the Cedar Creek "Lunch with a Scientist" series and the Rights-of-Way working group research series on pollinator habitat. This research will be featured in a popular science book on road ecology and resulting management recommendations shared as a brief report to relevant agencies later this year.

All objectives on integrated pest management (IPM) and cultural methods for conserving beneficial insects were completed. The insecticide chlorantraniliprole was toxic to butterflies and cannot be used near butterfly habitat but is safe for bees. Pesticide residue was highest on wildflowers near potato fields and demonstrates the need for buffer strips. Download outreach/research products.

Research investigated the best insecticides to conserve beneficial insects that can be used in green space. The new bee friendly insecticide chlorotraniliprole was highly toxic to butterflies and should not be used near butterfly habitat. Chlorotraniliprole did not kill bumblebees at 4 ppm, however Monarch butterfly larvae were killed at 0.2 ppm, while Painted lady butterfly larvae were killed at 0.03 ppm and adults were killed at 0.05 ppm chlorotraniliprole. This new and highly popular bee friendly insecticide is not butterfly friendly.

In contrast, the neonicotinoid insecticide chlothianidin that was commonly used as a seed treatment and foliar applied insecticide in agriculture, is highly toxic to bees, but not butterflies. Monarch butterfly larvae were killed at 4 ppm clothianidin, while Painted lady butterflies were killed at 96 ppm clothianidin, and adults were killed at 13 ppm clothianidin. At 20 ppb clothianidin bumblebees colonies had reduced nest weight and brood production. Bumblebees are more sensitive to the neonicotinoid clothianidin (40 ppb lethal dose, 20 ppb sublethal dose) compared to two species of butterfly (4, 96 ppm lethal dose).

Pesticide residue on wildflowers near potato fields showed that 100% of 36 samples tested contained at least 2 and up to 15 different pesticides. Research on pesticide residue on flowers near corn fields showed that of 40% of 32 samples tested contained only 1 pesticide and it was atrazine. Pesticide residue was highest on wildflowers near potatoes and demonstrates the need for buffer strips.

Beetle banks are 4 ft piles of mulch that were created at 3 park sites in Washington County. At a citizen science field day, beetle banks were found to a mean of 131 insects compared to control plots with 1 insect. Research on reed nests as habitat for native stem nesting bees showed that there were 236 occupied reeds or 95% of the nests were occupied. Both beetle banks and stem nests increased insect abundance and are cultural methods to increase insect numbers.

The grant produced 8 new outreach bulletins, 1 new poster, and research results which are presented at a new website. These outreach bulletins are attached to the work plan.

Our lab has provided 4 workshops per year and 28 talks per year to professionals and consumers on issues related to the grant’s research. The bulletins, poster, and research summaries were handed out at outreach events. After 2020 we will continue to use these bulletins at outreach events to educate consumers on IPM programs to protect bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects, such as the parasitoids of the emerald ash borer.

Oak savanna is Minnesota's most threatened ecosystem, but effective approaches for protecting and restoring savannas remain elusive. Our project reintroduced bison to one of Minnesota's largest remaining oak savannas. We found that bison grazing helped increase oak regeneration and stimulated plant productivity, providing a promising new strategy for savanna conservation.

Oak savanna is Minnesota's most threatened ecosystem, but effective approaches for protecting and restoring savannas remain elusive and prescribed fire, alone, is not maintaining oak savannas. Fire helps old oaks with thick bark that can survive its intense heat, in part by preventing other trees from growing and shading the oaks. However, fire also kills young oak seedlings, which prevents oak trees from regenerating. Thus, fire is a necessary, but insufficient strategy for maintaining oak savannnas. We tested whether bison are essential for savanna preservation and restoration. Bison preferentially graze the most abundant native prairie grasses, which compete with young oaks and supply fuel for fires that kills them. Our project achieved the following outcomes: (1) discover better restoration and preservation practices for savanna remnants; (2) determine how these practices impact the full range of savanna biodiversity; and (3) educate Minnesotans about the ecological heritage of their state, including the roles that bison, fire and biodiversity play in the functioning of savannas and other Minnesota ecosystems. Specifically, we restored seasonal bison grazing to more than 200 acres of oak savanna, experimentally tested savannna restoration using bison grazing by establishing experimental plots and planting 660 oak seedlings, and disseminated results to more than 19,000 members of the public, in part by establishing a bison viewing gazebo. For many years to come, bison will continue to graze in these oak savannnas, their impacts will continue to be assessed in experimental plots, and the public will continue to benefit from site access and programming. Our project has already attracted additional funding from the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research Program, which will allow it to continue long after the initial support from the ENRTF. Our data are being disseminated through Cedar Creek's website and the National Science Foundation's Environmental Data Initiative.

We have provided engagement opportunities for more than 19,000 visitors, including 2,172 K-12 students who attended field trips or online programs specifically about this research. The new bison gazebo has provided opportunities for a corps of 25 “bison naturalist” volunteers, spurred the creation of new educational resources including a savanna-themed feltboard and brochures, hosted open house events and tours, led to the design and construction of two new interpretive signs, and expanded the range of self-guided options for our community.

This project restored approximately 520 acres of prairie/pollinator habitat in eight state parks where it will be permanently managed and protected. Additionally, educational pollinator plantings ranging in size from tenths of an acre to more than an acre were installed with engaging multi-sensory ADA-accessible interpretive exhibits at ten state parks.

