Stearns County Ditches - Public Information

This site contains updates on Stearns County Ditch projects. Please use the links on the left for more information about each ditch.

Stearns County Ditch and Drainage System

Stearns County Board of Commissioners are the Drainage Authority in Stearns County. MN Statute 103E.011 gives the Drainage Authority the powers to construct and maintain drainage systems. Other ditches are the responsibility of the Watershed District in which they lie. The overview map below shows the ditches that are under county jurisdiction.

The Stearns County Land Management Division is responsible for maintaining and organizing draining records as wells as calculating and administering assessments related to ditch costs.

Watershed Districts Map

This map (click to open) shows the ditches that fall within each of the Watershed District boundaries and the contact inforamtion for each Watershed District.

How are Ditch Systems created?

Ditch systems are created through a property owner petition and their purpose is to drain agricultural lands to provide a better soil conditions. Once a legal ditch system is created, a team of ditch viewers determine what properties benefit from the ditch. Once a ditch system is established and the benefited property owners determined, all costs incurred by the ditch system are assessed back to the benefited property owners.

Drainage Law

Minnesota Statute 103E. Drainage (click to open) are the collection of Minnesota laws that governs drainage systems throughout Minnesota.

All ditch system costs, including repairs, construction costs, etc. are funded by the benefited landowners of the drainage system. The Stearns County Board of Commissioners adopted a Drainage Repair Policy (click to open) in 2009.

To make changes to what property is benefited requires a process called redetermination of benefits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Overview Map of Ditches under the authority of the Stearns County Board of Commissioners