Project Manager Qualifications and Organization Description

The Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District is a local government organization that covers 49 square miles in northern Washington and southern Chisago counties. The District includes portions of the City of Wyoming, Chisago City, Chisago Lake Township, Franconia Township, the City of Forest Lake, and the City of Scandia. Like other watershed districts, our geographic boundaries are not determined by municipal boundaries, but instead by hydrologic boundaries. Our mission is protect and improve water resources through adaptive management approaches and education of local stakeholders. 

The CLFLWD is governed by an appointed, five-member Board of Managers. Managers are appointed by the counties within which the Watershed District is located. Because the Comfort Lake-Forest Lake Watershed District is located within Chisago and Washington counties, the make-up of the Board of Managers reflects the percent of the watershed within each County. Roughly 60 percent of CLFLWD is within Washington County and 40 percent is within Chisago County. Therefore, in CLFLWD, two managers are appointed by Chisago County and three managers are appointed by Washington County. The Board of Managers meets monthly at Forest Lake City Hall and encourages members of the public to attend. 

The District has an Administrator (Mike Kinney), three additional full-time staff members, and two part-time/seasonal staff members. The District also contracts work with an engineering firm, legal firm, and accounting firm in addition to contracting work with the two County Soil and Water Conservation Districts. 

More information about the history and approach of the District can be found in the 2012 Watershed Management Plan, which is available on the District website at www.clflwd.org.  

Mike Kinney has been the District Administrator for the Comfort Lake–Forest Lake Watershed District since 2014. He has a master’s degree in Water Resources Management from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is a certified crop adviser, and has over 20 years of experience in resource planning and management. In addition, Mike was a commissioned officer in the Navy, did research for NASA while working for the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and spent a year teaching at the University in Prague, Czech Republic followed by a summer research project on Lake Baikal in Siberia.  Mike grew up on a dairy farm near Lake Superior where his father taught him the importance of having a business mindset and using cost-benefit analysis. Today, he lives on a farm of his own near Hudson, Wisconsin and utilizes the cost-benefit analysis approach to manage water resources in the CLFLWD.