Hi! I’m Nikki Shaw, the new Water Management coordinator to Fillmore SWCD. I’m originally from Embarrass, Minn., where we have a much shorter growing season. The last few years, my parents and I have been trying out high tunnels and a variety of vegetables, namely tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Our first high tunnel went up in the spring of 2016, and our second in the fall of 2018. We have been supplying a local grocery store, a co-op in another neighboring town, as well as many families that stop out to check out the operation and get some fresh veggies.
I graduated this past May 2019 with my Bachelor of Science in Aquatic Biology, with an emphasis in Wetlands Ecology, and a minor in Geographic Information Systems. While I was in school, I had the opportunity to work with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) in Duluth, Minn., for the summers of 2016 and 2017. During these two summers I worked on a variety of projects, including: finishing up the last two years of surface water monitoring in the Rainy River Headwaters watershed, mostly around Orr and International Falls; finishing up the Lake County culvert inventory, starting St. Louis County’s culvert inventory; and assisting the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) with the monthly E. coli monitoring of 11 USFS beaches, to name a few. This past summer I had the opportunity to be the summer apprentice for Winona County SWCD through Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa, and was able to work on everything from cover crops, to waterway and feedlot constructions, to both aquatic and terrestrial invasive species monitoring.
I have been loving southeast Minnesota, and am looking forward to serving the area for a long time to come. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at (507) 765-3878, ext/ 129, or nikki.shaw@fillmoreswcd.org.