Upper Red River of the North Watershed Biotic Stressor Identification Report

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) utilizes biological (i.e., fish and macroinvertebrate) monitoring to assess stream health as part of its Intensive Watershed Monitoring (IWM) strategy. The MPCA conducted biological monitoring at 13 sites throughout the Upper Red River of the North Watershed (URRW) in 2008. The resulting data, along with previously collected data, was used to produce an Index of Biological Integrity (IBI) score for the fish (F-IBI) and macroinvertebrate (M-IBI) communities at each site. The biological monitoring results for the watershed were formally assessed as part of the development of the Upper Red River of the North Watershed Monitoring and Assessment Report (MPCA, 2013) to determine if individual stream reaches met applicable aquatic life standards. The purpose of this report is to identify the causes, or “stressors”, that are likely contributing to the biological impairments in the URRW (i.e.Whiskey Creek). A comprehensive review of available data (e.g. plans and reports) for the watershed was initially performed to identify the five candidate causes examined in this report. Further analysis was performed to determine potential connections between each candidate cause and the biological impairments. The results of the stressor identification (SID) process point to several probable stressors in the biologically impaired reach of the watershed