Aquatic invasive species guidelines

Updating guidelines to direct aquatic invasives species (AIS) funding

Hennepin County receives funding from the State of Minnesota to stop the introduction or limit the spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS). To receive funding, the county must establish guidelines for the use of the proceeds. The current guidelines expire at the end of 2025. Over the next year, the county will conduct a public engagement process to develop the 2026 to 2030 AIS guidelines.

Updating guidelines to direct aquatic invasives species (AIS) funding

Hennepin County receives funding from the State of Minnesota to stop the introduction or limit the spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS). To receive funding, the county must establish guidelines for the use of the proceeds. The current guidelines expire at the end of 2025. Over the next year, the county will conduct a public engagement process to develop the 2026 to 2030 AIS guidelines.

  • Comment on the draft Aquatic invasive species prevention guidelines

    The draft Aquatic invasive species prevention aid guidelines 2026-2030 (PDF) is now available for the public to review. Provide comments by completing a survey or attending an online meeting. Provide comments by Friday, October 31. See more information below.

    Take the survey

    The survey provides opportunities to offer specific feedback.

    Take the survey

    Review slides from the online meeting

    Held Tuesday, October 28

    At the meeting, county staff gave a brief presentation on the guidelines. After the presentation, participants were given an opportunity to:

    • Share feedback
    • Ask questions
    • Provide verbal or written comments

    Review the slides that were shared in the meeting (PDF).

    About the public involvement process

    As part of this effort, 161 stakeholders provided feedback through surveys and focus groups. Participants included youth, general water users and subscribers of the county’s AIS early detection volunteer newsletter as well as stakeholders actively working on or connected to AIS prevention efforts in Hennepin County. These stakeholders represent cities, local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, nearby counties, Hennepin County, private businesses, state agencies, universities, and lake associations.

    Key findings

    • Broad support Hennepin County’s current AIS prevention programming, recognizing its effectiveness, innovation, and strong partnerships.
    • Stakeholders encouraged continued collaboration with other counties, universities, and underrepresented communities.
    • Seek further advocacy and increased support for resources to improve AIS prevention efforts countywide.
    • Continued emphasis on maintaining a comprehensive funding approach, with flexibility to adapt if state funding is reduced.

    Changes to AIS Guidelines

    The following is a summary of the changes made to the AIS guidelines based on the feedback received in the public involvement process.

    Addressing pathways

    As with previous county AIS prevention aid guidelines, the county will take a comprehensive approach to address all major pathways using AIS prevention funds. The pathways will now be grouped into two categories to make it easier to understand how AIS is spread by activities.

    Funding mechanisms

    The county will use three mechanisms to distribute AIS funds –

    1. Supplement watercraft inspections- increased, up to 50% of AIS Prevention Aid allocation, managed through an annual request to identify inspection needs and allocate resources
    2. Grants for partners - Approximately 30% of the total allocation awarded as grants to support partner projects. Annual RFP process, criteria aligned with updated guidelines
    3. County-directed work - Remaining (~20%) allocation for rapid response and treatment, enforcement, programmatic and technical assistance, trainings, research, equipment maintenance, education/outreach, and other services.

    Funding priorities

    To guide funding decisions, the categories are now organized into tiers based on stakeholder feedback about their importance and priority. These tiers will help inform the allocation of AIS prevention funds to specific projects.

    Program approach

    Stakeholders offered suggestions for how the county could improve its approach in managing the program to advance AIS prevention work overall. The guidelines now provide additional detail on how the county will:

    • Foster partnership
    • Increase advocacy
    • Increase transparency

    Next steps

    We welcome your thoughts on the draft guidelines. Comments submitted by October 31 will be considered by the team as the guidelines are finalized. The final version of the guidelines are expected in early December.

  • Update process and how to get involved

    Since 2014, Hennepin County receives approximately $315,000 per year from the State of Minnesota to implement plans to stop the introduction or limit the spread of aquatic invasive species.

    To receive funding, the county must establish guidelines for the use of the proceeds. Current guidelines expire at the end of 2025. Over the next year, the county will conduct a public engagement process to develop the 2026 to 2030 AIS guidelines.

    Invasive plants, animals and diseases can harm lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, water quality, and wildlife habitat. People can unintentionally spread invasive species by moving boats, gear, and equipment from one waterbody to another or releasing non-native species into the environment.

