Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Hello again friends, I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation today and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland PBS.

Right here at Lakeland PBS, we are a proverbial stone's throw from the headwaters of the Mississippi River, right at the top of the watershed.

We all live in a watershed, in fact, it's one of the ways in which we're all connected, if you will.

Right here in Bemidji, our actions, good or bad, will unequivocally have an impact on downstream communities; but our environmental management strategy is based on more arbitrary political boundaries, like county lines and state borders, which, of course, environmental problems do not honor.

What if our environmental management was based more on the logical and natural boundary of a watershed?

Well, that's exactly what my two guests are working on.

Kelly Condiff works for Cass County as the Environmental Services, or IN the Environmental Services Division (ESD), and Zach Gutknecht works for the Beltrami County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD).

Zach and Kelly, thanks for making time for our conversation today.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you also.

Well, first of all, Zach, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, they're something that we're all familiar with, we all know that they exist, but what exactly are they and what do you do?

Well, each county has their own Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), and they're all a little different in what they do, but in Beltrami County at least, and Kelly can talk about Cass County, we primarily focus on stormwater within the cities of Bemidji and Blackduck.

We do a lot of shoreline kind of work along all the lakes throughout the county and then we also do forestry work with forest stewardship plans and protecting our resources.

Then also, we're doing more and more with agricultural producers in the Blackduck area and west of Bemidji.

So anywhere from cover crops to working with cattle producers.

So, before we talk about the "One Watershed, One Plan" that you all are pioneering, I'm curious, what does the Environmental Services Division (ESD) at Cass County do?

I think it's possible that some of our viewers don't realize there's an Environmental Services Division (ESD) in many of our counties.

So what do you do at Cass County?

Well, the Environmental Services Department in Cass County really is the "permitting arm," so when a person wants to do, have a building, build a house, or do some shoreline work, or a structure of some sort - they would come to the Cass County Environmental Services Department and apply for a building permit, or a shoreline or a land alteration permit.

That's what our role in the county is, we're really the regulatory arm.

I also work for the Soil and Water Conservation District because it's really Zach and my district - we are fairly unique in the county or in the state, because we're actually merged together.

so I can wear a SWCD hat, and then turn around and wear a Cass County ESD hat in 30 seconds, essentially, because when I/we stop out, we can range and look at any kind of issues or problems or questions, pretty much address anything.

So, that's one thing I want to make clear.

Yeah, every district is a little bit different, so in Beltrami's case and in Cass County, we're located within the county.

In other districts, sometimes they're located within the NRCS, or the Natural Resource Conservation Service /Federal government.

Federal government, and sometimes they're completely on their own.

So everyone does it a little different.

The SWCD's are a local unit of government, they're completely separate, set up after the Great Depression to deal with erosion issues.

Interesting, after the Great Depression - that's the origin story, sort of, for the SWCD?

Yep.

So when I go to vote, I often see positions that are part of SWCD.

So are you two elected officials, then?

How does that work?

We are not elected officials.

Each SWCD is governed by an elected board.

So you report to that board?

We report to that board.

Okay, now if you're at the county but you... so you can wear two hats, do you do your Soil and Water Conservation District "work" as a county employee?

Yeah.

Okay, so it's basically the same time - within the same time frame - you're doing both.

Correct.

Yeah, a lot of times they'll set up an appointment or a calendar or a date.

You have you know three or four appointments and one will be SWCD business and this...might be a tree planting or whatever and this one over here, well, I want to build a fire pit or something along the shoreline, or want to build a new house, and then the next thing is a, it could be a well, or something else.

Wide variety.

Okay.

Well, I'm really interested in learning more about the "One Watershed, One Plan" approach, but before we do so, one more question, which is, 'what is a watershed?'

Can you give us sort of a basic, fundamental description of what that is, Zach?

You pick any point along the landscape, a watershed is the entire area that drains to that single point.

So can go from very small to the size of your yard, all the way up to three-fourths of Minnesota itself.

We're talking about the Mississippi River, starting here in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County going all the way down ending on the southeast corner of the state.

So, it depends on where you start with that point, but it's the entire area that drains to a common point.

Okay.

What is the "One Watershed, One Plan" approach, Kelly?

