Fecal Coliform TMDL Implementation Plan for the High Island Creek and Rush River

The High Island Creek and Rush River watersheds are located in the Lower Minnesota Watershed, in south central Minnesota. The watersheds are located across 410,000 acres in portions of McLeod, Nicollet, Renville and Sibley Counties. High Island Creek and Rush River outlet into the Minnesota River near Henderson, Minnesota. As of the 2008 303(d) impaired waters list, five reaches of the High Island Creek and two reaches of the Rush River have been listed as impaired for fecal coliform bacteria. The Water Resources Center at Minnesota State University, Mankato received funding in 2005 to complete a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Assessment of fecal coliform bacteria impaired reaches in the High Island Creek and Rush River watersheds. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the TMDL assessment on November 14, 2008. The findings and load allocations from the fecal coliform TMDL assessment are summarized in Section 2 of this plan.