VRWJPO awarded Clean Water Fund grant for Alimagnet alum treatment

The Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources recently announced their Clean Water Fund Competitive Grant awardees for Fiscal Year 2024. Funds are awarded to a variety of organizations across Minnesota for projects and practices protecting water resources.

The Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization (VRWJPO) has been awarded several CWF Competitive Grants over the years. For 2024, the organization received $287,000 for an alum treatment in Alimagnet Lake.

Alimagnet Lake, split between the Cities of Apple Valley and Burnsville, is an impaired water body. The impairment is caused by excess phosphorus, which results in algal blooms and poor recreational use. Significant effort to date to address phosphorus have focused primarily on reducing external load sources, or those sources that carry phosphorus to the lake. Now the focus is turning to internal phosphorus load sources, or those that come from within the lake itself. Phosphorus in the lake bottom sediments can be released each year, resulting in algae blooms and poor water quality conditions.

VRWJPO completed a feasibility study in 2023 to determine the potential effects of an alum treatment, in partnership with the two cities and a previous CWF grant. Alum was previously used in ponds near Alimagnet Lake to reduce phosphorus entering the lake.

For more information about the project, contact VRWJPO Administrator Travis Thiel at travis.thiel@co.dakota.mn.us.

About the Minnesota Clean Water Fund

Minnesota voters approved the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment in 2008 to protect, enhance, and restore wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve arts and cultural heritage; to support parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater. The Clean Water Fund receives 33% of the sales tax revenue generated by the Legacy Amendment. More information about the Clean Water Fund is available here.