Recent News and Updates

Watershed Coordinator Hired
Shaun McNally was recently hired as the Pomme de Terre River Watershed Project Coordinator. Shaun is housed in the Stevens Soil & Water Conservation District office in Morris. He will serve citizens in Big Stone, Douglas, Grant, Otter Tail, Stevens, and Swift counties from that location. His position, which will continue through 2010, is funded through a Turbidity TMDL grant from the MPCA. Please see the Monitoring and Projects sections of this site for more information about our work on the Pomme de Terre River.

The Pomme de Terre River Association

The Pomme de Terre River Association is an organization concerned with the Pomme de Terre Watershed in western Minnesota. The association was formed in 1981 to work on improving the water quality of the River.

Today, the Pomme de Terre River Association is in the process of implementing two TMDL projects in conjuntion with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The stretch of the Pomme de Terre from Mud Creek to Marsh Lake is impaired for both turbidity and fecal coliform. The association has hired Shaun McNally as Watershed Project Coordinator. Shaun will be meeting with various other agencies and citizen groups to determine the best ways to improve water quality in the river, with the goal of eventually removing the river from the impaired waters list.

Pomme de Terre: Land of the Potato
Pomme de Terre is French for “land of the potato”. Where did such a name come from? Potatoes are not currently found in the Pomme de Terre watershed. The common crops are corn, wheat and soybeans. The name of the river originates from a prairie plant known an Indian Breadroot (psoralea esculenta). Before European settlement in the area, the Pomme de Terre watershed was a vast native prairie full of grasses and flowering plants. Indian Breadroot was common and plentiful here.

The plant was a valuable resource for Native Americans and served as a staple food source because of its large taproot “tuber.” The hard fibrous outer layer of the root kept it from spoiling, even in winter, so the Native Americans could dig it up and hang it in their teepees until needed. Then they would cut it down, boil the starchy tuberous rootstalk, remove the fibrous leathery outer layer and eat it as a boiled or mashed food similar to our potato.

Now rare, Indian Breadroot and the rest of the once-common prairie plants and flowers are now only found where the plow has not touched the soil. Changes over time have resulted in the Pomme de Terre watershed now containing a great amount of cropland and livestock due to the rich soil that once allowed those prairie plants to prosper. Along with the positive gains from agriculture come some negative effects as well. The use of this land for crops and livestock, as well as the effects of inadequate sewer systems, has resulted in fertilizers, fecal bacteria, and soil being washed into the river, causing it to become impaired.

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