Dan Shutte (left) and Ilena Berg answered the community’s questions about the future of water management on the North Shore.
Minnesota has a long history of water management by local government and is ready to take that legacy one step further. Enter One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P), Minnesota’s Board of Water and Soil Resources’ (BWSR) 10-year plan to institute comprehensive water management policies on the watershed level. The 1W1P initiative is an attempt to work across geopolitical boundaries, like counties, to “address the largest threats and provide the greatest environmental benefit unique to each watershed” according to BWSR’s website.
In October 2014 Cook and Lake County Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) were notified that Lake Superior North Watershed (LSNW), an area which extends from the northeastern tip of Minnesota down to and including the Knife River, was one of five pilot watersheds tapped to begin planning and implementation.
Since then, Dan Shutte and Ilena Berg, Lake and Cook SWCD managers respectively, have been collaborating with government agencies, stakeholders and local groups to create a water management plan for the North Shore. The document is known as the LSNW Management Plan.
On November 15 Berg and Shutte gave a presentation of their progress to the roughly 30 people gathered at Skyport Lodge (formerly Devil Track Resort). They gave a brief overview of the plan, highlighting water resources that have already been targeted for priority attention as well as goals to address management issues in both urban and rural areas.
“Anyone in Grand Marais knows that if we get more than an inch of water, we get a flooded parking lot,” Berg said.
Besides mitigating pollution sources, the plan also aims to monitor and provide data about water quality as well as educate the public about water use.
The presentation was followed by a discussion period in which attendees were allowed to comment on the plan.
Berg and Shutte expect to have a final draft of the LSNW Management Plan by the end of the year.
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