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<br /> <br />In 2018, with the support of the <br />partners, the District obtained a <br />$112,000 Accelerated <br />Implementation Grant from the Board <br />of Soil and Water Resources (BWSR). <br />Through this grant, the District has <br />been serving as the technical and <br />planning lead to conduct a <br />subwatershed assessment, identify <br />cost-effective projects and strategies <br />to improve water quality, and develop <br />a clear and actionable roadmap to <br />guide implementation. Since 2018, <br />the District, cities, and LLWA have <br />routinely met to share information <br />and align goals, plans, and <br />expectations for how the partners will <br />work together to advance water <br />quality improvement projects. <br />Roadmap Development <br />To develop the implementation <br />roadmap, the District has followed a <br />4-step approach: <br /> Understand resource needs – Complete a natural resource assessment to understand issues <br />and drivers of poor water quality throughout the subwatershed <br /> Understand land use plans - Incorporate land use plans to identify opportunities to implement <br />water quality improvement projects <br /> Integrate and prioritize – Integrate land use and natural resource understanding to evaluate <br />and prioritize project opportunities <br /> Develop implementation plan – Develop an implementation plan that provides clarity on roles, <br />action steps, timelines, and funding strategy <br />The following sections summarize the work completed and findings under each of these four steps. Note <br />that this assessment focused on the upper portion of the subwatershed (everything draining to Long <br />Lake). In 2011, MCWD completed a study for the lower portion of the subwatershed (everything <br />downstream of Long Lake) which took a similar approach to diagnose drivers of poor water quality and <br />identify and prioritize project opportunities. The findings from that study have been incorporated into <br />the implementation section. <br /> <br />Understanding Resource Needs <br />The first step in solving a water quality issue is understanding the underlying drivers of the problem. To <br />diagnose the drivers of the impairments in the Long Lake Creek system, the MCWD conducted a natural <br />resource assessment that involved intensive water quality monitoring, analysis of in-lake conditions, <br />ecological health assessments, and watershed modeling. <br />Figure 1