2024 Year in Review

Working closely with local and regional partners, MCWD advanced capital improvement projects across three major subwatersheds, in the upper tributaries draining to Lake Minnetonka, and along Minnehaha Creek, including the establishment of a new partnership with the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

This year’s weather, which swung between wet and dry extremes, including above-normal precipitation May-August, underscored our work with federal and state partners to provide emergency managers with data-driven flood forecasts from our real-time sensor network. It also reinforced efforts already underway, supported with legislative funding, to build a watershed-wide model that maps potential future flood vulnerabilities to support resilience planning.

All of these efforts position us to begin our 2027 Watershed Management Plan in 2025, which will focus on convening our partners to develop a cohesive flood mitigation and adaptation strategy, identify next wave capital projects that integrate into local priorities, and enhance our Land and Water Partnership program.

As 2024 comes to a close, I am grateful for our many incredible partners that have made this work possible. These meaningful collaborations are the difference-making ingredient for the Minnehaha Creek Watershed, allowing us to pursue opportunities we couldn’t tackle alone. With this momentum and the support of partners across the watershed, I am eager to see all we will achieve together in the years to come!

– James Wisker

Every 10 years, MCWD updates its Watershed Management Plan (WMP) to chart the organization’s direction for the coming decade, and earlier this month, the Board of Managers initiated efforts to kick off the development of the 2027 WMP. Guided by MCWD’s Climate Action Framework, the 2027 WMP will focus on developing a regional flood management strategy to build resilience throughout the watershed. Starting in 2025, MCWD will convene the watershed’s communities, leveraging a new 2-dimensional watershed model, to understand climate vulnerabilities, establish shared goals, and evaluate strategies to reduce flood risk across the watershed.

The WMP update also provides an opportunity to continue enhancing the District’s data-driven approach to project implementation. In 2025, MCWD plans to expand its portfolio of focal geographies by performing diagnostic work in the Painter Creek Subwatershed, one of Lake Minnetonka’s largest tributaries. Over the next two years, MCWD will bring partners together to identify and prioritize high-impact capital projects in each of the District’s focal areas – the Painter Creek, Six Mile Creek-Halsted Bay, Long Lake Creek, and Minnehaha Creek subwatersheds – as it develops the 2027 WMP. 

To support partner-led projects through MCWD’s Land & Water Partnership program over the next decade, MCWD will also work with its partners to build new tools and systems that support targeted, proactive opportunity identification. 

SIX MILE CREEK – HALSTED BAY (SMCHB) SUBWATERSHED

Partnering for Sustainable Growth in Victoria

Since 2015, MCWD has worked with the subwatershed’s communities to develop the SMCHB Plan, a collaborative vision to improve water and natural resources, while integrating local development goals. This collaborative approach has yielded influential projects like the Wassermann Lake Preserve.

To continue this legacy of effective partnership, MCWD and the City of Victoria recently adopted a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to implement their shared vision of preserving green space and ecological corridors as the City develops. “At the City of Victoria, we think we’re one of the most beautiful places in the world, and we want to keep it that way, so we’re excited to be moving forward with this together,” said Mayor Debra McMillan during the MOU adoption at the October 28, 2024, City Council meeting.

Informing the Future of Carp Management

From 2014-2023, MCWD and its partners implemented one of the region’s largest habitat restoration programs in the SMCHB Subwatershed, to improve water quality and aquatic vegetation in the 14-lake system by managing common carp populations. The program successfully limited carp populations, and though monitoring data suggests some habitat improvements, the system’s lakes have shown varied responses.

LONG LAKE CREEK SUBWATERSHED

To improve water quality in the Long Lake Creek Subwatershed, a large tributary to Lake Minnetonka, MCWD has partnered with the cities of Medina, Long Lake, and Orono, and the Long Lake Waters Association on the Long Lake Creek Roadmap, which outlines a suite of projects to restore five impaired lakes. Explore the full roadmap on the website.

