On January 17, Governor Mark Dayton signed an agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to leverage $350 million of federal dollars to help fund water quality improvement efforts in 54 southern and western Minnesota counties.
Dayton believes “Minnesota is at a critical juncture in addressing our state’s serious water quality challenges.” The new Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) is a state/federal effort to protect Minnesota’s natural resources.
The state will need to commit $150 million to leverage the full amount. About $55 million has already been appropriated. Thirty million has been included in the governor’s 2017 Jobs Bill to be used to compensate landowners for permanent conservation easements and for the establishment of wetlands. Additional state funds to make up the total $150 million may come from the Clean Water Fund, the Legislative-Citizens Commission on Minnesota Resources, and the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council.
CREP targets about 60,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land, which comprises about 100 square miles. Funds are to be used to create buffer strips, restore wetlands, and for wellhead protection. Landowners will receive direct payments for their participation, which is voluntary. The land will not become public land. Landowners will have the ongoing responsibility of maintenance. Enrollment could begin late spring.
Forty percent of Minnesota’s water resources have been determined by state agencies to be impaired or polluted. This new state/federal partnership is intended to help preserve and protect water resources for future generations while providing compensation to land owners/farmers who enhance their conservation practices.
Dayton declares, “Clean water is everyone’s challenge, and everyone’s responsibility.” CREP is expected to greatly reduce the amount of sediment and phosphorous that reaches the state’s lakes and streams each year. The program will both reduce drinking water pollution and enhance wildlife habitat for water and prairie fowl, deer, badgers, and insects like the monarch butterfly.
Lt. Governor Tina Smith thanked Secretary Tom Vilsack and the USDA for their support in this effort. With the state’s match of $150 million, at total of $500 million can be invested in Greater Minnesota.
CREP is led by Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR) while working with Minnesota Departments of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources and the Pollution Control Agency. Angie Becker Kudelka, assistant director of BWSR, stated, “This is a milestone. . . but it’s just the beginning.”
Through CREP participants will voluntarily enroll in conservation easement programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) or Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM). The funding is expected to help some farmers that are required to create filtering buffer strips along public waters under Minnesota’s buffer law, which was signed into law during the last legislative session. Buffer strips are intended to prevent erosion and runoff of pollutants.
The governor’s 2017 Tax Bill would provide $10 million for counties and watershed districts for the implementation of riparian buffer protection and water quality practices.
Dayton has also included $167 million in his 2017 Jobs Bill for repair/improvement of aging water treatment infrastructure in Greater Minnesota. The governor has made it a priority to improve the state’s rivers, streams, lakes, and groundwater declaring this a “Year of Water Action.”
Edward Davis says
It is disappointing that this program is considered novel. Until the rise of industrial farming in the mid-1900’s, these buffer zones along with cover crops were a common practice. Hence, water quality degradation from farming was not issue. There are conflicting goals. Our policies claim that we need to feed the world, yet the public tax dollars are used to remove land from food production. A holistic view is not being used. Food production can be pushed, but it currently is pushed beyond sustainable levels. If population is not addressed, disease and starvation will correct the numbers in a more inhumane manner.
Peter Maier says
All new programs to deal with nutrient pollution will fail, if not first the CWA is implemented as was intended. What nobody knows (and those who know do not want to admit) is the fact that, when EPA established sewage treatment standards in 1972, it used the 5-day value of the BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) test, in stead of its full 30-day value. By doing so EPA not only ignored 60% of the waste in sewage exerting an oxygen demand, but ignored all the nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste, while this waste, besides exerting an oxygen demand, also is a fertilizer (now called nutrient) for algae.
Those responsiblev have succsfully kept this mistake from the public, by mainly blaming this nutrient pollution on the runoffs from farms and cities, while still nobody is questioning the fact that EPA never implemented the CWA due to a faulty test and that our open waters still are allowed to be used by cities as urinals. Wp.me/p5COh2-2C