DES MOINES, Iowa — During an Oct. 15 visit to the Des Moines Botanical Garden, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a total of $30 million in grants for conservation improvements in six states, which he said would help to "protect, restore and enhance wetlands on private and tribal agricultural lands."
"Through locally-led partnerships like these, the USDA is targeting conservation in the places that make sense, allowing us to address local concerns," he said. "These projects will improve water quality, prevent flooding, enhance wildlife habitat and meet increasing conservation challenges on over 19,000 acres of wetlands."
Vilsack said these new project awards build on the more than $330 million the USDA announced in fiscal year 2015 to protect and restore agricultural working lands, grasslands and wetlands. Funded by the Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnership (WREP) authorized by the 2014 farm bill, the six states receiving the grants by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska and Tennessee.
According to the USDA, WREP is a special enrollment option under the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program’s Wetland Reserve Easement component. Administered by the NRCS through WREP, states, local governments, non-governmental organizations and American Indian tribes collaborate with the NRCS through cooperative and partnership agreements.
These partners work with tribal and private landowners who voluntarily enroll eligible land into easements to protect, restore and enhance wetlands on their properties. Wetland reserve easements allow landowners to successfully enhance and protect habitat for wildlife on their lands, reduce impacts from flooding, recharge groundwater and provide outdoor recreational and educational opportunities.
In Iowa, the NRCS plans to invest $3 million in projects to restore prairie pothole wetlands and tallgrass prairie uplands on five sites within Prairie Pothole Joint Venture Priority Areas and Ducks Unlimited Living Lakes Initiative Emphasis Areas.
Larry Beeler, assistant state conservationist for programs at the NRCS in Des Moines, said, "This project is a synergy of prairie pothole and riverine restoration, improving habitat for migratory waterfowl and wetland dependent species while improving water quality and attenuating flooding impacts on those living in the Cedar River watershed."
He said the northern and western extents of the Prairie Pothole Region will be considerably drier and thus productive in decades to come, while the southern and eastern reaches (Iowa/Minnesota) will see more precipitation, "making every acre of wetland that much more valuable in the future."
"Historically, large wetland complexes are very difficult to assemble in our agricultural landscape," he said, "but we will need to find mechanisms to offset habitat losses elsewhere as migratory waterfowl will become more dependent on wetlands in our (state) and surrounding states. This proposal is geared to start addressing this concern."
In Kentucky, the NRCS will invest $9.4 million to restore wetlands in high-priority small watersheds to reduce sediment and nutrients entering the Mississippi River. Karen Woodrich, Kentucky state conservationist for the NRCS, said, "Protecting and restoring wetlands strengthens agricultural operations, sustains the nation’s food supply, helps improve water quality and quantity and protects habitat for diverse wildlife."
The NRCS coordination with the Kentucky Indiana Bat Fund, The Nature Conservancy and other partners will provide protection of adjacent forested wetlands, increasing the impacted area and quality of protected habitat provided for wildlife.
The NRCS said Tennessee will receive $8.4 million to restore wetlands in a Hypoxia Task Force priority watershed of the lower Mississippi River, reducing the sediment and nutrients entering the river, while improving wildlife habitat.
The project area includes regions along the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and Missouri, where 26 of the 35 counties are identified by the USDA as Persistent Poverty StrikeForce Counties, where assistance to combat rural poverty will be targeted. This is Tennessee’s second phase of work, which began in 2012 and is on track to enroll 15,000 acres by 2016.
