Deadline Approaching Fast to Become a Master Water Steward

Help us get the community involved in watershed stewardship.
Learn more about the Master Water Stewards program
 by calling Sage Passi!

If you are making a resolution to start making a real difference in your community and are a RWMWD resident*, the Master Water Stewards Program is the perfect opportunity.

Piloted for three years in Minnehaha Watershed District, Master Water Stewards (MWS)will learn and collaborate with a cohort of Master Water Stewards from three watershed districts to develop projects that will protect our local lakes, reduce water pollution and provide community education. Master Water Stewards will have the opportunity to interact with water professionals, technical advisors and community leaders.

Starting in late January, Master Water Stewards will participate in a fabulous curriculum of online and live sessions every other week from January 19 - July 12 on environmental policy, creating a neighborhood stormwater plan for clean water, aquatic invasive species and more. Stewards will pair up to develop a capstone project and create a community outreach initiative. The Watershed District will cover the cost of this training!!

Don't delay, as there are only a couple spots left! Submit your application by December 30th. Applications are available online at www.masterwaterstewards.org.

Please contact Sage Passi ASAP for more information at sage.passi@rwmwd.org or 651-792-7958.

Example of MWS Impact: Mary & Jessica

Raffling off a rain barrel at a Master Water Stewards garden party

Master Water Stewards Jessica Miller and Mary Hammes installed a stormwater treatment train on Jessica’s property that included a rain barrel which overflows into a new 90 square foot rain garden on Jessica's property. They also redirected Jessica’s downspouts into the rain garden. 



Master Water Stewards introduce their neighbors to two
newly installed BMPs - a rain garden and rain barrel.

For Jessica and Mary’s outreach project, they hosted a garden party at Jessica’s home on August 24th. They invited neighbors to attend the party by talking with people at National Night Out. At the garden party, Jessica and Mary talked about rain gardens and gave a tour of their treatment train. They also taught about downspout redirection and raising lawn mowers higher to highlight low-commitment actions. They also had a mosquito control inspector present to talk about maintaining rain barrels. They raffled off native seeds and a rain barrel as well.

Hear more exciting stories from people who have recently completed the program in this interactive 'geovisualization' map.

Make this resolution for community and clean water, then make it stick by signing up today!

* To find out if you are a resident of the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District, see our interactive map here.

Engaging Community Through Geovisualization

By Carrie Magnuson

Macalester College students work with local organizations
to promote clean water.

Students at Macalester College in St. Paul are using their knowledge, creativity and energy to develop new ways for us to communicate with our residents using a combination of maps and storytelling. The class is Geovisualization and Community Partnerships.

“Geovisualization,” according to Ashley Nepp, Lab Instructor & Manager, “is the art and science of communicating spatial data.”

Nepp has teamed-up this semester with Freshwater Society, Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District, Capitol Region Watershed District and Minnehaha Creek Watershed District to give her students not just real-world scenarios, but real-world partnerships with staff from these organizations. The end result is a win-win; the students create a project that will have a positive impact on their community and the organizations receive a product they can use to more effectively tell their story.

 

Using a Geographic Information System (GIS) resource called ArcGIS Online (AGO) as a common platform, the students are creating visually stunning ways to talk about dynamic projects that might otherwise get lost in pages of text. 

 

Here we will take a brief look at those projects and give you a chance to interact with the geovisualizations yourself!

An Interactive Look at the Master Water Stewards Program

Freshwater Society/Minnehaha Creek Watershed District

 http://arcg.is/1KDAxA4


 

 

The Master Water Stewards program is a partnership between Freshwater Society and participating Watershed Districts. The story map built by five Macalester students intends to “dynamically showcase the growth of the Master Water Stewards in the last three years, and to showcase the hard work of the program participants”.








T
Two students in this group are taking the Geovisualization class as well as the Quantitative Analytics class in partnership with the Freshwater Society. This dual look at the program is reflected in the web map through a qualitative and a quantitative section. 

 
“Who are the Master Water Stewards and why do we need them?” 