Many species of pollinators are declining due primarily to habitat loss/degradation, diseases and parasites and pesticide exposure. This project focused on restoring 584 (520 originally planned) acres of prairie/pollinator habitat in eight state parks where it will be permanently managed and protected. Additionally, this project helped raise awareness about pollinators by establishing educational pollinator plantings from tenths of an acre to more than one acre in size with engaging multi-sensory ADA-accessible interpretive exhibits at 10 state parks.

Sites selected for habitat restorations were all within core areas identified in the Minnesota Prairie Conservation Plan. The sites themselves were former agricultural fields in state parks that contained non-native and invasive species. Site preparation included activities such as prescribed fire, control of invasive/problem species, woody stem removal, and disking. At Lake Bronson and Glacial Lakes State Parks, removal of encroached woody vegetation was the primary need to restore pollinator habitat through shearing/timber harvest. Following planting, sites were high mowed, spot treated for invasives and inter-seeded to ensure successful restorations. These sites will provide habitat for many species of pollinators such as bees, moths, and butterflies. For example, a recent study of prairie restorations at Glendalough State Park found more than 25 species of butterflies utilizing the restorations, including the Regal Fritillary, a Minnesota Special Concern Species. This project will also assist in meeting the goals of the Mid-America Monarch Conservation Strategy.

Educational pollinator plantings and exhibits were installed at 10 state parks within all but the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province. Interpretive exhibits were designed and constructed in cooperation with an exhibit contractor. Where needed educational plantings were established similar to the steps above albeit on a much smaller scale. Annual visitation at these 10 parks combined totals over three million visits annually.

• Educational pollinator plantings and exhibits provide an opportunity for millions of visitors annually to learn more about pollinators and the plant species which attract them. Attendance at these 10 parks combined is over three million visitors per year. The exhibits are regularly used by thousands of visitors per week based on park attendance and staff reports.
• The exhibit design was entered in the National Association of Interpretive Naturalists 2021 Media Awards competition and earned first place in the Outdoor Exhibits category. The award presentation was broadcast to over 800 interpretive professionals in December of 2021
• In summers of 2020 and 2021 this project was highlighted on the DNR Parks and Trails social media platforms as part of a monthly theme on butterflies. The 2021 campaign reached 33K Twitter followers and 151K Facebook followers.

The main goal of this project was to create easily accessible information on wave energy to enable successful habitat restoration projects and increase natural fish reproduction in Minnesota lakes. We created maps, in GIS format, of wave height and energy statistics for 457 lakes in Minnesota.

There are many ways in which healthy near-shore habitat and water quality in lakes is linked to wind and wave energy. Examples include walleye spawning habitat on nearshore gravel substrates, the distribution of submersed aquatic plants, sediment resuspension by wave action, and shoreline erosion. Successful lake habitat restoration requires good information on wind and wave energy, and this information is commonly not available. The main goal of this project was to create easily accessible information on lake wave energy to enable successful habitat restoration projects and increase natural fish reproduction in Minnesota lakes. The project partnered the University of Minnesota with the MN DNR and included field measurements of wind and wave height on four lakes ranging in size from 350 to 5000 acres, wave modeling work to map typical wave energy on the shorelines of 457 Minnesota lakes, and experimental work in a wave flume to better understand how nearshore sediment responds to wave energy in lakes. A major part of the project was to develop models for wave height and energy that consider wind sheltering by trees, so that wave height predictions could be made for smaller lakes with fetches of a kilometer or less. The wave maps created by this study can be used by state agencies and lake associations to plan lake shoreline management, including habitat restoration projects, aquatic plant management, and shoreline erosion control.

Electronic maps of wave height and energy created in this project will be uploaded to the Data Repository for University of Minnesota (DRUM), and details of the project will be published in a St. Anthony Falls Lab project report to document the methodologies used. The project PI gave a talk on the project at a conference on Sentinel lakes in March 2019 in Alexandria, MN, and is giving a poster presentation at the 2021 Minnesota Water Resources Conference.

MnDOT's fire program has grown exponentially since this funding was secured. All fire crews have gained extensive experience and have gained a lot of confidence on how and when fire should safely be used. The number of areas and districts in which fire occurs on MnDOT property has increased throughout this project. Within the next 5 years MnDOT will be conducting prescribed fire in 6 of its 8 districts around the state.

MnDOT fire program took major steps forward with this funding and has secured a self-sustaining fire program. Prior to this funding DOT completed less than 5 burns a year, in the 3 years of this program DOT completed 78 burns that totaled 142 miles of ROW burned totaling 1,600 acres of Mn and US highway ROW burned statewide. Even with one years of no burning allowed due to COVID 19, we surpassed our goals of this project and doubled our acres completed. DOT’s current burn program has changed how native planting will be installed in the future, by being able to help maintain them for long lasting success. More Roadside Rest Areas around the state will be planted with native vegetation, to help increase pollinator habitat and reduce maintenance cost associated with turf grass. Six MnDOT staff have received fire training on becoming burn bosses, with one person finishing all training and task books required. With additional staff able to complete burns, MnDOT’s fire program will continue to grow and expand.

A Master Partnership Agreement was drafted, completed, and currently in place which allows MnDOT to assist the MnDNR on all aspects of wildfire suppression and prescribed fire operations, this agreement includes funding for direct payment between the two state agencies. With MnDOT assisting the DNR in wildfire suppression, it is our hope that we will reduce the number of resources needed from other state agencies and contractors.

