North Fork Crow River Watershed Biotic Stressor Identification Report

Water quality and biological monitoring in the NF Crow watershed has been active for several decades. As part of the MPCA's new Intensive Watershed Monitoring (IWM) approach, monitoring activities increased in rigor and intensity during the years of 2007-2010. The data collected during this period, as well as historic data obtained prior to 2007, were used to identify stream reaches that lacked healthy fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages (Figure 1). Fish and macroinvertebrate data were collected at most biological monitoring stations, and were assessed independently, making it is possible for a given stream reach to be impaired for one or both of these biological indicators. The result of this assessment monitoring effort was the listing of select NF Crow watershed streams as "impaired" for aquatic life. (Table 1, Figure 2).The biologically impaired stream reaches in the watershed include the entire NF Crow and Crow River mainstem, and numerous tributary streams (Figure 1). NF Crow watershed streams that are not listed as impaired are either not yet assessed (lacking monitoring data) or are showing good to exceptional biological integrity based on current data.