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June 2019
The Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota (BALMM) will meet Wednesday, June 19, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 18 Wood Lake Drive S.E., in Rochester.
Agenda as follows:
- 9:00 a.m.: “100 Years in Paradise: Voices of Whitewater State Park”– Sara Holger, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
- 10:15 a.m.: Break
- 10:30 a.m.: “Clean Water Partnership Loan Program” – Cynthia Penny and Kurt Soular, MPCA
- 10:50 a.m.: “MPCA’s Ambient Groundwater Monitoring” - David Duffey, MPCA
- 11:30 a.m.: BALMM Chair Nominations
- 11:45 a.m.: Regional Updates
- Noon: Adjourn
In 2019, Whitewater State Park near Altura, Minn., turned 100 years old. Sara Holger, lead interpretive naturalist with the Minnesota DNR, will speak at the June BALMM meeting about the history of the park and surrounding Whitewater Valley through the stories of people who have lived, worked and played here over the past century. This presentation includes audio clips from the park’s oral history project, providing people’s stories in their own words and voices.
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The Clean Water Partnership loan program offers 0% interest financing for implementing nonpoint source pollution reduction projects and programs. The flexibility of the program allows local government units and tribes to take creative approaches to complete projects or provide incentives for landowners, including stormwater BMPs, equipment purchases, water softener swaps, and more. At the June BALMM meeting, the MPCA program administrators – Cindy Penny and Kurt Soular – will explain more about this financing option.
The MPCA’s Ambient Groundwater Monitoring Network has been operating continuously since 2004. The network has been improved and expanded since then, and now staff sample 270 dedicated sites each year in a variety of settings across the state. The presentation at the June BALMM meeting will describe the network, its purpose, and what the results of sampling have provided so far across the state and in the watersheds of southeast Minnesota.
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