This project’s goal was to enhance and study 800 acres of permanently protected habitat by converting low diversity grassland areas to high diversity native grasses and wildflowers. The result of our efforts was the successful enhancement of 1,949.69 acres of habitat to benefit pollinators and other wildlife.

Grassland habitat loss and fragmentation continue to be the major factor in the decline of monarchs, other pollinators and grassland wildlife. While we have restored hundreds of thousands of acres of grasslands, our early restorations rarely considered the needs of pollinators, the value of milkweed species to the monarch, or the vegetative structural and species diversity required by many species.

This project sought to address the loss of habitat essential to pollinators by enhancing 800 acres of low diversity grasslands on permanently protected lands. These enhancements were monitored in collaboration with the University of Minnesota (UofM) to, inform practitioners of best practices and provide a path to future habitat enhancements for native pollinators.

Enhancement projects were solicited by Pheasants Forever (PF) and project partners through a sign‐up period via an RFP sent to SWCD’s and other private land partners in the agricultural region of Minnesota. Application were ranked and funded based on potential benefit to the program. Private contractors were hired by PF to complete enhancement work on 1949.69 acres. After enhancement work was completed researchers from the UofM monitored the sites to measure usage by pollinator species as well as measure native plant growth.

Pollinators are extremely important to the production of foods and other products that Minnesotans utilize, as well as other ecosystem services. Whether through funding or policy, the decline of pollinators suggests the need to put a greater emphasis on the protection, restoration, and management of their habitats. Once results are analyzed, the research conducted by the UofM will help improve our best management practices in pollinator habitat restoration and enhancement.

The enhancement activities completed by this project did not result in the creation of any new tools or documents. Projects were occasionally highlighted in field tours, or via social media posts. The field research conducted by the UofM is now complete, but data analysis and results have yet to be finalized or published. Once complete, this data will be available to the public and should inform practitioners about improved methods for restoring and enhancing pollinator habitat.

Friends of the Mississippi River increased and improved 133 acres of habitat at 6 sites along the Mississippi and Vermillion River corridors, linking existing nodes of high biodiversity. The project restored and enhanced prairie, savanna and forest habitat along the river corridors with a focus on increasing habitat for pollinators.

Through this project, Friends of the Mississippi River will increase and improve 82 acres of habitat at 7 sites along the Mississippi and Vermillion River corridors. Habitat fragmentation and degradation from non-native species, diseases and other causes threaten Minnesota’s rich natural heritage. This situation will be exacerbated as the state’s climate continues to change. A system of interconnected natural areas can help to lessen these impacts by providing both habitat and the ability for native species to move on the landscape in response to these changes. This is the goal of the Metro Conservation Corridors partnership and of this proposal. The projects on our list are all along the Mississippi and Vermillion Rivers, natural corridors that link the existing nodes of high biodiversity.

The overarching goal for this project is to restore and enhance prairie, savanna, and forest habitat along these river corridors. While these projects will improve habitat for a variety of species, FMR will specifically focus on increasing habitat for our diminishing pollinators. We will seed and install a diversity of host and nectar plants. The restoration activities, presented in existing natural resource management plans, include exotic invasive plant removal, soil preparation, spraying, seeding, mowing, plant installation and burning. To help reduce costs and to increase the educational outcomes, FMR will organize volunteer stewardship events to accomplish some of the restoration activities at some of these sites. These restoration activities will have multiple benefits. An important outcome will be to improve or increase habitat for native pollinators by increasing host and nectar plants. Seed mixes will exceed the Minnesota Board of Soil and Water guidelines, with many additional pollinator plant blooms in all seasons. Restoration activities at these sites will provide water quality benefits by installing deep-rooted prairie/savanna plants that help reduce erosion and sediment & chemicals from entering the rivers. Being within the Metro area, these sites provide examples of diverse native habitat for area residents to enjoy and learn about. A final goal of this project is to work with Metro Conservation Corridors partners to develop a more uniform restoration monitoring and evaluation protocol that also allows the data to be shared. Each of the specific sites in this project is in public ownership and have natural resource management plans in place to guide the habitat restoration and management activities and are on file at FMR. The Conservation Corps of Minnesota is on our contractor contact list and receive notice for all restoration Request for Proposals that we prepare and distribute.

FMR will conduct an evaluation for each of site upon completion of these grant-funded restoration activities and three years later. These evaluations will analyze how the activities achieved the goals for the project, present any unforeseen issues that impacted the achievement of those goals and lessons learned from the project.

FMR promoted and disseminated information about this project through earned media, FMR’s website (www.FMR.org), electronic & printed newsletters, and volunteer stewardship events. FMR has acknowledged ENRTF in all publications and events that refer to these projects. FMR will work with landowners to erect signage where ENRTF grant funds were spent.

To protect Minnesota’s natural heritage, Greening restored and enhanced 310 ecologically significant acres in priority metro areas and engaged volunteers in a suite of activities to address the need for long-term management of projects. Greening disseminated results for the layperson through electronic channels and to professionals through a published paper.

We reached 123% of our acreage goals, restoring and enhancing 310 acres of significant ecological habitat, compared to the 252 acres anticipated. The 12 restoration and enhancement sites were selected based on ecological significance and potential for improvement. Restoration and enhancement improvements were made on prairie, forest, and wetland communities including habitat for rare species, within the mapped Metro Conservation Corridors.