The qualitative portion tells the personal stories of participants using map points tied to interviews the students conducted with Master Water Stewards. Through three sample studies, they show the audience what it is like to go through the program and how the Steward’s ‘ownership’ of the program has impacted their lives and that of their neighbors. The idea of creating a “New Normal,” as described by Peggy Knapp of the Freshwater Society, is what the program hopes to achieve by making water stewardship and pollution prevention accessible and visible to everyone, not just agencies and environmentalists.


Students work with MCWD Staff to develop the story map.

Surveys conducted by the Quantitative Analytics students in MCWD neighborhoods revealed that hesitation to be the first house on the block to install a rain garden in their front yard, for example, is still strong. This finding reiterates the importance of showing visually through maps, photos and videos, that these yard practices are more common than residents imagine and are becoming the new normal.



Master Water Stewards Ava and Myrtle are interviewed

by students about their experience as community liasons.

"Influence Over Time"

The quantitative portion of the story map puts numbers behind these stories of inspiration and community.  Using the locations of stewards, their projects, and their places of outreach (door knocking in neighborhoods, rain garden parties, community events, etc.), to show the circle of influence in a ‘heat map’ form (see image below) is a powerful visualization. Interactive charts support this visualization by showing the diverse types and numbers of projects completed in the first three years of the Master Water Steward Program. Impressively, the team even tackled the Minimal Impact Design Standards (MIDS) calculator, a technical tool used by engineers to quantify what effect different projects have on the watershed as a whole, including the amount of water infiltrated and how much phosphorus and suspended solids were kept out of surface waters.

Macalester students present their mid-term progress

report on the Master Water Stewards story map.

Armed with the knowledge of what the Master Water Stewards program is, the problem of stormwater and the effectiveness of resident influence, the story map concludes with a call for map users to get involved. From simple first steps, to being the first on your block to embrace a new normal, this final slide provides guidance on where to start.

Check out the geovisualization HERE

Exploring the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District

 
Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District
 
http://arcg.is/1Lb88F8


Kohlman Creek Subwatershed and Kohlman Lake Subwatershed are the geographic focal points of the geovisualization done for RWMWD. The three-student team created a web map application that tells the story of stormwater projects done by the District to protect Kohlman Lake and downstream waters. Such projects including stream-bank stabilization, carp management, Maplewood Mall stormwater retrofit, shoreline restorations, and a wide variety of Best Management Projects (BMPs) put in through the District permit and cost share programs. Users can see where these projects are on the map, along with photos, video, and hyperlinks to more information about the projects.

The goal of the RWMWD Geovisualization is to show residents clean water projects in their neighborhood, and show how and why these actions are making their favorite lake healthier. A few of the effective tools this map uses include:

• A swipable map showing the BMPs installed at Maplewood Mall to infiltrate stormwater. Map points have pop-ups with project details and photos.
• Lake facts including depth, clarity and other physical features as well as links to more water quality data.
• Video and photo coverage of the carp research project that show affected water bodies and what actions the District took to manage the population of this invasive fish.
• An interactive map of BMPs that were installed through facilitation with RWMWD in the subwatersheds. Points are clickable so the user can see details of the project.
• A list of next steps, giving the user ideas and resources to take part in keeping their water clean.

Students work with RWMWD staff to develop the story
of Kohlman Creek and Kohlman Lake Subwatershed projects

“This is part of their everyday life, and many people have no idea,” said one student. They hope this web map application will help “bring it back to the residents.”

Check out the geovisualization HERE 

Green Infrastructure Along the Green Line

Capitol Region Watershed District

https://goo.gl/Qay9dH


The Green Line is the newest addition to the Light Rail Transit system, and exists largely within the Capitol Region Watershed District. A prominent length of this new stretch uses University Avenue in St. Paul. In constructing this project, the City worked with the Watershed District to manage stormwater along the rail line, going above and beyond permit requirements to make stormwater management not just effective, but aesthetic.

“Make the invisible visible” is something CRWD Administrator Mark Doneaux uses as a guiding principal when choosing to incorporate art into engineering. The goal of the CRWD geovisualization is to highlight these two elements of stormwater management along the Green Line, and to answer the question “Yes it’s prettier, but so what?”

Students present their mid-term progress report on
the Green Infrastructure along the Green Line geovisualization.

