Hubbard county soil and water conservation district (hcswcd) will partner with park rapidsdepartment of natural resources fisheries (DNR), the MN board of water and soil conservation(bwsr),…

Hubbard county soil and water conservation district (hcswcd) will partner with park rapidsdepartment of natural resources fisheries (DNR), the MN board of water and soil conservation(bwsr), townships and lake associations to address fish passage and spawning habitat connectivityissues by replacing existing culverts with correctly sized and placed culverts to reduce flow rates to levelscompatible with passage. This will protect fisheries from climate change impacts, create a local process, train local teams to continuously recognize and utilize opportunities to improve fish passage whilereplacing existing culverts and raise public awareness and support for projects that improve passage andconnectivity.over a two-year project term, partners will seek to meet the following goals:1. Enhance community awareness of culvert sizing and fish passage issues to increase public will andparticipation to fund and address all similar issues county wide over the next decade.2. Identify and streamline a local process to systematically identify, fund and replace improve culverts forfish passage.3. Coordinate a combined DNR, swcd, bwsr, township road supervisor training on strategic planning toimprove culvert replacement implementation across the lakes area.4. Utilize the developed local process to replace culverts and improve fish passage at bender creek as ademonstration project both for the public and the newly trained local teams.5. Produce a citizen fish passage action packet to help groups continue to spread the word and increasepublic will for future projects.6. Engage hcswcd volunteers in measuring the results of the outreach and education campaigns byadministering short surveys at events to gauge the percentage of people who are aware of these projectsand issues over time.7. Collect flow monitor data at demonstration project site and share the data as part of an annual updateto the community.