We successfully engaged 468 volunteers in hands-on restoration, and 5 known observers via iNaturalist app for a combined total of 473 contacts. Reaching this number was a challenge we met, as during the second half of this appropriation, we had to significantly and rapidly modify our community outreach and event models in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to safely engage our volunteers throughout 2020 and 2021. We were successful in our community engagement events with staggered start time, multi-shift days with smaller pods of volunteers, and strict safety guidelines in place. Furthermore, we also piloted independent volunteer outings utilizing the iNaturalist platform, allowing volunteers to explore project parcels and record their observations independently. These observations provided very useful data (e.g. benchmarking progress and identifying patches of exotic species) while engaging volunteers in a novel way.

To help address the need for innovative methods for long term maintenance, we also offered two additional levels of volunteer engagement beyond field volunteer and started using a digitized restoration evaluation for more standard, shareable data. The ‘site monitor’ level of engagement was successful, but the ‘site steward’ level of engagement was challenging due to a combination of the pandemic, and the effort needed to get landowners, GRG, and volunteers comfortable with making independent enhancement decisions.

Greening highlighted projects over a suite of social media (twitter, Facebook), website, and external media. Examples from the final months of the appropriation include: May 2021 feature on our work at Inspiration easement; Oheyawahe/Pilot Knob Hill site highlighted during a March 2021 segment on KARE 11, then shared in Greening channels; the Blaine Wetland Sanctuary enhancement featured in our June 2021 Greening channels.

A peer-reviewed paper on the pollinator response to conservation haying and burning treatments at Six Mile Marsh authored by members of each stakeholder organization has recently been accepted for publication in 2021.

This project showcased opportunities available for farmers and landowners to implement profitable conservation practices on lands otherwise providing a negative return. Through this new approach to conservation delivery, we were able to put 1,216 acres of conservation on the landscape, providing multiple benefits to Minnesota’s natural resources and economy.

With recent advancements of real-time yield monitoring, it has been demonstrated that, on many farms, 3-15% of cropped acres cost money to farm (revenue negative acres). By applying the current cutting-edge precision technology and focusing on return on investment (ROI) to deliver conservation, we worked with farmers to identify areas that make sense for them to apply conservation practices in a practical and profitable way. This new approach to conservation delivery, focused on revenue negative acres, provided insight to the consideration of profitable conservation practices, reasons for conservation adoption, and the delivery of conservation acres that otherwise would’ve continued to be in traditional crop production. In addition, this project demonstrated a high level of cooperation and coordination between agriculture and conservation.

By looking at the entire operation, at the enterprise level, current technology allows for acre-by-acre analysis to develop conservation solutions on acres that otherwise yield a negative return. This project worked directly with 72 farmers to analyze 45,214 acres and look for conservation solutions on 5,382 acres that are low yielding in comparison to the rest of the field or operation. Our findings show that of the analyzed acres, 12% of the acres fell below break-even yield, which is in the range of 3-15% revenue negative acres demonstrated by previous research (E Brand et al 2016). With the analysis and available program opportunities this project was able to meet farmer objectives while increasing profitability through conservation on 1,216 acres. These are acres that otherwise didn’t receive consideration for conservation practices. While not all identified acres received immediate change, the overall conversation and influence of this project, opened the door for continued conservation consideration and future conservation adoption. The practices implemented provide direct benefit to Minnesotans through increased soil health, water quality, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and other natural resources.

This project resulted in the hiring of a precision ag & conservation specialist to work with farmers, landowners, trusted advisors and demonstrate the use of precision agriculture technology to deliver conservation on the landscape. This project helped launch the addition of multiple staff in additional states to both implement and influence conservation on the landscape. This project hosted or was a part of 66 different outreach event impacting 3,608 attendees. Outreach consisted of online webinars, attendance at tradeshows (such as the MN Ag Expo and FarmFest) along with varying presentations and meetings geared towards ag professionals, conservation professionals, and farmers/landowners.

This project assisted farmers and landowners on environmentally sensitives lands by enrolling in the MN CREP program. Through this project, locally trusted staff in 49 counties were able to promote the MN CREP program and assist landowners in permanently protecting 29,350 acres.

MN Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) is a partnership between the federal Conservation Reserve Program) administered by United States Department of Agriculture - Farm Service Agency and the Reinvest in Minnesota program administered by the Board of Water, Soil Resources (BWSR). The program will benefit water quality (nutrient and sediment load reductions) and wildlife habitat in environmentally sensitive areas in 54 counties through three key conservation practices: riparian buffers, wetlands, and wellhead protection for drinking water.

BWSR awarded grant funds for MN CREP Outreach and Implementation to Minnesota Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs). The MN CREP Outreach and Implementation grants accelerated staff capacity to deliver the MN CREP by providing technical assistance. To be eligible, each SWCD needed to be located within the 54 county MN CREP area. All grantees were required to report quarterly on the outcomes, activities, and accomplishments via an invoice to receive reimbursement. These locally trusted individuals worked with landowners through the process of what conservation is best for their land. Conservations were had or outreach materials were provided to 18,776 landowners regarding the MN CREP program. Staff working under this project enrolled 29,350.86 acres into MN CREP on 574 contracts: nine are wellhead protection practices, 108 are filter strip practices, 150 are wetland restoration within the floodplain, and 311 are wetland restorations. These permanently protected acres will provide many water quality and wildlife habitat values.