Users of the story map can click along a map of the Green Line to better understand what types of stormwater treatment are used in this system, why they are used, and see before/after images of what it looks like. Projects including tree trenches, rain gardens, infiltration trenches, stormwater planters and more are shown in an interactive way. Users can click on a feature to get more information see photos, and in most cases get the story behind it. Many times these features incorporate the artistry of local residents to complete, but many passing by may miss this fact.


The three-student team wanted to tell these stories, and show that whether a person lives in the area or is passing through by train or car, that they are a part of a larger system and their actions directly influence the health of the Mississippi River. They wanted their map to have ‘place making effects,’ as well as educate the community to the pollution prevention mechanisms at work.

Check out the geovisualization HERE


Thank you!

We are excited to have been able to build on Freshwater Society’s 3-year collaboration with the Macalester Geography and Qualitative Analytics classes. The groundwork set up by Peggy Knapp and others at Freshwater Society opens new doors and allows both the students and their partner organizations to make important strides in finding effective ways to communicate with and empower our communities.

A big thank you also goes out to the students who dug through digital mountains of technical data on a topic they previously knew little about, and came out on the other side talking easily about BMPs, TSS, Secchi disks, and MIDS. Bravo to them!

Mystery of the Month: Where did Dave and Eric Go?

By Sage Passi

Could these be clues to Dave and Eric's disappearance?

When our Water Quality Team, Dave and Eric, recently disappeared from the office for ten days, I knew they were up to something. I didn’t think this current disappearing act was because they were inching their way through the seven miles of underground pipe in the Beltline Storm Interceptor from the Mississippi River to Lake Phalen again like they did last winter. (To learn more about that adventure, read “Fifteen Days Underground”.)

I knew something was up and wondered what could it be this time? I was determined to get to the bottom of their latest disappearance.

A little investigation and a phone call to Dave led me to an answer.

It was alum pond cleaning time.

Dave and Eric were on a mission for Tanners Lake.

That raised even more questions for me. How do you actually clean a pond? Why would you even think of cleaning a pond?

So, after learning their whereabouts from Dave, I drove cautiously to the unobtrusive building which had been Eric and Dave's "hideout" for the past ten days. I wondered what I would find there.

Dave and Eric's "Hideout" - the Alum Treatment Facility

I noticed there was a small barbeque grill sitting by the door and was glad to know they were still getting nourishment. Despite their remote location, and given Eric’s gourmet talents, my hunch was they were probably eating better than the rest of us back at the office.

The alum treatment facility has a big job protecting the water going to Tanners Lake. The lake is primarily used for recreation including swimming, skiing, boating, fishing, canoeing and picnicking. It discharges into Battle Creek Lake in Woodbury, which serves as the headwaters for Battle Creek, a tributary of the Mississippi River. 

The swimming beach at Tanners Lake in Oakdale

Protecting this lake only makes sense.

In 1997, the District set water quality goals for Tanners Lake to support swimming and other recreational uses. Since then, the RWMWD completed several capital improvement projects (CIPs) which contributed to significant improvements in water quality. These improvements have resulted in Tanners Lake being removed from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) Impaired Waters List for excess nutrients (phosphorus).


Phosphorus levels have been reduced dramatically in Tanners Lake since the District began implementing a series of water quality improvements including the Alum Treatment Facility. Note: The yellow line indicates when the Alum Plant was installed in 1998. The data gap around 2010 was due to a change in labs when data was not collected.

One of the District’s water quality projects was the construction of a set of permeable weirs in a wetland north of the lake to slow the water down as it moves through the area so the sediments have more time to settle before they enter into the lake.

Another project was the creation of the alum treatment facility which treats stormwater from roughly 1,246 acres of land within the Tanners Lake Subwatershed. The Tanners Lake Subwatershed encompasses 1,732 acres, primarily in the city of Oakdale, with a small portion within the cities of Landfall, Woodbury and Maplewood. Tanners Lake, located near I-94 and Century Avenue, is a DNR protected lake.


The alum treatment facility treats over 70% of the Tanners Lake Subwatershed.

RWMWD began operating the alum treatment facility in 1998. The process of adding aluminum sulfate, otherwise known as alum, to stormwater is called alum injection. Once the alum gets into the water it binds the available phosphorus which creates the floc. This causes the fine particles to coalesce, clump (or flocculate) into larger particles. Alum injection can help meet downstream pollutant concentration loads by reducing concentrations of fine particles and soluble phosphorus. 

