MARSHALL — Water safety is an area that the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office works with each summer, as people head out onto local lakes. A state grant program has helped the county cover the costs for many years, county staff said this week.

On Tuesday, Lyon County Commissioners formally accepted $1,700 from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Boat and Water Safety Grant program. Minnesota counties, through their sheriff’s departments, can apply for funds that can be used for a variety of purposes from safety education to search and rescue.

“This is basically similar to practices we’ve done in past years,” Lyon County Sheriff Eric Wallen said of the grant.

Lyon County has received annual grants from the DNR to assist the Sheriff’s Office with boating safety enforcement, he said.

“The $1,700 that we have access to is reimbursed to the county once we expend those funds,” Wallen said of this year’s grant. “We could use it for wages for a deputy to go out and do enforcement work or educational work, or supplies for our boat, fuel for the boat, things like that.”

The Lyon County boat and water safety budget for 2026-27, which was included with the agenda packet at Tuesday’s commissioner meeting, mainly broke spending down into fuel and personnel costs.

Wallen said the Sheriff’s Office did have a couple of possible expenditures so far.

“We had the boat go up to a training with our newest deputy who’s going to be handling this,” he said. “They had a tire blowout on the trailer, so that was a $60 expense,” that could potentially be reimbursed through the grant, he said.

Commissioners voted to approve acceptance of the Boat and Water Safety Grant.