The critical local support and landowners assisted through this project were an important part of the overall state contribution that enabled RIM to protect tens of thousands of new acres for water quality and wildlife habitat on private lands.

The MN Conservation Lands Summary was updated each summer of the project period, capturing MN CREP contracts and acres enrolled by locally trusted staff funded through this project. The updated Conservation Lands Summary was posted each August. Historical Conservation Lands Summary reports can be requested via email.

MN CREP is a federal/state partnership to improve water quality and provide habitat in 54 counties in southern and western Minnesota by establishing buffers, restoring wetlands, and protecting groundwater resources. This $13.5 million ENRTF project leveraged $16.5 million from USDA to restore and protect over 3,900 acres on 74 easements.

Minnesota Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (MN CREP) is a federal and state partnership to improve water quality and provide habitat in 54 counties in southern and western Minnesota by establishing buffers, restoring wetlands, and protecting groundwater resources. The primary objectives of CREP were to reduce phosphorus by 19,200 pounds per year, nitrogen by 1,220,000 pounds per year, and sediment runoff by 123,000 tons per year.

The program also reduces hydrological impacts to surface waters and increases infiltration for groundwater recharge. An expansion of wetland and prairie habitat availability through this program alleviates pressure on those species that are most sensitive to habitat changes occurring on the landscape. The MN CREP agreement has a 60,000-acre maximum protection goal in areas of Minnesota facing significant water quality challenges to protect and improve our natural resources for future generations.

MN CREP is designed to help improve water quality and provide habitat by establishing and maintaining buffers of permanent vegetation between eligible waterbodies and adjacent agricultural cropland, restoring and maintaining wetlands, establishing permanent vegetative cover in wellhead protection areas, and establishing beneficial terrestrial and aquatic habitat. Reinvest In Minnesota (RIM) permanent conservation easements are secured in combination with a 15-year federal CRP contract to provide permanent protection for important natural resource benefits. This $13.5 million ENRTF project has leveraged $16.5 million from USDA to restore and protect over 3,900 acres on 74 easements. To date, CREP has enrolled 36,000 acres with the last state contribution to the agreement being secured during the 2023 legislative session.

Over the life of the project, outreach and dissemination efforts included:

• disseminated CREP information and updates to local staff implementing CREP;
• presented CREP updates at multiple trainings;
• had an outreach booth at National Pheasant Fest on 2 occasions;
• produced CREP radio ads;
• submitted quarterly and annual reports to FSA; and
• Collaborated with local staff and landowners to creat multiple articles highlighting CREP easements Some stories also incorporated video links to additional information. Articles were available for local use as well. One of the most recent stories includes two easements granted from the same landowner where one of the easements was funded from this appropriation. The story also covers the LCCMR outreach funding.

The Metropolitan Council along with Washington County and Carver County acquired 12 parcels to increase recreational opportunities for the Regional Parks System. These critical acquisitions protected over three miles of Minnesota River and St. Croix River shoreline and 192 acres of high-quality natural resource land in Washington and Carver Counties.

The Metropolitan Council works with the Regional Park Implementing Agencies to protect critical lands and provide recreational opportunities for the Regional Parks System. This $1,436,000 ENRTF project was matched with $1.7 million in Council funds and Agency funds to purchase 14 parcels for the Regional Parks System.

Washington County acquired a 102-acre property for St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park with funding from this and a previous appropriation. The property contains critical habitats including hardwoods, mixed forest, open meadow, and 3,800 feet of St. Croix River shoreline. With the addition of this 102-acre parcel, the park now protects 5,000 contiguous feet of shoreline. Carver County acquired 13 parcels for the Minnesota River Bluffs Regional Trail, protecting 90 acres of natural resources and 3 miles of regional trail, much of it along the Minnesota River corridor.

Acquiring these properties permanently protects critical natural resources while providing additional recreational opportunities for the region. All properties funded are inholdings or parcels that are included in master plan-approved park boundaries. The Regional Park Implementing Agencies work only with willing landowners when acquiring lands with ENRTF, and they focus on acquiring lands with high natural resources and habitat value that are at risk of being developed.

Articles were released both after the grant was awarded and after the Rowe parcel was purchased for Washington County’s St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park, including an article in the Pioneer Press on June 11, 2019. Carver County celebrated the opening of their rebuilt portion of the Minnesota River Bluffs Regional Trail on July 13, 2021 with a public celebration. Several news releases were published, including the SW News Media and on Carver County’s website. The Council also issued news releases after each grant was awarded. The Agencies include the ENRTF sign when they install visitor signs. In addition, the Metropolitan Council and the Agencies acknowledge ENRTF for any media releases about the acquisitions.

Volunteers, staff, and contractors with Minnesota DNR completed enhancement and improvement activities on almost two-thousand acres of quality habitat on 75 of Minnesota’s SNAs. A 10-acre wetland acquisition was added to Hastings SNA. Many thousands more people learned about, visited, or helped steward an SNA thanks to this funding.

