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Buffer Initiative Legislative Summary <br />Laws of Minnesota 2015, 1st Special Session, Chapter 4, Article 4 <br />Exemptions and <br />areas and activities <br />not requiring <br />buffers <br />I <br />1 <br />1 <br />• <br />• <br />Roads, trails, building and structures. <br />Inundated crops, alfalfa seeding, enrolled in CRP. <br />Tile line installation and maintenance. <br />Areas covered by NPDES water -quality permits. <br />"No-fault" clause to address acts of nature. <br />No permit, permission needed; SWCD validation optional. <br />Lawns, forests, hayed land and other areas with perennial vegetation meet requirement. <br />Maps <br />DNR will create buffer protection maps for public waters and ditches within the benefitted <br />area of public drainage systems that are subject to the buffer requirement. <br />Waters covered <br />and buffer widths <br />Public Waters — 50 -foot average buffer width with a 30 -foot minimum width. <br />Ditches within public drainage systems - 16.5 -foot minimum width. <br />Or alternative practices (applies to both public waters and public drainage systems). <br />Other waters determined by SWCDs and adopted into water management plans to <br />accomplish targeted voluntary or local regulatory measures. <br />Compliance <br />I. <br />! <br />• <br />SWCDs provide correction letters when noncompliance identified. <br />Local/state $500 administrative penalty for public waters, ditches. <br />State program funds can be withheld for failure to implement. <br />Soil erosion <br />1 <br />Local/state enforcement with $500 administrative penalty order, without local ordinance, <br />unless cost share not available. <br />Timeline <br />Public ditch buffer requirements not dependent on redetermination trigger. <br />Buffers need to be installed on Public Waters by November 2017; on ditches within Public <br />Drainage Systems by November 2018. <br />Landowners who have applied for conservation programs or initiated a ditch authority <br />process can be granted a one-year extension. <br />Program funding: <br />DNR mapping and <br />BWSR/SWCD <br />implementation <br />Legacy Bill's Clean Water Fund includes: <br />$5 million to BWSR for local government implementation; <br />$650,000 to DNR for mapping. <br />Landowner <br />financial assistance <br />Drainage law more flexible to provide compensation for buffers. <br />RIM buffer easements — Clean Water Fund and Outdoor Heritage Fund in Legacy bill. <br />U.S.D.A. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) -- federal funds available for contracts to <br />riparian landowners. <br />RIM/CREP easements -- Clean Water Fund in Legacy bill; SWCDs are point of contact for <br />requirements and technical assistance. <br />