balmm currents   

Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota

December 12 , 2002

NEXT ISSUE to Feature 2002 BALMM YEAR IN REVIEW

BALMM AGENDA FOR WEDNESDAY, DEC 18: We'll start out with an update on the Karst Campaign from Tim Wagar and Brad Carlson of University Extension. That's a USDA-funded initiative to effectively promote BMPs to farmers in the karst area of southeast Minnesota. Next, Lora Friest of Fillmore SWCD will present ideas for a BALMM proposal for the Partnership & Cooperation section of the new Farm Bill.  Then, following a CREP update from Bev Nordby, comes a discussion of "Gearing Up to Promote CREP in SE Minnesota."  The meeting takes place at 9-12 a.m., at the MPCA office in Rochester, on Wed., Dec. 18.

CREP COUNTDOWN -- AND CALL TO ACTION: BALMM, the Board of Water and Soil Resources and the USDA Farm Service Agency are very close to finalizing a major funding proposal that will greatly benefit the natural environment and farming sector of southeastern Minnesota.  That proposal is CREP - Conservation Reserve Enhancement Project. You are invited to work BALMM to help ensure that this proposal is successful. We'll get started at the next BALMM meeting,  scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 18, 9-12 a.m., at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency office in

Rochester.  

LOCALLY DEVELOPED PROPOSAL: BALMM, with leadership from Soil and Water Conservation Districts and assistance from state and federal government agencies, has developed a CREP proposal that is designed to protect surface and ground water quality while reducing the potential for flooding in southeast Minnesota. The CREP proposal combines the Federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) with the state's Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) Reserve Program. Through CREP, the state offers to purchase voluntary easements of varying durations from farmers who put cultivated land into permanent vegetative cover. The enclosed fact sheet provides more details.

STATE AND FEDERAL FUNDING: This major project proposal would require an estimated total of $225 million to fund the acquisition of easements for 95,730 acres of land from willing landowners in one of the four eligible categories: highly erodible land; stream corridor buffers; wetland restoration sites; and groundwater protection zones.  The federal government would fund 75 to 80 percent of the project, with the state funding the remaining 20 to 25 percent through the RIM Reserve Program.

EXCITING NEW FEATURES: The Southeastern Minnesota CREP proposal includes some exciting new features not available in the Minnesota River Basin CREP. This includes options for managed haying and grazing of grass buffers, and flexibility to rotate the location of contour buffers as the crop rotation changes.

VERY CLOSE TO AGREEMENT: The CREP proposal has been presented to both the USDA Farm Service Agency in Minnesota, which administers the CRP, and to the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, which administers the RIM Reserve Program. A meeting in December has been scheduled to work out the remaining details, so that the project can be sent to Washington D.C. after the new Administration takes office in January.

CHALLENGES: Federal funding for CREP is available, and we are optimistic that the Southeast Minnesota project will succeed in obtaining USDA approval.  However, although the project's funding structure offers excellent leverage of state resources, the realities of the current state budget deficit pose a challenge for obtaining the RIM Reserve Program funding needed to match the federal funds.  Addressing this challenge in the coming legislative session to obtain at least some initial funding is one of the topics we want to discuss at the Dec. 18 BALMM meeting.

MARKETING PLAN: We also want to start looking ahead to the time when initial funding will arrive, and the need to implement the CREP project will begin in earnest.  In the Minnesota River Basin, a comprehensive outreach and marketing strategy helped to make their CREP project a success.  We want to develop a similar education and marketing campaign, tailored to the needs and interests of southeastern Minnesota, to ensure the success of our CREP project. 

HELP WANTED: As someone who is keenly interested in the natural resources and the health of the farming sector of southeastern Minnesota, I hope that you will accept this invitation to help ensure the success of our CREP proposal. I look forward to seeing you.

*     Bev Nordby, BALMM Chair

BEARS REPEATING: "The prairie was North America's ecological equivalent of the rainforest. In the last 200 years, this ecosystem was reduced to one of the rarest plant communities on the continent." - Mark Edwards, The Des Moines Register, 12/01/02

Send comments and items for future editions to:

balmm currents editor: Norman Senjem, MPCA

Phone: 507/280-3592

Fax: 507/280-5513

norman.senjem@pca.state.mn.us