Minnesota’s Scientific and Natural Areas (SNAs) are public lands representing the state’s best hope for protecting rare features and averting biodiversity loss. This appropriation strengthened the “science” in SNA through monitoring-based habitat enhancement, citizen-science action and outreach, and strategic acquisition to protect additional high-quality natural lands. Over 1,930 acres across 75 SNAs were treated for terrestrial invasive species, received much-needed prescribed disturbance (e.g., prescribed fire, haying, etc.) or received other site improvement work, to maintain the overall quality of natural habitats for the rare and unique species that call these lands home. Such habitat work was guided by monitoring and site-assessment efforts taken on by staff as well as by volunteers: at least 190 SNA stewardship or interpretive events were held with an estimated attendance of nearly 6,000 participant volunteers donating thousands of hours to the educational, citizen-science, and stewardship aims of the SNA Program, led in part by the network of long-term volunteer Site Stewards serving at almost all SNAs by caring for the land and reporting observations. Online users observed upgrades to each SNA’s webpage with improved interpretive narrative and consistent, unified themes; likewise, enhanced SNA social media presence and content have dramatically ramped up followers, subscribers, and forum membership numbers since this funding began, extending the reach and audience of the SNA Program on a variety of platforms to enhance public support for conservation. The project permanently protected a new tract consisting of 10 acres of high-quality wetland as an addition to Hastings SNA near the confluence of the Vermillion and Mississippi Rivers, important for water quality and for many special-concern and migratory bird species in the Mississippi flyway. Through this appropriation’s support for programmatic acquisition work, around ten other SNA acquisition projects were recruited and developed, though several of these have proceeded instead on alternative funding.

The SNA website is updated regularly, e.g., with improved species lists from monitoring efforts or for new or expanded SNAs, and with a frequently updated events calendar now also appearing in the “LCCMR Updates” e-newsletters. The 46th (Summer 2022) issue of the SNA Nature Notes e-newsletter was delivered to 10,790 subscribers (more than double since this appropriation began). The SNA Facebook channel now has ~9.1K followers, and the SNA Program contributes twice-monthly content to the DNR Instagram channel. The Minnesota SNAs Flickr group has 108 members currently sharing over 1,500 high-quality photos of the beauty and diversity of Minnesota’s SNAs.

Acquisition of Minnesota State Park and State Trail land provides permanent, effective and consolidated protection and management of pristine natural areas representative of diverse landscapes throughout the entire state of Minnesota for perpetual enjoyment by State Park and Trail users.

Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund funding resulted in the Department of Natural Resources acquiring approximately 373 acres of land within the statutory boundaries of four Minnesota State Parks.

• Acquired 80 acres in Maplewood State Park. This acquisition is located within the southeast portion of the state park, which contains a large contiguous tract of maple basswood hardwood forest over a rolling topography. This forest is similar to what is known to exist at the time of European settlement of the area. This undisturbed/undeveloped forest is important nesting habitat for neo-tropical forest songbirds.
• Acquired 153 acres in Sibley State Park. This property affords park visitors approaching along TH71 a glimpse of Minnesota’s original prairie landscape with rolling grasslands and wetlands. Recreational trail users on this parcel will have views of the transitions from prairie to savanna to woodlands. This parcel will also provide a route for the Glacial Lakes State Trail connection to Sibley State Park.
• Acquired 30 acres in Minneopa State Park. This acquisition helps in protecting cultural resources, provide for sustainable wildlife habitat and new hiking, bird watching and facilitate interpretive programming opportunities. It is located adjacent to existing DNR ownership along the Minnesota River which will connect ~164 acres of publically owned, DNR managed land, and contributes to the consolidated management efforts to maintain and restore native vegetation as well as buffer for Minnesota River and protection of river watershed.
• Acquired 158 acres in Frontenac State Park. This land improves the park’s ability to preserve and buffer natural resources, wildlife habitat and view sheds. This parcel also has a stunning overlook and incredible birding opportunities for unique trail hiking experiences.

Maplewood and Sibley acquisitions dissemination have been communicated through updated state park maps reflecting state managed land and are identified as public land open to be used and enjoyed by all visitors. Now, that an acquisition consultant has been appointed, dissemination will continue for the rest of the acquired parcels.

This project focused on expanding recreational opportunities and enhancing user safety on Minnesota’s State Trails through the development of two new State Trail Segments, (1) the Casey Jones State Trail – Woodstock Segment, Pipestone County and (2) the Mill Towns State Trail – Cannon River Bridge and Trail Connection, Rice County.

As of June 30, 2020 the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources had completed the development of the two proposed new State Trail Segments, the Woodstock Segment of the Casey Jones State Trail near the community of Woodstock, Pipestone County and the new Mill Towns State Trail - Cannon River Trail Bridge and Trail in the City of Faribault, Rice County. Department of Natural Resources Engineering Staff completed all engineering and design required for the development of the two discrete trail segments and administered the associated construction contracts. All of the new State Trail infrastructure has been designed to meet the applicable requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as trail design guidelines developed by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Although the Casey Jones State Trail Segment as originally proposed was to include the upgrading and bituminous surfacing of approximately 5 miles of the existing State Trail corridor, the project had to be revised when realized construction costs substantially exceeded the pre-design cost estimates. As revised, the Casey Jones State Trail Project consisted of the upgrading and improvement of the entire 5 miles of the existing State owned former railroad grade as originally proposed, however, the bituminous trail surfacing was limited to approximately 3 miles. The development of the new Mill Towns State Trail Cannon River Bridge and Trail has provided both the intended connection between the Mill Towns State Trail, the Sakatah-Singing Hills State Trail and the local trail system and a significant improvement in user safety realized through the elimination of the previously required “at-grade” crossing of TH21 at the Cannon River. Both of the new State Trail segments were substantially complete in 2019 and immediately opened to public use. Final project closeout was complete for both projects in late 2020.

