Whitewater River Watershed National Monitoring Program Project: Final Report

The Whitewater River Watershed National Monitoring Program (NMP) Project was begun in 1995 to develop an effectiveness monitoring project in Minnesota to be a part of the Clean Water Act, Section 319 National Monitoring Program. The Whitewater River watershed in southeastern Minnesota was selected for the BMP evaluation project given strong local, state, and federal efforts in implementing BMPs to address nonpoint source pollution problems. The NMP project was a small part of the overall watershed project. The Whitewater NMP project involved a small paired-watershed component and a biological monitoring component. Monitoring continued through 2005. Section 319 NMP projects comprised a small subset of nonpoint source pollution control projects funded under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act as amended in 1987. The goal of the program was to support 20 to 30 watershed projects nationwide that meet a minimum set of project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation requirements designed to lead to successful documentation of project effectiveness with respect to water quality protection or improvement. The Whitewater NMP project was designated as a NMP project in 2001. The Whitewater River NMP project was established to evaluate the effectiveness of various BMPs following NMP guidance that encouraged the use of paired-watershed monitoring designs and biological monitoring in streams. There were two components to the project. A paired-watershed monitoring design component of the project incorporated flow and chemical monitoring of five small watersheds, while a biological monitoring component involved fish and macroinvertebrate sampling at several sites throughout the watershed.