Department of Natural Resources fisheries managers announced Friday an effort to undertake a statewide "fish habitat plan" intended to improve water quality, and therefore fish populations.
Details were vague, and DNR fisheries habitat research supervisor Peter Jacobson said no budget recommendations had been developed.
In a presentation at the agency's annual roundtable, or stakeholder meetings, in St. Paul, Jacobson said that about 42 percent of state lakes were "high quality," and need to be protected.
Many of the rest, he said, require restoration, in part through partnerships whose goal would be to protect entire watersheds.
Jacobson suggested the Clean Water Fund created by passage of the Legacy Amendment, and perhaps also the Outdoor Heritage Fund, would be sources of funding for the proposal.
Objectives of the plan include:
• Establishing landscape scale conservation zones.
• Prioritizing project areas.
