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County extends water plan, starts 'One Watershed, One Plan'

By
Mavis Fodness

For the next five years the Rock County Land Management Office will focus resources and efforts on a single watershed management plan.
On Jan. 19 the Rock County Board extended the comprehensive water management plan until 2021 with an understanding that local Soil and Water Conservation District personnel would begin work on a new plan.
The new plan, however, would encompass a larger area than the county’s current boundary.
“A county boundary is a square that was drawn back when the state and counties were established,” said Doug Bos of the Rock County Land Management Office.
“When water comes from many counties … it is a watershed.”
One Watershed, One Plan is the state’s newest recommendation on how future water quality management plans should be formulated. Having one plan for multiple counties involving the quality of the same water source, such as the Rock River, makes sense, Bos said.
“By having a plan across county borders and encompassing a watershed, you’re trying to do the same thing across the whole drainage area,” he said.
For the past two years five watersheds throughout the state have piloted the One Watershed, One Plan method. Due to the pilot program’s success, state officials have encouraged other counties to begin the same process. Bos said he hoped to begin work on the plan this fall.
Officials have divided the state into 63 watersheds with some counties in multiple watersheds. All of Rock County is in the Missouri River Basin Watershed.
Bos estimated work on the one plan would take two years to complete and encompass input from the other counties in the same watershed. Once finished, the plan would be in effect for the entire watershed for the next 10 years.
“You put this all together in a plan and give it to the state, and the state says if you have this plan and if you want money to fix things you now are approved to do it because you have a plan on how to do it,” Bos said.
The LMO is currently assembling representatives for the multi-county water plan task force.
The group would gather input on water quality priorities along with possible solutions. An outside consultant would write the final plan, Bos said.
Besides Rock County, the Missouri River Basin Watershed includes large portions of Pipestone and Nobles counties and small areas of Murray, Lincoln and Jackson counties.
Rock County’s current water management plan focuses on four major areas: preserving groundwater quality and quantity, upgrading subsurface treatment systems, correcting feedlot runoff, and improving surface water quality.
 
In other business, the commissioners:
•Learned Commissioner Jody Reisch was selected by Governor Mark Dayton’s office to serve on his broadband task force committee. The term expires in 2019.
•Were invited to the retirement party for 4-H program coordinator Nancy Sandager from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, at the Human Services Building. Sandager has been coordinator for 15 years.

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