Location: Winona County, MN
Client: Winona County Soil and Water Conservation District
Background
The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) charged local governments to develop one watershed plan to drive water resources planning, management, and project efforts within the watershed. The One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P) pilot project departs from traditional efforts guided by multiple plans and instead encourages local partners to work together to develop a collaborative water management plan that consistently and concurrently drives efforts in the same positive direction.
HEI's team worked with partners in the Root River Watershed in southeastern Minnesota to help develop this groundbreaking project.
The Project
One of the most complicated factors of this project is the level of coordination and communication required between multiple parties.
To address this, HEI began the planning process with a series of stakeholder meetings with Root River partners to develop the backbone of the plan, ensuring known issues and future goals were clearly defined. HEI led partners through a series of productive discussions to gain consensus with a diverse group. Meetings also helped the team stay on target to meet milestone deadlines.
As the project progressed, HEI gathered watershed information, set measurable goals, and ultimately wrote a plan with targeted implementation strategies.
The final plan has been approved by BWSR, making it one of the first 1W1P plans to be completed within the State of Minnesota. The plan was also published as an interactive PDF, specifically designed to be user-friendly. The plan can be viewed
here.
Client Benefits
- Assistance with a new, uncharted pilot program.
- Coordination with and input from numerous stakeholders, including the public.
- One of the first counties/watershed districts to engage with the One Watershed, One Plan pilot project.
- Detailed plan writing services to describe various complex watershed characteristics.