The Project’s two Minnesota State Trail improvement and enhancement projects , the Casey Jones State Trail – Woodstock Segment and the Mill Towns State Trail – Faribault Canon River Bridge Crossing were completed through the collaborative and cooperative efforts of the Communities of Woodstock and Faribault, Pipestone County, the Friends of the Casey Jones Trail Association and the Mill Towns Trail Association. The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s direct participation was also critical in the project’s success. The project plans and specifications for each project were subject to review and approval by all project partners prior to implementation. Each of the project partners played a critical role in disseminating project information during both the design and construction phases of the projects. Following substantial completion of the Mill Towns State Trail – Cannon River Bridge and Trail Segment in Late 2019, the City of Faribault hosted a “Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting”. This event was held at the adjacent White Sands Trailhead, a municipally developed facility, and was well attended by members of the public and local dignitaries. Each of the communities and trail groups involved in these projects remain active in advocating for further expansion and improvement of both the Casey Jones and Mill Towns State Trails. Each of the State Trail Maps published by the DNR have been updated to reflect the completed projects. The Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund is acknowledged as a Project Partner on the Casey Jones Trailhead Sign in Pipestone and will be acknowledged with a sign that is to be affixed to the Mill Towns State Trail - Cannon River Bridge.

Permanently protected 287 acres of high-quality historically undisturbed native prairie, which house state threatened and special concerns species, Species in Greatest Conservation Need and a wide variety of pollinators. Prairie enhancement (1,227 acres), outreach, monitoring and research activities were implemented across the state to improve prairie habitat.

Through this appropriation, 287 acres of high-quality native prairie, which house state threatened and special concerns species, Species in Greatest Conservation Need and a wide variety of pollinators, were permanently protected through 5 Native Prairie Bank conservation easements (see attached parcel list). Protection efforts, through this appropriation and others, preserve some of the best remaining native prairie in the state for current and future Minnesota Citizens benefit. These remaining native prairies function at a significantly higher level and provide habitat to more species of insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals than restored prairie. Additionally, 21 Baseline Property Reports and 53 monitoring events were completed and stewardship funds for the 5 closed Native Prairie Bank easements were enrolled into the Conservation Easement Stewardship Account.

A total of 705 acres of invasive species control and 522 acres of prescribed disturbance were completed to improve prairie quality throughout the prairie region of the state. Adaptive Management Monitoring was completed on 50 Native Prairie Banks. Knowledge gained through this monitoring and research will help landowners, DNR land managers and partner agencies improve the management of native prairie and wetlands.

DNR Prairie Specialists participated in 8 outreach events and engaged over 215 different priority prairie landowners on prairie protection, restoration, and enhancement. Prairie Stewardship Plans were completed for 14 landowners providing site specific management recommendations. The “Prairies of Minnesota Landowner Handbook” was published in June of 2021. To-date 3,500 copies of the book have been distributed to landowners and conservation professionals. A digital version of the book can be found on the DNR website.

Throughout this appropriation many challenges were encountered. A decrease in payment rates caused a higher decline rate, more time needed by landowners to decide on enrollment and the need for increased staffing to accomplish acquisition goals. This did allow for the acquisition of more acres for less and the return of a significant amount of money to the Commission for use on other great conservation projects. A pandemic froze or limited the ability to do many tasks, but staff got creative and looked for alternative approaches to get the work done.

Fourteen Prairie Stewardship Plans were provided to native prairie landowners. These plans will guide the landowner’s enhancement activities for well over a decade. The “Prairies of Minnesota Landowner Handbook” was published in June of 2021. To-date 3,500 copies of the book have been distributed to landowners and conservation professionals (who will continue to give the book to landowners managing prairies for years to come). A digital version of the book can be found here: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/assistance/backyard/prairierestoration/prairie-handbook.pdf

All outreach materials produced through this appropriation followed ENRTF acknowledgement guidelines. Special thanks was given to ENRTF in the back cover of the book.

This project was an important part on nearing the completion of a planned 162 mile long paved bicycle trail stretching from Grand Rapids to Ely, MN. The ENRTF funding along with other funds allowed for the completion of four (3) segments of the Mesabi Trail which are: T.H. 135 to Embarrass, and McKinley to Biwabik, and Soudan to Vermilion State Park Entrance Road.

Both the T.H. 135 to Embarrass and the Soudan to Vermilion State Park segments are 100% completed. The ¾-mile aluminum dock and bridge rehabilitation through the Darwin Meyers Wildlife Management Area are very nice features on the T.H. 135 to Embarrass segment of the Mesabi Trail. Soudan to Vermilion State Park Entrance Road segment includes the Mesabi Trail built from the Soudan Underground Mine and connects with the Vermilion State Park and heading East towards Ely. For the McKinley to Biwabik segment engineering design and specifications remain at 95% completed. Currently, MN Department of Transportation is reviewing the Limited Use Permit to allow a portion of the trail to be along highway 135 into Biwabik. Once that review is approved, the design and specifications for this segment of the trail can be completed. A portion of this segment starting from Gilbert to McKinley was constructed using other funds MN DEED Grant for $286,000 and an IRRR Grant for $53,188. All funds from this M.L. 2017 Grant have been spent, which we will now use M.L. 2020, First Special Session, Chp. 6, Art. 5, Sec. 2, Subd. 9q along with additional funding sources to complete the trail from McKinley to Biwabik.

