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03i15/2001 14:46 FAX 6514528940 MENDOTA HGTS MN Z 005 <br /> Dakota County(MN)Weiland Assessment, <br /> Monitoring,and Awareness Project, <br /> Revision 4,June 5, 1998 <br /> Page 10 of 50 <br /> III. WHY ARE WE DOING THE STUDY? WHAT ARE ITS QUALITY <br /> ASSURANCE OBJECTIVES? <br /> A. To foster public awareness and citizen involvement: The WHEP will foster public <br /> awareness of wetlands, gather baseline data on a range of wetlands, and increase citizen <br /> involvement in wetland issues in a rapidly urbanizing county. The cities and the Minnesota <br /> Zoo have identified two major benefits of the project: <br /> ' A method to educate people about local wetlands and wetland health. <br /> ' A cost-effective way do a basic assessment of the health of typical depressional wetlands <br /> under their jurisdiction- <br /> B. To field test the Minnesota Citizen Wetland Survey protocol and determine its <br /> usefulness: The WI-IEP will provide an opportunity to further test the Minnesota Citizen <br /> Wetland Survey protocol and determine the feasibility of its successful use by multiple <br /> citizen investigation teams and technical wetland experts. If cities find the data gathered by <br /> citizens valuable and useful, cities will have a method to obtain information on wetland and <br /> environmental health at a significantly reduced cost_ Cities will also be able to consider the <br /> value of the data collected using the citizen protocol to the data collected by technical experts <br /> using a more technical protocol, the Technical Biotic Evaluation of Wetlands. Data from,the <br /> citizen monitoring as well as from the technical monitoring will be reported to cities,the <br /> Minnesota Eoo, Dakota County,the MCPA, and the US EPA. <br /> C. To provide baseline information: The WIMP will provide a snapshot of wetland health <br /> conditions at thirty-six sites in an urbanizing area. There is consensus that at least five years <br /> of data would be needed to get an overall picture of wetland health. The WI-MP provides for <br /> the first or second year of data depending on the city participating. The fact that the eight <br /> communities with significant wetland resources in Dakota County all opted to participate in <br /> this project indicates a high level of interest in gathering assessment data on local wetlands. <br /> D. Project Data Quality Objectives (PDQOs): <br /> 1_ Problem to be studied_ Can citizen volunteers, with training, collect and analyze <br /> biological data on wetland health and get results comparable to that obtained by technical <br /> experts using the same and a more technical protocol? Will the data collected by citizens <br /> be used in a meaningful way by local units of government? If citizens can gather <br /> biological data on wetland health that are useful to local governments,then, local <br /> governments will have an inexpensive tool for assessing the health of local wetlands_ <br /> 2. The decision that will be made using,the environmental data from the study and the <br /> actions that will result to solve the problem: It is hoped that the method will be <br /> verified for routine application by local governments to evaluate the quality of their <br /> wetland resources for assessment purposes. A citizen monitoring program would be less <br /> expensive and provide more information on wetland health than is currently available. If <br /> monitoring results point to particular concerns, if trends show more degradation, or if <br />