Alum treatment systems generally consist of three parts, a flow-weighted dosing system that fits inside a storm sewer manhole, remotely located storage tanks that provide alum to the doser, and a downstream pond that allows the alum, pollutants and sediments to settle out. 

When alum is injected into stormwater, it forms floc, which become heavy and precipitates out. These precipitates combine with heavy metals and phosphorus and sink into the sediment in a stable, inactive state. The collected mass of alum precipitates, pollutants and sediments is commonly referred to as floc.      

The building at Tanners Lake Alum Treatment Pond was constructed to house the alum injection equipment. The settling pond was created to retain the floc. This gives the alum time to react with the phosphorus. Once the majority of the phosphorus is removed, the water leaves the alum pond through a weir, and then is directed through a pipe that runs under Century Avenue. From there it is routed to a small wetland complex in Horseshoe Park in Oakdale and then enters Tanner’s Lake. This successful project currently removes 70 percent of all phosphorus entering the facility in a typical hydrologic year.



The Alum Treatment Pond

What did Eric and Dave actually do at the facility between 4 AM and 6 PM or later?

Shortly after my arrival, Eric Korte, the District’s Water Quality Monitoring Coordinator, drove up and climbed down to the pond to begin his tasks in this around-the-clock operation.

I took a step toward the mucky perimeter of the pond and decided not to go any further. The slope was slippery and I wasn't wearing my waders.

Eric unchains the boat at the edge of the pond, climbs in and starts the motor.




Eric stirs the floc with the boat motor.

E
Eric’s job for four to seven hours each day during this ten-day operation was to drive the boat around the pond stirring up the floc to suspend it in the water. Why? Over time the floc in the pond builds up and needs to be cleaned out. For the fall cleanout, the Watershed District was granted a permit from Metropolitan Council Environmental Services to pump the alum floc out of the pond into a nearby sanitary sewer.

I watched as Eric gunned the outboard motor repeatedly as he moved back and forth across the pond.

The District's Water Quality Technician, Dave Vlasin, was standing nearby watching Eric and commented,

“Eric’s method for mixing the water in the pond with the boat really worked well to re-suspend the floc. Within minutes after Eric stopped mixing with the boat we saw the floc settling out and the clear water emerging on the water surface. We were tuned into hearing the thickness of the floc as he passed.”

Floats attached to the GridBee AP4000 Air-Powered Mixer keep it from sinking to the
bottom of the pond. The mixer re-suspends floc in the alum pond.

In the middle of the pond I saw three huge bobber-like contraptions bouncing on the surface. I asked Dave what was their purpose and what was going on below the surface of the water.

“Eric and I installed a GridBee AP4000 air-powered mixer, which is an underwater bubbler in the alum pond to help re-suspend the floc in the water column to help it be more “pumpable.”

 

Diagram of AP4000 setup

To get an idea what the AP4000 set up looks like see diagram above. Picture a 55-gallon drum sitting on a plate with air diffusers on the bottom and then an air hose attached to the plate that helps circulate the floc.

Once the blower pumps are turned on; bubbles are forced up the drum, which creates suction at the base of that drum that draws in the surrounding floc. The pumped air forces the floc out the top of the barrel and the cycle continues. The longer the AP4000 stays on, the better job it does of suspending the floc and the larger the plume of floc that can be pumped into the sanitary sewer system.


Why did Dave and Eric decide to modify and take over the clean-out operation?

Dave commented,

“We had the opportunity to re-purpose a couple existing pumps that were no longer in use at the PCU Pond. That got us to thinking about improvements and ways to reduce the cost of cleaning out the floc at our Alum Pond. It’s expensive and has to be done every three to five years. We thought we could make some changes and save money for the district. It was costing about $30,000 each time it was cleaned up so we decided to try it ourselves,” said Dave.

“With our improved process, some additional equipment during this first year and doing it ourselves rather than hiring a contractor, we were still able to save about $10,000 including staff time. This savings will continue to grow because we will be depreciating the expenses we have incurred over time.”

I asked Dave if he ever got bored during this operation?

His answer:

“No. You are always doing something, even if you are waiting to do your next reading. There’s always something to else to do or pay attention to."

