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| Home > Natural Resources |
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| Training Overview |
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Through the Healthy Lakes and Rivers Partnerships (HLRP) program the foundation empowers local shoreline associations to improve the quality of their lakes or rivers by helping them:
- Enhance the leadership skills of key lake/river association members.
- Provide a forum for shoreline property owners to plan for the future of their watershed.
- Obtain opportunities to network, work cooperatively, learn from one other, and advocate for healthy waters in central Minnesota
- Create visions, missions, goals, and management plans for their watershed using a template developed by the Healthy Lakes program and modeled after the State Interagency Lakes Coordinating Committee guide.
- Establish indicators to measure the success of their association’s efforts.
- Receive training, technical assistance and support for citizen-based planning and project implementation.
Program History
HLRP was initially developed in the summer of 1999 in collaboration with the Crow Wing Lakes & Rivers Alliance, Crow Wing County. HLRP was developed to help fill the gap between what state agencies are able to accomplish with regard to water quality management, and what local citizens believe should be done to protect or improve the quality of their lakes and rivers.The following summary shows the number of groups that have participated in the program within each county:
Benton - 1
Cass - 28
Crow Wing - 27
Isanti - 8
Kanabec - 5
Mille Lacs - 0
Morrison - 8
Pine - 0
Sherburne - 5
Stearns - 16
Todd - 3
Wadena - 5
Wright - 10
In addition, partnerships with the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resouces (LCMR), the McKnight Foundation, and the Northwest Minnesota Foundation have supported collaborations that have served an additional 42 lake and river groups in Aitkin, Beltrami, Douglas, Hubbard and Itasca Counties, for a total of 150 organizations served. For more detailed information about program participants and their successes take a look at the Participants & Successes page.
Training and Participation
Through the HLRP program, citizen leaders are given the tools needed to assist them in developing and implementing their own lake or river management plans. Over two training sessions, participating advocacy groups learn how to develop a locally shared vision and plan, how to set measurable goals, and how to report on their progress and outcomes.
Because of the relationships established in the common training that each group receives, they are able to contact one another and share practical experiences on sources of assistance or funding, situations or "solutions" to avoid, and sources of further guidance at regulatory agencies or academic institutions.
The most common outcome that communities have chosen to pursue is an inventory of current wastewater treatment practices or needs, establishment of low-interest septic upgrade funds, or evaluation of alternative community wastewater treatment options. Other common activities include fisheries habitat improvements, demonstrations on lakeshore landscaping to enhance water quality, active involvement in the revision of local government comprehensive plans and ordinances, management of invasive aquatic plants, and ongoing involvement in local planning and zoning review processes.
HLRP program outline
HLRP application information
See our additional resources for other sources of assistance in protecting lakes and rivers. |
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