Well basically, it's an approach that was put forth by BWSR, which is the Board of Water and Soil Resources.

Which is a state agency.

Before, essentially funding would be put forth to each SWCD or county.

They would do with it what they saw fit to further their mission statement.

Now, instead of looking at just a county, we're looking at a watershed-based approach because there might be a watershed that's in really good shape, say, in Cass County and you know that part of it's all pristine or public land and not really any impacts.

Then you go across the county line and there might be a city there with all kinds of storm water issues and problems.

Well, now we've got watershed-based funding.

So both counties or however many other entities are involved with the "1W, 1P" process have the ability to react as a unit towards a problem, instead of one county or one 'whatever' having to deal...We could have a massive project and normal funding just wouldn't take care of it.

And just one thing to mention to kind of piggyback onto that, so BWSR (Board of Water and Soil Resources) is one of the five state agencies and all the other state agencies kind of tend to work with public property, public lands, where BWSR is kind of our parent agency, or our strategic partner from the state where we work on private lands and so our goal is to do conservation work on private lands.

There really is no other agency that does that.

And most of our, or basically all of our funding has funneled through the state through BWSR and that's how we've gotten our funding.

So up until 5-6 years ago, it's all been competitive and so we've had to compete - Kelly and I had to compete against each other for the same pot of funds.

Yet, you're in the same watershed?

Right.

Yeah, but he/Cass County has multiple other watersheds and so they would always be competing against each other.

Now through this "1W, 1P", it's creating this scenario where we're all working together.

Now there's a designated amount of money set aside for each watershed as soon as you go through this planning process.

Well, you're raising a whole bunch of interesting questions here.

So, first of all, "1W, 1P", that's "One Watershed, One Plan".

Where did this thing come from?

Did you two pilot this?

Is this an innovation from Cass County and Beltrami County?

No.

No?

Is this a federal program?

What's its origin story?

So it was between the Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), the Minnesota Associations of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, that's our state agency that lobbies at the legislature and the Minnesota County Association, got together at the table and said, "What we're doing isn't working on these political boundaries for our resources.

We need to do something different."

That was in the early..

I think in 2013 a 'white paper' came out and then based on that, went through the legislature and then through the Clean Water Legacy Amendment that was passed in 2008 set up these planning boundaries on watershed to do what's best for the resource.

Now we have that stable funding source into the future.

So this is a Minnesota thing?

This is a Minnesota unique thing, and it's probably the envy of the nation.

Fascinating.

So are other states...?

There is no other state that I know of that does it like this.

Are they talking about emulating this work?

I think Missouri is.

They want to but to get your citizens to vote for an amendment that increases the sales tax on themselves is an extremely difficult proposition.

Oh, interesting!

So the "1W, 1P" - "One Watershed, One Plan" is funded partially through...[All of] ALL of it is funded through, what tax?

The Clean Land and Water Legacy Amendment which was passed in 2008 through a referendum.

So when and where do I pay that tax?

Any sales tax.

Okay.

So it's part of the sales tax.

What, is it an 8th percent?

Ya.

I mean, you're not going to notice it in your day-to-day operations, but it makes a huge difference as to what's available to us as far as conservation and what we're able to put into the ground.

So, 100% of your funding for "1W, 1P" comes from [Yes] this particular tax?

All of it.

And the voters said this is important to us?

Yes.

We're willing to pay this and now Minnesota is the envy of the nation?

Ya.

How cool and how unique is that for Minnesota?

Interesting.

Yeah.

Our lakes, our resources, are that important to us we're willing to, well, one, pass a referendum in the middle of the Great Recession.

Sure.

That just speaks of what Minnesota's priorities are right now.

Absolutely.

Well, let's talk about what you're doing with this money.

I understand that there's this "One watershed, One plan" approach now where you're looking at environmental management from the watershed level but what does that mean when you are spending these dollars?

How are you spending them?

What types of projects are you doing?

Can you give us a specific example from Cass County, Kelly?

Sure.

Well, Cass will still be the Soil and Water Conservation District.

We're the fiscal agent for the Leech Lake River "One Watershed, One Plan".

Like Zachary mentioned earlier, we're involved with five other ones.