What tasks are involved in the alum pond clean-up?

“We have to collect grab samples that are representative of that day’s discharge. Each series of four grab samples are composited into one daily sample that is analyzed back in a lab for pH, chemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorous, nitrates, chlorides, mercury and a series of metals. The samples are picked up daily at the site by the Met Council."

Water samples drawn from the Alum Treatment Pond illustrate the amount of floc being collected in a day. Left to right, the percentage of alum increased as the day progressed.

"
"We also collect our own samples that we send to a lab for analysis. One of those samples collected each week is analyzed for PAH’s (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) diesel range organics/gasoline range organics.”

He continued,

“We monitor the pH of the water. We keep track of the amount of water being pumped into the sanitary system by using a flow meter which displays the number of gallons of water pumped and its rate of flow." 
 


Dave takes a reading of the amount of sludge
water being redirected to the sanitary sewer.

During the clean-out Dave took regular readings of the number of gallons of sludge water being redirected to the sanitary sewer system during the permit period.

"We had a permit to discharge 1,200,000 gallons during our permit period so we had to monitor this carefully to stay within our discharge limit. We also had to make sure our pumps were operating properly and didn't get clogged.”

Dave unlocks, lifts the lid on a silver box in the ground and
uses a measuring stick to determine the depth of the pond.



During the cleaning operation, Dave said the level
dropped from 12 feet to about 3 feet of standing water.

During normal operations at the alum treatment plant, there is a direct relationship between the water flow through the system and alum dosage/treatment. This is all done by pre-programmed computers based on the numbers Dave and Eric enter.

As water flow increases from storm events, the dosage of alum also increases. The storm pipe can only handle a maximum of 5 cubic feet per second so anything beyond that bypasses the alum treatment process and goes directly into the nearby wetland system and then on to Tanners Lake. 

Dave and Eric’s normal water quality duties require them to monitor the operations at this plant including alum dosage, water flow and rates, pH levels and other perimeters.

Dave by the alum storage chamber

I asked Dave to show me around the rest of the site to see the other parts of the cleaning operation. 

We then headed to another locked box. This one Dave actually climbed into and down into the darkness below. 

The dosing/mixing chamber where the alum is dosed into the water

When Dave climbed out of that chamber we left the area and crossed the road to the other side where Eric was busy collecting a water sample.  

Eric collects a water sample to send to the lab.

I said goodbye to Eric and Dave after thanking them for helping me to understand how the alum treatment plant works.

Another mystery solved!

Feeling satisfied that I now knew where Dave and Eric had gone, I decided to head downstream to explore how stormwater makes it way to Tanners Lake after it leaves the alum treatment facility. Along the way, I discover a few other tricks the watershed district has up its sleeve to protect Tanners Lake.

I drove, following the pathway of the water. This is what I discovered.

My drive took me to Horseshoe Park.

At Horseshoe Park I saw water meandering through the wetland.

Following the backwaters, I discovered a permeable weir that
slows water traveling through the wetland. allowing it to be
filtered before emptying into Tanners Lake.

 

 

Periodically the District goes into Horseshoe Park and clears out
sediment that accumulates as stormwater passes through this wetland.

 

The water travels through this storm outlet
on its way to Tanners Lake, having been
cleaned upstream by the alum treatment.

  



The wetland complex in Horseshoe Park helps treat the
stormwater before it enters Tanners Lake.

 

 

The final destination of the stormwater from upstream is Tanners Lake.

 

Green Up Your Christmas!

A quick trip through your local Target store this time of year bears ample witness to just how many resources are devoted to the celebration of our premiere winter holiday. Aisle after aisle of gifts, cards, wrapping, lights, decorations for the home and yard … it can be pretty overwhelming. And not just to our financial resources, but also to our natural resources.

You’ve likely seen some lists of things you can do to green up your Christmas celebrations. Ideas such as home-made decorations, hand-made gifts, creating cloth-wrapping bags for presents are all wonderful, but can be time-intensive. If you are already feeling crunched, these may seem out of reach.

But there are some things you can do to lessen your impact; to incorporate the three “Rs” - reduce, reuse, recycle - into your holiday preparations. Try one or two and see if they can become part of your annual holiday scheme.



