South Fork Crow River Watershed Monitoring and Assessment Report

South Fork Crow River Watershed Monitoring and Assessment Report

2016

The South Fork Crow River Watershed (HUC 07010205) drains an area of 331,206 hectares (818,428 acres) along the Upper Mississippi Basin's southern boundary with the Minnesota River Basin in central Minnesota. It spans an area from the city of Willmar on the watershed's western boundary to the Delano area on the eastern boundary, occupying portions of Kandiyohi, Renville, Meeker, McLeod, Sibley, Wright and Hennepin counties. In 2012 the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) began a two year, intensive watershed monitoring (IWM) project in the South Fork Crow River Watershed. This project was designed to assess the quality of the lakes and streams in the watershed through both biological and water chemistry monitoring. MPCA biomonitoring staff evaluated fish and macroinvetebrate communities at 83 unique monitoring stations across 49 assessment reaches of stream. MPCA surface water quality staff and the Crow River Organization of Waters (CROW) completed lake and stream chemistry sampling at 12 stream locations: 11 of which were at the outlets of the major subwatersheds and an additional location on the South Fork Crow River mainstem. CROW also collected water chemistry from four lakes (Barber, Goose, Johnson and South) to assess the aquatic life and aquatic recreation potential of each lake and stream where sufficient data was available. Overall 52 lakes and 88 streams were assessed for aquatic life and/or aquatic recreation. (Where insufficient data existed, assessments were not made). Results presented in this report indicate significantly degraded water quality and biological communities throughout the watershed. Overall, scores of biological communities in this watershed were resoundingly poor; not a single general use stream in the South Fork Crow River Watershed fully supported aquatic life for both fish and macroinvertebrates. Only six streams (<7% of assessed reaches) were determined to be supporting aquatic life for Modified Use waters (which have lower impairment thresholds than general use waters) for both fish and macroinvertebrate communities.

Nagle, Brett
Genet, John A.
Richter, Dereck
Duffey, David
Jahnz, James
Monson, Bruce A
Nelson, Shawn

MPCA
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
MPCA
MPCA
MPCA
MPCA
MPCA

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Minnesota Department of Health
Crow River Organization of Water

178

Surface Water
Water Quality & Pollutants
Water Conveyance & Hydraulics
Hydrology
Water Education, Outreach & Community Capacity

monitor
monitors
monitoring
monitored
Clean Water Act
cwa
Federal Clean Water Act
water quality
water qualities
water-quality
water-qualities
water quality indicator
water quality indicators
aquatic habitat
aquatic habitats
hydrology
hydrologic
water quality assessment
water quality assessments
water-quality assessment
water-quality assessments
water quality modeling
water quality model
water quality standard
water quality standards
water quality & pollutants
water quality and pollutants
water biology & aquatic habitat
water biology and aquatic habitat
water biology & aquatic habitats
water biology and aquatic habitats
water monitoring & assessment
water monitoring and assessment
watershed monitors
watershed monitor
watershed monitoring
Intensive Watershed Monitoring
IWM
surface water quality
watershed hydrology
Crow River
South Fork Crow River Watershed

2010-2019

No

Public Domain

Minnesota Water Research Digital Library