Red Lake River Farm to Stream Tile Drainage Study - Red Lake Watershed District

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Red Lake River Farm to Stream Tile Drainage
Study- Red Lake Watershed District
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Project Background

• Originally focused upon wild rice paddy drainage
  water quality
• Interest from farmers, scientists, MPCA, others
• Expanded to include conventional agriculture and
  flow monitoring
• Financial support from the Northwest Minnesota
  Foundation and the Red River Watershed Management
  Board

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Theories

• Lower Suspended Solids
• Lower Total Phosphorus
• Higher Nitrates
• Lower Peak Flows
• Greater Total Volume of Flow

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Water Quality Comparisons

• Conventional Agriculture
• Different types of tile outlets
• Different areas within the Red Lake River
  Watershed
• Tile Drainage vs. Surface Drainage vs. Natural
  Background WQ
• Wild Rice Paddy Drainage
• Different types of drainage systems

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Thief River Watershed
Marshall/Beltrami Co. Project Area
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Marshall County Sites
Pumped Tile Outlet
Surface Drainage
Gravity Tile Outlets
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Clearwater River Watershed
Red Lake Co. Project Area
Wild Rice Paddy Monitoring
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Red Lake County Sites
Surface Drainage
Main Line Tile
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Clearwater County (Wild Rice) Sites
Surface Drained
Tile with Internal Perimeter Ditches
Main Line Tile, no Perimeter Ditches
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Tile Water Quality Findings Conventional
Agriculture

• Very low turbidity
• Almost always lt1 NTU (Drinking Water Standard)
• Often similar to distilled water
• Minimal Phosphorus and Total Suspended Solids
• TP - interferences
• Nitrates range from mid-teens to over 40 mg/L
• Drinking Water Standard is 10 mg/L
• Mud River ? 0.55 mg/L avg., 3.67 mg/L max
• Hill River ? 0.56 mg/L avg., 1.84 mg/L max
• RRV ecoregion min. impacted ? .20 mg/L
• Good DO levels, but high conductivity

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Tile Outlet Comparisons

• Nitrate concentrations at the Marshall County
  pumped tile monitoring site were 1/2 as high as
  at the gravity tile site
• TSS more measurable from pumped tile
• Near minimum detection limit _at_ gravity tile sites
• Red Lake Co. gravity tile had better water
  quality (average concentrations) than Marshall
  Co. gravity tile (Structure? Design?)

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Tile Outlet Comparisons
Marshall Co. Gravity Tile
Red Lake Co. Gravity Tile
Marshall Co. Pumped Tile
Natural Background
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Surface Drainage Water Quality

• Not many samples in 2005, not many runoff events
  in the summer of 2006
• Significantly higher turbidity levels vs. tile
  drainage sometimes extreme
• Higher orthophosphorus
• Higher total Kjeldahl nitrogen
• Lower nitrate concentration

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Surface Versus TileConventional Ag
AVERAGES Surface Tile
Total Phosphorus (mg/L) 0.87 .02
Total Suspended Solids (mg/L) 124.92 1.96
Nitrates (mg/L) 2.57 21.31
Total Nitrogen (mg/L) 5.61 22.36
Turbidity (NTU) 149.58 .71
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Drainage vs. Natural Background Levels-
Comparable or Better -

• Tile drainage
• Turbidity
• Total suspended solids
• Total phosphorus and orthophosphorus
• Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (Red Lake Co.)
• Wild Rice Paddy Nitrates
• Surface drainage
• Dissolved oxygen (thats all)

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Drainage vs. Natural Background Levels- Cause
for Concern -

• Tile
• Conventional Ag Nitrates
• Total nitrogen concentration (and loss)
• Conductivity
• Surface drainage
• Turbidity and TSS
• Phosphorus
• Total nitrogen, TKN, and nitrates
• Conductivity

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Wild Rice Paddy Water Quality Results
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Wild Rice Paddy Water Quality Results

• Main line tile had much cleaner water than the
  surface drained paddy and the tile-plus-sfc
  drained paddy

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Wild Rice Paddy Water Quality Results

• Simply having tile within a paddy is not enough
  to achieve WQ benefits
• Eliminate internal surface drainage
• Wild rice paddy sites had low nitrate levels
• Wild rice main line tile ? Very clean.
• Low nitrates too!
• High conductivity and low DO are the only
  negatives

Sfc.
ML Tile
VS.
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Wild Rice Main Line TileWinWin Solution

• Incentives for the installation of main line tile
  in wild rice paddies could drastically improve
  water quality within the Clearwater River during
  the discharge months of Jul-Sept.
• Benefits to Farmer
• More even quality, maturity
• Less ditch maintenance
• Fewer ruts during harvest
• More control over drainage
• No topsoil loss
• Ends of pattern tiles dont get plugged

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Wild Rice Paddy Sfc. Drainage Impact on the
Clearwater River
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Wild Rice Paddy Sfc. Drainage Impact on the
Clearwater River
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Wild Rice Paddy Results Impact on Clearwater
River
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Wild Rice Paddy Results Impact on Clearwater
River

• August 3rd, 2006 Upstream, Downstream
• Turbidity (NTU/FNU)
• 0.3 up, 37 down ? Large Increase
• Dissolved Oxygen (mg/L)
• 11.40 up, 9.51 down ? Decrease
• Temperature (C)
• 24.7 deg up, 26.84 deg down ? Increase
• Conductivity (uS/cm)
• 359 up, 701 down ? Nearly Doubled

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FLOW

• Accurate, continuous measurement of flow
• Tile Drained Field
• Capture Tile and Surface Flow
• Surface Drained Field
• Capture Surface Flow

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Flow Comparison Theories Being Tested

• Peak Flow Rate
• Flow Volume

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How is flow measured?

• H flumes (surface drainage)
• V-Notch Weir (tile)

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Peak Flows
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More InformationMore Questions

• More Years of High Quality Flow Data
• Is tile drainage impacting the Hill River?
• What is water quality like in other areas of the
  RRB?
• What happens to the nitrates from tile once they
  enter a waterway?
• What can be done to remove nitrates before they
  enter a waterway?
• Wetlands?
• Controlled Drainage?
• What would happen during drought conditions?

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Future Plans

• Distribution of Completed Final Report and
  Brochure
• Continue Red Lake County flow monitoring
• Need to calculate total flow volumes
• Collect samples during runoff events
• Flow study report in 2009?
• Presentations

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Questions?

• More information is available on the RLWD
  website
• http//www.redlakewatershed.org/projects.html
  RLWFTSTile

Corey Hanson coreyh_at_wiktel.com 218-681-5800