When citizens and City staff started noticing "brown water" entering the Mississippi River from a stormwater outfall; St. Cloud, Benton SWCD, the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and property owners partnered together to reduce stormwater pollutants from this 367-acre drainage area.

NE St. Cloud is an older part of the city developed prior to current land use and water quality standards so it doesn’t have the infrastructure to properly treat the stormwater runoff and pollution. So, the polluted stormwater makes it's way through underground pipes untreated and into the river degrading the water quality.

Today, there are changes underway to improve and increase this area’s stormwater treatment and infrastructure. This is important and needed because the Mississippi River is the primary drinking water in St. Cloud. The goal is to reduce sediment amount by 70% over a 15-year time span.

Visit City of St. Cloud’s interactive Story Map to learn more.

The first grant to improve the stormwater runoff was approved in 2015 with another in 2019 and 2020.