The St. Croix Watershed Research Station (SCWRS) is the biological field station of the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). The lands and facilities of the SCWRS are located within St. Croix National Scenic Riverway at the boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin. The SCWRS provides opportunities to conduct research on a large midcontinental river system and associated habitats. The SCWRS was established in 1989 and has greatly expanded its physical facilities, staffing, and research activity in the intervening six years. Following a strategic planning effort, a modern 6200 ft2 Research Center and year-round housing facility for visiting scientists were completed in 1995. In 1995-96 the SCWRS expanded its permanent research staff to create a core research program focusing on landscape-level problems in land-water interaction. A total of 35 separate visiting research programs have been supported at the SCWRS over the past six field seasons, including several major projects dealing ecological problems of national and global significance. This project is a direct outgrowth of the recent expansion of SCWRS physical facilities and the immediate need to acquire key pieces of analytical equipment to support current and pending research initiatives. Support is requested for three major acquisitions: (1) an automated ion analyzer for measuring phosphorus, nitrogen, and silica in water, and solids; and (3) research-grade stereo-and compound microscopes. These instruments will greatly improve SCWRS's analytical capabilities for measurement of biological and biogeochemical components of aquatic systems.
