The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources now has on its website a map of public waters and ditches that will need to have buffer zones around them to capture runoff. It’s the responsibility of surrounding landowners, but Commissioner Tom Landwehr points to an Otter Tail County estimate that the law will require new buffers averaging about one acre per parcel of land

The deadline is November 1st, 2018 to have buffers around public ditches. It’s a year earlier for public lakes, rivers and streams — but Landwehr says most of those buffer zones are already in place under a law that’s been on the books for some time.