News Wrap
Photo by Tracy / CC BY NC-ND 2.0

Wrap it Up

Promote reuse by using colorful gift bags – easy to open, easy to store and reuse. If that is impractical, purchase recycled and recyclable gift wrap. Designate reuse and recycling containers when opening gifts. Pay homage to your grandparents – hang on to those bows to use again next year.

Keep it in the Neighborhood

Perhaps you don’t have the time (or inclination) to make gifts, but it’s quite likely someone in your area does! Seek out locally-produced items to reduce the use of energy in materials transportation, and incidentally, promote home-town pride.




Blue Christmas
Photo by jpmatth / CC BY NC-ND2.0

Let it Shine

Christmas lighting displays can feel magical – and be expensive to operate. Minimize the cost and maximize the cheer by not leaving lights on overnight; use timers or simply turn them off at bedtime. And when your old lights go on the fritz, replace them with high-efficiency LED light strings.

Make it Personal

While some folks could use more material goods, many others are over “stuffed”. Give the gift of an experience – a movie, play, museum visit, ski trip, Segway tour, escape adventure, you-name-it, there are many awesome gifts that don’t contribute to the waste stream but do enrich our lives.




Cranberry Wreath
Photo by Jill Staake

It's for the Birds

This idea requires bit of work, but provides a lot of joy – decorate your yard with edible ornaments. Make bird seed wreaths, garlands of cranberries and popcorn (unsalted and unbuttered), cover pinecones with peanut butter and birdseed, hang strings of raw peanuts, and set out some of the ever-popular birdseed-suet ornaments in star or snowflake shapes. Instructions for the wreath shown can be found at Birds & Blooms Magazine. Find more ideas online! Your backyard wildlife will celebrate your choices.

Whatever changes you decide to incorporate, have a holly, jolly green Christmas!

An Unforgettable Summer

By Matt Brust



Matt Brust, Carrie Taylor, Simba Blood and Jordan Wein
after a long, muddy day harvesting carp at Kohlman Basin

If I could explain my experience as Water Quality Monitoring Intern at Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District in one word it would be OUTSTANDING. It has been both a challenging and enjoyable summer.

I leaned many new skills and gained an abundance of information that I'll continue to apply to other jobs in my future career path.

I learned how to operate and install several types of monitoring equipment including Isco samplers and flow modules, data loggers and level loggers. I had never used equipment like this before, and it has been a good learning opportunity.

I also learned a lot about how stormwater is treated. For instance, I helped monitor three different types of filters - an alum pond, an enhanced sand filter and a spent lime filter. I learned that all three filters are effective ways of removing contaminants, including phosphorus and nitrogen from stormwater.
 
Time passed by very quickly this 2015 monitoring season, I guess because I was so busy collecting water samples after rain events, cleaning trash racks, downloading monitoring equipment and learning how watershed districts operate. 

A few of my favorite activities this summer were collecting lake samples, inspecting the tunnel at Battle Creek, helping with the Keller Regional Park native restoration and working on the Kohlman Basin Drawdown. 



Matt checks the samplers after a rain event while on a Fish Creek Tour.

I especially enjoyed the lake sampling. Those days hardly felt like work at all, since I was in the boat and able to enjoy beautiful summer days while taking the samples. 

It was a unique opportunity to help with the Battle Creek tunnel inspection. I had never seen an inspection like this done and it was an awesome experience to witness.

Matt helps with a native planting at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church.

Another great experience was helping school groups from the District with the native restoration at Keller Regional Park. It was exciting to see how engaged the students were as they helped to beautify the area.

Matt interacts with the public while manning
the Storm Drain Goalie Booth at WaterFest.

One of the most interesting projects that I was able to be a part of was the Kohlman Basin Drawdown. The drawdown was done
to help eradicate carp in the Phalen Chain
of Lakes. It was a rewarding experience to know that we removed 450 carp from the chain. Those were some very muddy days!





Now that my 2015 intern season is coming to an end, I would like to thank the staff for allowing me to learn new skills from everybody, and to be a part of this outstanding organization. I did not expect  to learn as much as I did. All the staff were great teachers, as well as awesome professionals in their fields.

It certainly has been a great journey, which I will continue to talk about for years to come.

Thank you!
Matt