2011 Watershed Assessment Summit

Managing Water on the Land from a Watershed Perspective

On Saturday, March 12, 2011 at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the Minnesota Division Izaak Walton League of America and the Freshwater Society sponsored a workshop on watersheds, watershed governance and opportunities for citizens to protect and restore lakes, streams, wetlands and groundwater.

Do you know what a watershed is?

No, it is not a boathouse or an outdoor shower stall. A watershed, a sometimes misunderstood concept, is a land area on which precipitation falling as rain or snow drains to a particular river or stream. Everything that happens on that land -- everything that is grown on it, built on it or spilled on it -- affects the quality of the water running off of the land.

The Summit was dedicated to helping citizens understand how watersheds function and how they are governed and managed in Minnesota. The goal of the Summit was to inform and motivate people to work through these watershed governing bodies to preserve and restore lakes, streams, wetlands and groundwater in the watersheds in which they live.

The Summit featured talks, workshops and panel discussions about how watershed districts and other watershed planning and management bodies do their work in both rural and urban areas of Minnesota.

Tom Davenport, an expert on nonpoint source pollution and the Region 5 Agriculture Coordinator of the US Environmental Protection Agency gave the luncheon keynote speech:  Managing Nutrients from the Headwaters to the Gulf

 

Below are links to some of the reports and presentations from the Summit: