Brown's Creek Watershed District:
2nd + 3rd Generation Watershed Mgmt. Plans
advancing the roles of watershed management plans
The Brown’s Creek Watershed District (BCWD) 2nd Generation Watershed Management Plan (2000) represented the first “focused” watershed management plan to be approved by the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. This focused plan was developed to support the BCWD’s recently adopted Rules and Regulations and to provide the BCWD with a 5 year implementation plan that would address: education, outreach and stewardship; data acquisition; monitoring and maintenance; and groundwater resources.
The 3rd Generation Watershed Management Plan (2007) is a more traditional in that it lays the framework for a variety of watershed management activities over the next ten years. Given the short time frame of the 2nd Generation Watershed Management Plan (WMP), development of the 2007-2017 WMP was streamlined and built upon previous planning efforts. The development of the 3rd Generation WMP occurred in conjunction with the BCWD Rule Update, involved a significant Public Involvement Process, and resulted in a quick approval process.
Unique components of the 3rd Generation WMP include:
- standards to protect groundwater dependent natural resources
- training of municipal staff regarding surface water and groundwater resource protection
- measurable goals to facilitate evaluation of progress through plan implementation
- clear prioritization of the implementation plan to attainable benchmarks
Additional highlights of the 3rd Generation WMP include a user-friendly format that makes it simple to identify District policies with their respective goals and implementation items. Ease of reference is further aided by the implementation plan which clearly relates each implementation item back to the goals and polices it is designed to addresses. This clear formatting pulls the Watershed Management Plan into a cohesive whole and facilitates the active implementation of the plan.