I mean that Cass has got six within its boundaries.

Anyway, just for an example, the city of Walker, they're of a small enough size they did not, or do not have to, follow state stormwater rules.

That basically is "MS4", I believe, is the sizing category.

Excuse me, "MS4"?

That's like a designation for the rigor of stormwater management systems?

Yeah.

Okay.

Sorry.

And anyway, the city of Walker, I mean, we had maybe 5-6 years ago, we actually had a stormwater mapping project that we did with the city of Walker which brought in a private company with a robot, basically videotaped and filmed and mapped their entire storm water system because essentially, other than the new stuff that they had put in the year previous, the last time that infrastructure was installed was in the 30s.

So they had no idea where most of their pipes even went, let alone if they were working or functioning properly.

Anyway, fast forward and now with that knowledge we were able to, you know take "1W, 1P" funding and install stormwater defenders which are basically sumps or catchment devices for sediment and a lot of solids and some dissolved stuff as well that were just prior to where it would just straight pipe right into Leech Lake.

Now we were able to just take and remove that pollutant load we installed two last or last summer and now we're scheduled to have a third one installed this summer in the City of Walker.

So there's an example of what one "1W, 1P" funding can do.

I'm astonished that that system hasn't really been evaluated since the 1930s?!

Is that common?

In the smaller towns?

Absolutely.

Yes.

And how are you spending the money up here in this part?

So the Mississippi Headwaters, "One Watershed, One Plan" again starts from Itasca Lake goes to Pokegama, down in Grand Rapids.

The Pokegama Dam is where it ends.

We haven't gotten our fund yet, we should be getting our agreement here within the next couple weeks.

So we're gonna be starting implementation this summer.

But through that planning process, working with the public, working with other agencies and our partners, the biggest priority for this watershed is going to be related to forestry and how forests protect our water resources.

So, you know, we look at forests from on the state level.

We assume they're doing good management.

Now, what we want to do is provide an access point for landowners to get to have the ability to manage those resources the same and so we can provide for a stewardship plan for private landowners that will then allow them to get into a tax incentive program which basically reduces their tax breaks or their tax payments.

But then on top of that, there's within that plan, there's going to be a handful of projects that they can do, that we'll be able to fund.

And when you say "they" you're referring to the private landowner?

So this is a different approach because you're assisting or supporting private landowners in their stewardship plans?

That's exactly who we're, I mean, that's all we're trying to do, is reach out to the private land owners and number one.

But that's a different approach because you said that you were able to allocate some of your funding to the municipality and its stormwater management system, right?

Right.

And the reason in the planning process for the Leech...you know, the City of Walker, was on our advisory committee which is a group that in the planning process it's a kind of a consortium of different interest groups and that would be identified in the watershed.

We clearly knew we had point sources of pollution which and I mean point sources.

That's a pipe right?

That's exactly, we can put a dot on a map and say that's bad.

In this day and age it's kind of tough to find point sources anymore.

Most of those have been have been dealt with some way shape or form since Clean Water Act right?

So now we had the ability that rose to the top as one of our higher priorities or the highest priority to get accomplished.

So we were able to piggyback on with a big stormwater project the City of Walker was going to do anyway and pump in money in there to get the defenders installed instead of just the regular standard run-of-the-mill straight pipe to the lake and they were ecstatic.

So they, I mean, it was a, it was a huge deal but like Zach said, we also, that was only one thing we've been...doing a lot of PFM - a lot of Private Forest Management plans with individuals.

I work with townships and lake associations and a lot.

Yeah, we work with municipalities, townships.

We work with a lot of people but to accomplish the majority of the actions that are within the plan is going to have to go out and work with private landowners.

A lot of times working with municipalities is easier because it's government to government.

It's easier just to establish that connection as opposed to having to establish that connection over ten thousand different people.

There's all kinds of stakeholders in these sandboxes?

Yes.

Right.

Watersheds more accurately.

How did, first of all, how did you decide to do the storm water management?

There are a wide variety of things that you could have potentially spent these dollars on?

Was that also a multi-stakeholder process?

In other words, did you invite input from the community to decide to address the stormwater management system?

