FUNDING STRATEGIES

Kathy Bartilson, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources/ Funding Committee, St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team Strategy 4 of the Nutrient Reduction Agreement calls on both states to: “Provide continued staff and funding support to the St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team.” This team has always operated on pooled resources and shared research. Some past accomplishments through jointly-supported efforts include:

• Part-time coordinator funding since 1999
• Research (through individual agencies or joint studies)
• Monitoring and modeling (joint efforts, individual agencies and volunteers)
• Annual “Protecting the St. Croix” Conference (since April, 2000)
• Educational materials (presentations, proceedings, brochures, displays)
• Staff time and travel for projects and meetings

Our short-term goals are to continue sharing the support costs for team operations and for monitoring and modeling to track progress with the 20% nutrient reduction goal. Additional funding is also being sought to write an implementation plan to meet the reduction goal. A Capacity Development grant application was submitted to EPA last fall to expand modeling expertise in the basin, but the final grant awards have not yet been announced.

Long term goals include securing funding to expand the role of the team coordinator and to identify and implement load reduction measures. Another option being considered is a “protection fund” for future cost-sharing with partners to implement management practices and treatment capacity improvements.