The Mesabi Trail news and updates are provided through a variety of media, marketing and publications. Web site is: Mesabitrail.com. The following are some of the groups & organizations that disseminate Mesabi Trail information and typically include updates of newly completed trail segments and activities:

• Club Mesabi (10,000 maps & web site: Mesabitrail.com)
• Iron Range Tourism (30,000 brochures & web site)
• MN Office of Tourism
• amperes radio
• Parks & Trails, Home & Away, other private magazines
• Over 250,000 trail users per year
• Great River Energy/Mesabi Trail annual tour
• Named by the Star Tribune as “Best of Minnesota” in year 2013
• Named by Bicycle Magazine as” top 10 in the country”
• Information distributed at over 70 locations including Chambers of Commerce, visitor centers, businesses
• MN DOT/Pedal MN bikeways map
• "Second best trail in Midwest USA" Dubuque Iowa, 2017

The Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund is acknowledged as a funder for the Mesabi Trail with recognition posted in each kiosk along the trail.

The Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund (ENRTF) will be acknowledged through use of the trust fund logo or attribution language on project print and electronic media, publications, signage, and other communications per the ENRTF Acknowledgement Guidelines.

Construction of a trailhead and kiosk, a connecting trail to the Mesabi Trail, and an accessible kayak launch, plus natural habitat development will connect existing recreational and natural resource assets on the East Two River waterway to Lake Vermilion and enhance the outdoor recreation experience for multiple users in northeast Minnesota.

A kayak trailhead with 7,650 square foot parking lot, located at the East Two River and West Two River waterway to Lake Vermilion, is complete. Users will be able to enjoy wetlands and unique environmental, ecological and geological characteristics of the harbor.

The connecting trail to the Mesabi Trail was completed along Tower’s Main Street access road. It connects the Mesabi Trail with the city trail to Hoodoo Point, then connects with the Soudan trail to McKinley Park. It then extends to the Lake Vermilion State Park trail connecting to the Mesabi Trail to Ely. The second connection is along Tower’s old Main Street access road across the Highway 169 crosswalk, which connects Mesabi Trail at Pine Street to Soudan, on to the Mesabi Trail to Ely.

Sub-soil conditions created challenges for the project and were found to be unsuitable for road and parking lot construction. Mass excavation of soils and hauling in clean gravel necessitated a reduction in the size of the parking lot to reduce the land impact and project budget. The access road and bike trail were not altered.

We were not able to deliver on: lighting at the trailhead or trailhead/garden amenities of benches, bike racks, ADA-compliant picnic tables, or trash containers. The restoration was not needed, because the native vegetation had naturally regrown where it had been disturbed. Additionally, the plan to provide some landscaping via a bee garden was not implemented due to budget issues resulting from the soil conditions at the parking lot.

Interpretive environmental signage is being developed by volunteers and the city will install them along the kayak route.

Volunteers are working with the Arrowhead Regional Development Council to develop the kayak trail map for the kiosk and a map of all trails in the region. They will be mounted on the kayak trailhead kiosk and on the Mesabi Trail kiosk at Pine Street.

Directional signs to the kayak trailhead have been posted on the Highway 169 entrance into Tower. MnDOT installed a crosswalk across the highway connecting this harbor trailhead trail to the Mesabi Trail route connection at the Pine Street entrance.

The Township of Crane Lake received a $950,000 grant from the ENRTF to acquire an approximately 30 acre former resort site on the shores of Crane Lake to work in partnership with an adjacent DNR 7 acre site to build an entrance point to Voyageurs National Park that will include a National Park Service Visitors Center, boat ramp, docks, beach, campground, restrooms, and educational and community space. The Township of Crane Lake has purchased the property and will be working with their partners to begin the design and development phases of their development. The total cost of the parcel was $982,000 with $950,000 coming from the ENRTF and the Township providing $32,000 in their own funds.

During the process of planning, land sale negotiations, and securing the former Borderland Resort site, the Township of Crane Lake has been posting progress on their website, updating local newspapers, working with local tourism offices, area chambers of commerce and working very closely with their partners including the DNR and Park Service. The Township will continue to disseminate information through the same media through the planning, design and construction phases of the overall development.

This appropriation was used to support the ENRTF contract management program, which ensured that ENRTF grantees expended grant funds in compliance with state law, session law, approved work plans, and Office of Grants Management grants policies.

The DNR Grants Unit managed 67 grants active in FY 2017. In FY 2018, the Grants Unit managed 71 active grants. Between July 1, 2016 when the services began and June 30, 2018 when they ended, the DNR Grants Unit:

• Made 359 reimbursements to grantees totaling $13,053,825.58
• Prepared and executed 21 ML 2017 grant agreements
• Published 6 editions of the quarterly newsletter for all grantees
• Billed 350 hours at the FY 2017 professional services rate of $63.00/hr
• Billed 1,534 hours at the FY 2018 professional services rate of $63.00/hr
• Monitored all grants in compliance with Office of Grants Management policies.

Project personnel were in frequent contact with appropriation recipients and LCCMR staff. Information was disseminated through manuals, training sessions, orientations, meetings, memos, letters, emails, newsletter, and phone.