Water Quality Monitoring - Streams

Stream Monitoring

The River Monitoring Program led to the inception of the Stream Monitoring Program, which began in 1988. Currently, there are twenty-eight automated stream monitoring stations located around the Twin Cities and six stations in the Mankato area.

Why the Metropolitan Council?

The MCES Stream Monitoring Program was initiated in the late 1980s. Point source pollution controls alone were insufficient to attain the water quality goals of the Federal Clean Water Act.

Since then, the stream monitoring program has grown for several reasons:

It is relevant to the Metropolitan Council's regional planning and modeling efforts.
It promotes local resource stewardship and decision making.
It is mandated by state law (MN Statute 473.157) to establish target pollutant loads for each watershed.

The stream monitoring Quality Assurance Program Plan (PDF) provides a detailed description of the program's purpose, procedures, methods and quality assurance objectives.