    The current guidelines direct the first $100,000 of this funding to expand existing countywide watercraft inspections. Remaining funds are available for AIS prevention grant applications recommended for funding by the grant evaluation panel. After those funds are awarded, staff are able to direct remaining funds to meet priorities across the funding categories outlined in the 2020-2025 AIS guidelines document, including decontamination, access re-design, education, early detection, pathway analysis, and research. 

    How can I be involved?

    The county will involve government partners, lake associations, non-profit organizations, pet and garden stores, volunteers and residents who use water resources through surveys and conversations.

    The county will focus its engagement process to gather feedback on:

    • Values to guide to use of the funding

    • Priorities for the work

    • What is working well and what could be improved with the current programming

    • Emerging issues or concerns

    • Review of draft guidelines

    The county will use this website to share progress on the public involvement process, including providing opportunities to participate in engagement opportunities, summarizing feedback received and how it was incorporated into the guideline development process and share next steps.

  • AIS prevention guidelines focus group results summary

    Hennepin County is updating its aquatic invasive species (AIS) prevention aid guidelines to be used from 2026 to 2030. These guidelines help direct how the county spends state funding to work on preventing the introduction or limiting the spread of AIS.

    To inform the development of the new guidelines, the county is engaging with government partners, lake associations, non-profit organizations, volunteers and residents who use water resources. The first part of this public involvement process included two surveys to get feedback from these stakeholder groups. Learn more about surveys in the results summary.

    The second part of the stakeholder engagement included small focus groups to dive deeper into some of the survey questions, to learn more about stakeholder survey responses, and to better understand the detailed perspectives from a wide variety of AIS prevention stakeholders. A separate youth-specific focus group was also conducted to engage young people and include their perspectives.

    AIS funding approach

    Focus group members were presented with 10 categories to consider as part of a comprehensive approach to prevent AIS introduction. Eight out of the 14 stakeholders (57%) think that the county should take a more focused funding approach rather than its current comprehensive funding approach. The remaining six out of 14 stakeholders (43%) think the county should continue distributing funding comprehensively across the categories it currently funds. This breakdown was the opposite in the survey where 51% of survey respondents think the county should continue distributing funding across the various categories of AIS prevention work and 34% think the county should focus funding on a few priority categories.

    Most pressing AIS issues

    Most participants felt that the “most pressing issues” were included in the county’s current guidelines. Most stakeholders focused on pressing issues that were “most important” to them. Analysis of the responses divided the most pressing AIS issues into the following buckets:

    • AIS funding
    • Early detection
    • Impact of AIS (water quality)
    • Management of AIS
    • Miscellaneous
    • Pathways (general)
    • Prevention
    • Public engagement
    • Watercrafts as a pathway

    Read the full focus group results summary (PDF)

  • AIS prevention guidelines survey results summary

    Hennepin County is updating its aquatic invasive species (AIS) prevention aid guidelines to be used from 2026 to 2030. These guidelines help direct how the county spends state funding to work on preventing the introduction or limiting the spread of AIS.

    To inform the development of the new guidelines, the county is engaging with government partners, lake associations, non-profit organizations, volunteers and residents who use water resources. The first part of this public involvement process included a survey.

    Support of AIS prevention work

    Overall, there is very little opposition to the various categories of AIS prevention work. The categories of AIS prevention work that have the highest level of strong support from respondents include:

    • Early detection inspections
    • Rapid response and treatment for new infestations
    • Research and innovation
    • Watercraft inspections
    • Enforcement
    • Design public access points with an AIS prevention emphasis

    Most pressing AIS issues

    Respondents most commonly indicated a specific invasive species (i.e. zebra mussels, invasive carp, starry stonewort, etc.) as the most pressing AIS issue facing the region. Respondents also most frequently mentioned education/public knowledge and awareness, spreading of AIS via watercraft, and lack of funding as most pressing AIS issues.

    Read the full survey results summary (PDF)

  • Take a survey to help shape AIS prevention guidelines

    We want to hear from you! Your feedback is important.

    Take this brief survey by Sunday, January 26 at midnight to help Hennepin County shape the guidelines for how it utilizes state AIS prevention funding for the next 5 years (2026 to 2030).

    A summary of the survey results will be shared in the future.

Page last updated: 29 Oct 2025, 08:08 AM