Sand Creek is located in the southern metropolitan region and its watershed extends into Scott, Rice and Le Sueur counties. It has three main branches (Raven, Porter and Sand creeks) that flow through the communities of Montgomery, New Prague, and Jordan and the Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge, before entering the Minnesota River.Sand Creek upstream of Louisville Swamp, River Mile 8.2 is the main NPS (Nonpoint Source) monitoring station in the Sand Creek watershed. It measures the water quality of Sand Creek before it enters the Louisville Swamp and drains into the Minnesota River. Samples are collected at regular intervals for baseflow and also during storm events. This station also has automatic monitoring equipment which takes measurements every 15 minutes. This continuous data can be found under the "Time Series" dropdown in the "Data Collected" section located farther down on this webpage. Monitoring has also occurred at several other locations along Sand Creek for brief periods of time.In 1996, MCES provided a Twin Cities Water Quality Initiative (TCQI) grant to Scott SWCD to conduct a paired watershed study within the West Raven and County Ditch 10 subwatersheds of the Sand Creek watershed to assess nutrient reductions from implementing agricultural best management practices. Water samples were regularly collected at Scott County Ditch 10 at Church Ave, River Mile 0.3 and West Raven Creek at Church Ave, River Mile 4.7 from 1999 to 2009. Additionally, automatic monitoring equipment took measurements every 15 minutes. The continuous data can be found under the "Time Series" dropdown in the "Data Collected" section located farther down on this webpage.