Over the next ten years, the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District (MCWD) and its partners will engage in one of the Twin Cities metro's largest habitat restoration and water quality enhancement projects. The project is the restoration of 2,488 acres of in-lake habitat across 14 connected deep and shallow lakes and the creation of corridors of restored wetland and uplands in the Six Mile Creek-Halsted Bay Subwatershed (SMCHB), one of the largest tributaries to Lake Minnetonka. 

The SMCHB is one of the District's focal geographies. With our partners, we'll be working to align priorities and investments across agencies to accomplish large-scale habitat, corridor, and water resource restoration objectives. These objectives include larger-scale wetland restorations, additional rough fish management, in-lake and watershed phosphorus reduction, or others.

Managing the subwatershed's large population of common carp is the first phase in our comprehensive restoration of the SMCHB. The focus in the SMCHB will restore 2,488 acres of shallow lake habitat to benefit game and non-game fish species, improve wildlife habitat for waterfowl, and address water quality issues for the 14 lakes, six of which are listed by the state as being impaired.