An organization focused on flood control projects in southwest Minnesota, and a project to try and improve conditions along a Yellow Medicine County drainage ditch, are among the recipients of water quality grants from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.

This week, BWSR announced it was awarding a total of $2.5 million in Water Quality and Storage Program grants to local governments around Minnesota. The 10 grant recipients include Area II Minnesota River Basin Projects, which was awarded more than $760,000, and the Yellow Medicine County Soil and Water Conservation District, which was awarded $35,000.

BWSR said the Water Quality and Storage Program supports water control practices that help protect infrastructure and improve water quality. Water controls like building retention ponds or enhancing wetlands can help slow down runoff from watersheds.

“Increasing water storage on Minnesota landscapes helps communities better prepare for flooding and the associated impacts to infrastructure and farming,” BWSR Executive Director John Jaschke said in a news release. “These projects are strategically located in areas of the state that are especially prone to erosion and flooding.”

BWSR spokespeople said Area II was awarded a grant amount of $767,938. Area II is an organization serving nine counties in the Minnesota River basin, including Lac qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, Lincoln, Lyon, Redwood, Pipestone, Murray, Cottonwood and Brown Counties.

On its website, the organization says it assists member counties with engineering, construction and financing of flood control projects. The organization has also assisted with projects like water management, lake and wetland restorations, and river monitoring.

Yellow Medicine County SWCD Director Brayden Anderson said the conservation district was awarded a $35,000 grant. The funds will help the SWCD hire an engineering firm to study possible locations for water storage areas near Yellow Medicine County Ditch 5. CD 5 flows into Wood Lake, Anderson said.

“It’s a priority lake in our Yellow Medicine One Watershed One Plan,” Anderson said. People who visit Wood Lake for recreation have raised concerns about algae blooms in the lake, he said. Anderson said the SWCD had also had conversations with area landowners that CD 5 was not as effective as it could be.

The SWCD hopes to identify areas for water storage that could possibly address those problems, Anderson said. “We’ll see what the engineering firm comes back with,” he said. After that, The SWCD would potentially be looking at finding funding to build a water storage project.