Minnesota River Board
The Minnesota River Board (MRB) is a group of 37 counties with land that drains into the Minnesota River. (It was formerly known as the Minnesota River Basin Joint Powers Board.) The Board is dedicated to coordinating the clean up of the Minnesota River Basin. This Joint Powers Board, an “umbrella” organization, works within the 13 major watersheds to foster stakeholder participation as well as planning and project implementation for the river restoration effort. The 37-county partnership includes local governments, citizens groups, and farmers throughout the basin.
The purpose of the MRB is to promote the orderly water quality improvement and management of rivers and other water bodies within the Minnesota River Watershed through information sharing, education, and related support to the 37 member counties.
Mission Statement
Reclaiming a Legacy
The Minnesota River Board counties realize that preservation and restoration of the Minnesota River can only be achieved by local entities –governments, agriculture, business, individual citizens – working in cooperation with each other, and with the support and assistance of all available resources at the local, state, and federal level.
Specifically, the Minnesota River Board counties seek to:
- Ensure the preservation and restoration of the Minnesota River recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and scenic beauty.
- Leverage existing resources at the local, state and federal level – both private and public – to preserve and restore the Minnesota River to ensure a swimmable, fishable river with recreational and economic development opportunity available to all.
- Reduce the societal cost associated with river degradation.
- Provide leadership to address the cumulative impact of many causes of river degradation over past years with a cooperative effort between all of the parties with an interest in the Minnesota River.
Types of Projects
- Promoting a marketing plan for the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) for the basin, whereby landowners are given incentives to take marginal land, especially land prone to flooding, out of row crop production and convert it to more river-friendly land uses;
- Broadening stakeholder participation in the process of designating impaired waters within the basin by providing assistance to the MPCA when wasteload allocations are done for each watershed; and,
- Providing policy leadership to the 37 counties and 13 watersheds by involving the Board and technical staff in development and review of basin-wide documents and strategies that will lead to improvements in water quality within the basin.
To learn more about the Minnesota River Board, visit the Minnesota River Board's website: http://mrbdc.mnsu.edu/org/mrbd/mrbd.html
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