Specifically in the Leech... the advisory committee really sat together in the planning stage and as we just talked and discussed with different entities they brought forth potential, you know, hey this is what you know because we asked them, "What... any what kind of concerns do you have?"

Because you know in the Leech that's also Hubbard County right?

the City of Laporte, City of Walker.

[Right] Hackensack.

So, I mean there's, we had quite a few different entities from the, townships and cities and whatever in those advisory committees and we really, we want to...one of our biggest things is, we want to move the needle for reducing nutrients, phosphorus-loading or sediments or whatever.

Because when we report to the state we have to input reductions gained, you know.

I mean, what did we do for unbounded tons of sediment, say, for that stormwater thing?

What did it remove from going into Leech?

Or the dissolved phosphorus.

Yeah, so there's two things there which we're kind of skirting around but there's basically, we look at protecting a resource or trying to restore a resource.

Okay.

With forest stuff we're trying to protect the resource because you maintain the forest and landscape.

That water resource is going to be good.

Now when we look at areas that have development in them.

Like Walker along Leech or Bemidji along Irving and Lake bemidji.

Stormwater is probably going to be your highest return on investment.

And so that's why stormwater is, it usually has a very high upfront cost but your returns long term are pretty good.

So why is it that there's a connection between forestry and water quality?

Why is it that the private forest stewardship plans, is that what you call them?

Why is that an important part of water quality in our region?

I mean what's the, what's the ecological role that forested land plays here?

So there's a lot.

There's been actually quite a bit of research into this.

So basically the idea is the natural landscape with forests you're gonna retain more of that water on the landscape instead of it rushing all right to the lake after a rainy event.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division did an analysis across the entire state and what they found is once your watershed reaches 25% disturbed you'll start seeing impacts to a lake.

So that lake's watershed, if it's over 25% disturbed we're going to start seeing issues with that lake start to occur.

So our goal when we're looking at the forested parts of the state, we want to maintain at least 75% of those forests throughout all these priority resource lakes.

Because then we assume that lakes probably can be protected unless there's some unique thing feature right around the lake but basically we assume that if you hit 75 you're going to maintain that lake water quality.

Okay.

I was going to ask you about 'benchmarking' and sort of the results of this work.

So you've made this investment in the stormwater management system, how do you know that it's better now?

Are, is there historical data on Leech Lake regarding nutrient loading and that type of thing?

Or how do you know it's been a good investment?

Well Leech Lake is, you know 112,000 acres so it's, as far as a water quality standpoint you know just a little snapshot from what we just did.

Probably not something that you could really quantify but just with after a rain event.

Like, Zach and I were talking about this before we came up here.

Before when it would rain just in the City of Walker you could walk down and look at the storm water discharge and there'd be a plume 200 feet out in the lake of just, fine sediments, that look like, you know, somebody dumped a cup of coffee with creamer in it and it was just whoosh.

Now you don't see that.

So remarkable.

So for the public, they don't care about pounds of phosphorus, a few people might but they can visually see that, 'Hey, it rained and we don't have a big plume!'

Interesting.

So they, it depends on I mean but that would be the best way for, at least in my opinion, for the public to be able to find that, 'Hey it worked.'

So you two are a great example of how counties are working together now, based on the watershed rather than arbitrary political boundaries, right?

This is happening all over the state isn't it?

"1W, 1P" is it working?

Are counties coming together and finding a way to collaborate in this new way?

Is St. Louis County and Cook County for example or Lake County working well together for example?

Yeah, so I would say yes and Minnesota actually has a pretty good history.

At least with the Soil and Water Conservation Districts, of working together and working across county boundaries.

But this is just taking it to a whole new level.

So I can just speak from an example for the Mississippi.

One of the benefits with most... let me back up.

With most SWCDs we're relatively small districts.

So we've got two and a half staff in our office and so there's...we can't with the county as big as it is, we can't cover everything but through this we've been able to increase what we call "shared services".

So, Clearwater has a really good agricultural program and they're gonna help us do what they do in Clearwater, in Beltrami, and so basically we're able to take everyone's specialties and kind of blend them and then so if I'm really good at forestry and stormwater.

I can do that over there and they can do this over here and now we're working together more on that.

But this is a new cross-pollination right?