Investing in the Restoration of Long Lake

In May 2024, MCWD began design of the County Road 6 Pond Retrofit, a project in Orono identified in the Long Lake Creek Roadmap. The retrofit is expected to enhance the stormwater pond’s treatment ability, improving water quality to downstream, impaired Long Lake. MCWD will engage the community in 2025 prior to design completion.

MINNEHAHA CREEK SUBWATERSHED

Connecting the Minnehaha Creek Greenway

Over the past decade, MCWD has implemented a series of projects in the Minnehaha Creek Greenway, to improve water quality and enhance a sense of place along the most degraded stretch of Minnehaha Creek.

The Greenway to Cedar Trail Connection project, which will connect past investments in the Greenway to the Cedar Lake LRT Regional Trail and the planned SWLRT Blake Road station, recently moved into the design phase. MCWD is partnering with the City of St. Louis Park on the trail connection and also plans to restore streambank along the creek. The project is also supported in part by grant funding from the Hennepin County Southwest Community Works Program. Stay tuned for opportunities to provide input on the project as design progresses in early 2025.

A New Partnership for Clean Water in Minneapolis

Building on the success of the 1990s Clean Water Partnership, MCWD established a new partnership in 2024 with the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB). In April, the three agencies adopted a cooperative agreement to guide the partnership’s vision of coordinated, systems-based planning and project implementation in the City. “These are interconnected water systems…and they need to be stewarded or planned for and protected in that way,” said MPRB Commissioner Cathy Abene during a partnership presentation at the February 21, 2024, MPRB Commissioners meeting. “I am really excited to see the progress here and grateful for the work.”

A NEW PROGRAM TO SUPPORT INTEGRATED PLANNING

In 2024, MCWD launched the Land and Water Partnership (LWP) program, which provides financial and technical support to partner-led projects that generate significant, regional water resource benefits. Designed to promote early coordination and integration of land use and water planning, the program allows MCWD and its partners to achieve mutual goals through collaboration.

PARTNERSHIP IN PERMITTING

The District’s Permitting program regulates land disturbances to protect and enhance water resources, and in 2024 alone, MCWD’s Permitting team issued 424 permits, including many in areas of high development.

Each permit provides a unique opportunity to be of service and bring value to partners in the land use community who promote healthy water resources and thriving communities. To support this partnership philosophy, in April 2024, MCWD adopted revised rules to align with other regulatory agencies, simplify language, streamline processes, and enhance opportunities for collaboration throughout the development planning process.

Putting this approach into practice, in 2024, MCWD collaborated with Monarch Development, the City of Mound, the Department of Natural Resources, the Lake Minnetonka Conservation District, and local legislators on a proposed development project adjacent to Lost Lake in Mound.

By convening partners early in the process to discuss infrastructure, density, and environmental needs on the spatially constrained site, MCWD was able to work with the development team to adjust the project plan so that it met the City’s vision, while also eliminating wetland impacts and providing stormwater management for an additional acre of public right-of-way draining through the site. “We appreciate the technical guidance and collaborative approach that MCWD provided,” said Monarch Development Co-Founder Carl Runck. “Early on, MCWD coordinated an effective sketch plan meeting with their Board of Managers, which allowed us to produce a plan that works for everyone, achieving our goals while also protecting the area’s valuable water resources.”

MCWD concluded the year on a high note, when MCWD’s Administrator, James Wisker, was awarded this year’s Outstanding Watershed Administrator award by the Minnesota Association of Watershed Administrators (MAWA). As an MCWD employee of nearly 20 years, James has been an integral part of the District’s accomplishments. Under his leadership, MCWD aligned around its vision of Balanced Urban Ecology, undertook many high-impact projects to become the award-winning organization it is today, and is poised to continue this direction as it works toward its next Watershed Management Plan in 2027.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE AT HOME

This winter, Salt Smart! One teaspoon of salt permanently pollutes 5 gallons of water because once it’s in the water, it’s difficult to remove.

Visit MCWD’s website to explore additional best practices at home that can help keep water clean!