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Overview In 2024, the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB), and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) established the Minneapolis Thriving Waters Partnership (MTWP), to deliver coordinated, systems-based projects that improve water and enhance community placemaking in the City of Lakes. Building on the 1990s Clean Water Partnership — which kept […]

Overview From 2014 to 2023, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) and its partners conducted one of the region’s largest habitat restoration and water quality enhancement programs. The program aimed to improve water quality and aquatic vegetation conditions in the Six Mile Creek-Halsted Bay Subwatershed (SMCHB)‘s 14-lake system by managing common carp populations. Introduced to […]

Overview The East Auburn Wetland corridor is a system of wetlands originating at the outlet of Wassermann Lake and flowing north toward Highway 5 to the inlet of East Auburn Lake in Victoria. The wetland corridor includes part of Six Mile Creek and contains several types of wetlands. MCWD partnered with the City of Victoria […]

Overview This set of planned, complementary projects will treat water within the chain of lakes that includes Turbid, South and North Lundsten, Parley Lake and Six Mile Creek. The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) is in the planning stage for a project in this corridor. Work in this area is dependent on land acquisition, partnerships, and […]

Overview The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) is exploring a range of nutrient reduction strategies to improve water quality in Halsted Bay on Lake Minnetonka, including a water treatment facility, upstream wetland restorations, and in-lake nutrient reduction treatments, among others. This suite of project opportunities could reduce Halsted Bay’s nutrient load by over 3,000 pounds […]

Overview Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) conducted alum treatments of Wassermann Lake and Wassermann West Pond to significantly increase both the health and clarity of the lake. Both the lake and pond received two alum treatments. The first alum treatment was conducted on the West Pond, followed by a treatment of the lake and a […]

Overview The Minnehaha Creek Preserve officially opened in July 2015, marking a major step in the renaissance of the iconic waterway and one of the largest urban stream restorations in Twin Cities history. The Preserve features 2,200 feet of boardwalk and 4,600 feet of paved trail around a restored stretch of Minnehaha Creek between Meadowbrook […]

Overview After studying the degradation and poor water quality of Jennings Bay, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District identified seven construction areas to increase storage capacity of Painter Creek and reduce nutrient discharge into Jennings Bay. In 1985, MCWD constructed outlet structures at Lake Katrina, Pond 937, and Painter Marsh; installed two sediment basins as South Katrina Marsh […]

Overview The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD), in partnership with the City of Wayzata, the Gleason Lake Improvement Association, and the Gleason North Shore Home Owners Association, worked together to develop a strategy to address water quality and flooding issues and implemented a series of improvement projects within the Gleason Lake subwatershed. The projects were […]

Overview In 2008, MCWD restored a wetland adjacent to Painter Creek. This wetland restoration project involved excavating a new channel meander to direct flows from Painter Creek across the wetland to improve nutrient removal. To allow the new channel meander to function, an existing weir was also lowered, and a new weir was installed near […]

Overview In the 1990s, Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) oversaw the construction of wet detention basins, an alum treatment, and the enhancement of existing sedimentation basins to reduce the annual load of nutrients and sediments delivered to Long Lake. Two ponds were built to reduce the annual loading of nutrients and sediment delivered to Long […]

Overview In 2001, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) partnered with the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) to install wetland settling ponds to treat nutrients before they flow into Lake Nokomis. MCWD and MPRB also partnered to install an inflatable weir at the outlet of Lake Nokomis at Minnehaha […]