That is brand new!

That is not something that's ever happened before to my knowledge.

So... What about salting roads?

That's one way, that's one real visceral way in which we're all familiar with potential impacts on our watersheds and our wetlands etc.

Is it possible for a municipality to change the way it salts its roads using "1W, 1P" funding?

Did I ask that correctly?

Well absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean prime example's we can jump into the City of Cass Lake which is in the headwaters.

Right?

That is Zach's watershed that he's overseeing.

We had a meeting three months ago, probably, anyway, with the City of Cass Lake and discussed with them.

Were there any opportunities for the City of Cass Lake to take advantage of any potential funding?

Or maybe cost-sharing or matching of funds to benefit or help out the citizens in the City of Cass Lake?

And the other two biggest things that came up really were, was storm water mapping.

So we're essentially, once the funding gets put forth as Zach mentioned, once that gets put forth, we'll actually have, we're going to map the City of Cass Lake - their stormwater infrastructure and have it videoed so they've got a complete map of something they don't have.

And then also with the chloride, like you said, they're salting.

Yeah, they're gonna essentially, they'll be able to purchase a chloriding system for one of their trucks - they'll retrofit an existing city truck that'll regulate and and reduce the amount of salt and/or chloride that the city uses for wintertime application.

What's the replacement to chlora and chloride?

We're talking sodium chloride, correct?

Yeah, for that's the typical application.

So what's the alternative?

Just a random...well this evenly just it blends it okay it dissolves the calcium chloride or the sodium chloride into a liquid form so it's evenly put out and a lot of times what they do is lay it on a roadway before the system or the weather system hits.

You get even distribution and versus a truck going down, it's going like this spinning rock salt all over heck and it's [I got you] ping ponging into the ditch.

Sure.

Yeah I mean there's only so much you can do because it's a balance between public safety and the issues that chloride has in our water.

Just so you know chlora...or salt-chloride is very toxic to aquatic organisms.

And even in the cities they're obviously applying much more salt.

But there's one example of a lake that's been monitored that it has so much salt the lake can't turn over anymore and it's basically ecologically dead.

Really?!

Which lake?

It's a small lake so, I can't tell you off the top of my head but...

It's an issue right?

It is, so I'm just saying that salt does cause all these issues and it's not an issue going away anytime soon.

Road salt is one.

There's also dust suppressants on gravel roads.

There's another, right?

We also use salts in our softeners.

Sure.

And so there's all these issues we're even seeing increases in chloride amounts in our well water.

That doesn't have an impact on human health but it does have that lasting effect in the environment.

And so it's a bigger issue and you know, at this point it's not a good substitute.

So it's just, 'how do we better manage that?'

Progress not perfection.

And there's tools to help public works and other departments manage the salt they use on gravel and the pavements.

Then there's also the high efficiency softeners as well that...

So, some of our viewers are probably wondering whether or not they can get involved?

Is this something that's only the purview of counties?

For example, or are there opportunities for individual citizens to be at the table, if you will?

And if so, how?

Well, I was just going to bring up the steering committee.

All these "1W, 1P"s, especially when they first start are in the initial planning process.

Once a planning grant has been approved.

Really they come up with what they refer to...Zach referred to as a "steering committee" it's really a group of citizens - concerned citizens, could be they come from all walks of life, you know, and they're all sitting in a room essentially and they're basically ideas.

It's a think tank if you will, that will come up with new ideas.

Maybe we're not aware of this issue or it's just kind of to bring everybody onto the same page of what the issues may be inside the watershed.

So, yeah I mean we've had, I mean a lot of different people from a lot of different...they don't have to be from a group.

It could be just a person that lives on a lake that says, 'hey I'd like to be involved'.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is you want to do something.

By all means contact your district or contact me and I can for sure get you in contact with the right person.

But if you do want to get involved find your local lake association, find your local association, find a sporting...sportsman's group, because they're the ones that are already connected with us.

That's the easiest way to get involved and those issues are heard by us every day.

I appreciate you gentlemen joining me today.

I've learned a lot and thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you and thank all of you for joining me once again.

You can continue the conversation on Twitter @currentspbs.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well.

We'll see you next week.