Minnesota's Water Quality Monitoring Strategy 2011 to 2021

Minnesota has an abundance of water resources – more surface water than any other of the 48 contiguous states. Minnesota boasts an estimated 105,000 miles of rivers and streams, 12,200 lakes, and 10.6 million acres of wetlands; in addition, Minnesota has generous reserves of good quality groundwater. Plentiful, accessible water is important to Minnesota's agricultural and business economy, and is the reason that water recreation, such as fishing, canoeing and kayaking, swimming and other pursuits, makes up a large part of the state's tourism revenue - a $10 billion dollar a year industry. However, the sheer abundance of water creates challenges for monitoring, assessing, protecting, and restoring Minnesota waters. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) and its partner agencies and organizations conduct numerous surface and groundwater monitoring activities to provide information about the status of the state's water resources and to identify potential or actual threats to the quality of surface and groundwater, choose options for protecting and restoring waters that are impaired, and evaluate the effectiveness of implemented management plans. The goal of the MPCA and its partners is to provide information to assess – and ultimately to restore or protect – the integrity of Minnesota's waters. To be effective in conducting monitoring that will meet Minnesotan's needs for information, Minnesota needs an overall guiding strategy. The MPCA has been developing the watershed approach since 2007 as a key strategy and organizing principle to guide its surface and groundwater quality monitoring activities and many other aspects of the agency's water program. Two landmark events that have enabled the MPCA to develop and begin implementing the watershed approach are passage of Minnesota's Clean Water Legacy Act (CWLA) in 2006 and passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment (Amendment) in 2008. The CWLA and the Amendment have provided a structure and a source of revenue that have greatly improved the ability of the MPCA and its partner agencies and organizations to achieve the MPCA's strategic plan vision of clean, sustainable surface and groundwater. This introduction provides important background for Minnesota's Water Quality Monitoring Strategy, 2011-2021. This includes additional information about passage of the CWLA and Amendment; an overview of the watershed approach and how it benefits the agency's goals to assess, protect, and restore Minnesota's waters; a description of the monitoring types included in this Strategy; and finally a brief description of the Strategy's organization.