Minnesota Hydrography Land of 10,000 Lakes (or so) Mark Olsen Minnesota Pollution Control Agency 520 Lafayette Road N. St. Paul, MN Presented by:

A Matter of Scale 11,842 Lakes > 10 acres Over 14,000 when including smaller lakes 92,000 miles of stream/river

Growing Public Interest/Concern Water quality is highest priority concern Environmental Issues –Malformed frogs –Nitrates in Groundwater –Fish kills and consumption advisories –Recreational usage –Hypoxia Use of local data Access to data and information

Minnesota’s Governor’s Council on Geographic Information Hydrography Committee Inventory and state coordination Define the MN hydrography framework Coordination with Federal activities

Inventory and State Coordination Legacy systems –25 years of history –Defacto standards Distributed authority –Relies on voluntary cooperation

Define MN Framework Basic features Watershed Basin Watercourse Hydrologic Point of Interest Basic elements Definition Delineation Identification Association of events

The Need to Share Watershed approach –Environmental issues ignore political boundaries Shared responsibility and authority

St. Croix River Basin:

The Need to Share Watershed approach –Environmental issues ignore political boundaries Shared responsibility and authority –Example: Lakefinder Single point of access for DNR, MPCA, and MDH data

Dept of Health - Fish Consumption Advisories

MPCA - Water Quality Data

MPCA - Water Clarity Data

DNR - Recreational Use

DNR - Topographic Map

MPCA Activities Hydrography dataset is framework for integration –Standards “Perch Creek: T.116, 117, 118, R.39” –Monitoring (STORET) –Permitted dischargers –Assessments (305(b), 303(d)) –Funding activities

Reach Indexing Tool Why We Like It: No cost Ease of use Activities associated to real surface water features - not dependent on locational accuracy or scale

St. Croix River Basin - Indexed Stream Standards

Flow validated data needed to populate missing lake reach IDs

Reach Indexed 305(b) Assessment

Higher Resolution Data DNR “Level 1” Hydro - 24K –DLG with lake shorelines from NWI –MPCA funded USGS to research conversion to NHD Integration of Wisconsin data –Ready now to add ID’s and names NHD delineation rules Technical coordination with USGS

This is the End.