History of the Scott
Watershed Management Organization
(Scott WMO)

In 1982, the legislature approved the Metropolitan Surface Water Management Act, Chapter 103B of Minnesota Statutes. The act requires local units of government in the seven-county metropolitan area to prepare and implement comprehensive surface water management plans through membership in a watershed management organization (WMO). Watershed management organizations are based on watershed boundaries.

In October of 1996, the Board of Water & Soil Resources (BWSR) declared the Sand Creek, Shakopee Basin, and Southwest Scott Joint Powers Water Management Organizations (WMOs) “non-implementing” and terminated the WMOs. On October 30 1996, BWSR sent the Scott County Board of Commissioners a letter notifying the Board of its responsibility for water management pursuant to MN Statutes 103B.231. The Credit River WMO eventually became a non-implementing organization, but later than the other three. Statute requires the County to assume all water management responsibilities in all of the areas of the County that were previously under the Joint Powers WMOs. On July 21, 2000, the Scott WMO was formed under authority of the Scott County Board of Commissioners and adopted its first Water Resource Management Plan (February 10, 2004). The WMO Water Resource Management Plan provides the management goals, policies and objectives that the WMO will use to protect, improve, preserve, and manage water resources in the WMO and will lead to the adoption of ordinances to enforce the objectives of the Plan. This plan also sets the standard policies and management goals for local water plans.