The St. Paul District, in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies, released a stream quantification tool to the public in Minnesota earlier this year.
April Marcangeli, regulatory project manager and stream product delivery team lead, said, “The stream quantification tool is a science-based tool that is used to calculate the improvement of function in a stream after a restoration project or the loss of function in a stream after a construction project.”
Leslie Day, regulatory mitigation coordinator, said, “The stream quantification tool helps stakeholders because it provides a consistent, transparent and predictable way to calculate the loss or gain in stream function. If you want to do a restoration site and increase the stream function to get stream mitigation credits, there’s a well-defined way to know how many stream mitigation credits you could get.”
The stream quantification tool is a tool funded by the Environmental Protection Agency Region 5, out of Chicago, that is currently being used in Minnesota. "We are still waiting on confirmation of funding for the tool to be regionalized in Wisconsin," said Marcangeli. The district’s regulatory boundaries are different from its civil works boundaries and include the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The development of the tool for Minnesota involved two committees, a steering committee and a technical committee. Day said the steering committee was a decision-making body with members from the Corps, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and consultants from Stream Mechanics and Ecosystem Planning and System Restoration. Day said the technical committee developed the science-based aspects of the tool and came up with recommendations for the steering committee.
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