Driftless Area Initiative

November Meeting Scheduled in Holland, Wisconsin, Nov. 6 and 7, 2002
Download the revised agenda (10/18/02) with directions (right click to Save As...; PDF) for the November meeting.

Directions to the Holland Town Hall:
The address for the meeting is Town of Holland, Town Hall, W7937 County Road MH, The Town of Holland is about 5 miles north of Onalaska, Wisconsin. You take U. S. 53 north and exit on MH and go west on MH about 1.5 miles. The building is on the north side of the road. If you reach the end of MH you have gone about 1/4 mile too far.

The meeting focus will be on the dairy industry and opportunities to utilize the 2002 Farm Bill and alternative funding sources to re-establish grassland and hay land on highly erosive sites in the driftless area. Speakers will give an overview of the dairy industry including its economic and environmental impact to the driftless area as well as look at upcoming trends in the industry. Legislative and agency representatives will lead a discussion of recent legislative action which will impact the area and the industry. Opportunities for partnerships and funding opportunities to put our first DAI project “on the ground” will be explored with a representative of the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative. We will take a final look at theMission, Vision, and Value statements for the group and provide an update on Steering Committee activities since the last meeting. See you there…For more information, contact Judy Martinson, <judy.martinson@ia.usda.gov>, Ph: (563) 864-7112.

A Watershed Alliance for the Upper Mississippi Basin Driftless Area
On January 17 and 18, 2002, a group of committed professionals and volunteers met in LaCrosse, Wisconsin to create a regional planning entity soon named the "Greater Bluffland Forum." For the near future this page will serve as the Initiative's interim home.
Technical assistance for the Driftless Area Initiative is provided by the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the USDA/U.S. Forest Service. .
To post material, or for more information, please forward to, or contact: Judy Martinson <judy.martinson@ia.usda.gov>, Ph: (563) 864-7112.

Proposal: Establish an ongoing forum for the discussion of land use trends and alternatives as they affect water quality and habitat quantity within the Greater Blufflands region of the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

Objective: Work toward the development of collaborative, multi-state strategies to achieve common water quality goals for Navigation Pools 4-14 within the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, and for priority tributary watersheds throughout the region.

Goal: Improve water quality in Navigation Pools 4-14 and priority tributary watersheds to meet minimum water quality standards and habitat objectives that will help to achieve economic, ecological and recreational goals outlined in Navigation Pool Plans, Refuge Plans, Basin Plans, and Priority Watershed Plans established for subareas within Greater Blufflands Region.

The Greater Blufflands represents the HEART of the Upper Mississippi River Basin, where clean, cold water pumped by springs and streams help restore and sustain the life of native floodplain communities. This project is a PROTOTYPE for future basin-wide efforts, encompassing the Loess Hills/Till Prairies “resource areas.”

Reasons for Project: The Upper Mississippi River Basin is receiving increased attention both as a threatened natural resource region with high ecological value and restoration potential, and as a source of pollutants to the Lower Mississippi River and the Northern Gulf of Mexico. A major challenge in coming years will be to develop a way of coordinating the many local and state-based restoration efforts in the UMRB to achieve common water quality objectives for the Mississippi River. For example, the ecological goals being established for pools 1-10 by the River Resources Forum of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District and goals from comprehensive basin and refuge planning (UMR NWFR) scheduled by the Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to begin in FY 2002, will focus attention on needed changes in river and floodplain management, as well as land use changes needed in tributary watersheds on both sides of the river in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

The complexity of involving five states, a multitude of federal agencies and many sub-basin and watershed projects in such an effort is daunting, especially considering the wide diversity in land use, soil and climate, regional water quality issues and the potential for restoration across the 189,000 square mile basin.

This project will attempt to establish a framework for ongoing collaborative planning and implementation by stakeholders and agencies within a fairly homogeneous region within the UMRB called the Greater Blufflands Region. Similarities in landscape, land use trends, hydrogeology, water quality issues and habitat restoration potential create a unique opportunity for the development of collaborative approaches that can cross state boundaries to help solve common problems on farms, tributary streams, the Mississippi River or the Gulf of Mexico.

Toward this end, it is proposed that a Greater Blufflands Region coordinating group be established to initiate this project by organizing quarterly or semi-annual workshops for Phase I. In Phase II, the coordinating group will be tasked to develop proposals for collaborative strategies to reach common goals for water resources in the region and downstream. This will support the comprehensive planning for the UMRB being initiated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the comprehensive planning for the UMR NWFR being initiated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Project Area: The Greater Blufflands comprises 31,000 square miles within the UMRB, about one-sixth of the area of the basin. It includes two broad, adjacent landscapes, defined by soils and related resource features, namely, Major Land Resource Areas 104 and 105. (MLRAs were developed by the USDA’s Soil Conservation Service --today’s Natural Resources Conservation Service -- for inter-state, regional and national planning.

· MLRA 104, called the Eastern Iowa and Minnesota Till Prairies, comprises 9,700 square miles of flat to moderately sloping land, most of which is used for row-crop agriculture and intensive livestock production, especially hog production. Topographic relief and soil erosion potential are moderate in MLRA 104. Extensive artificial drainage of intensively farmed row cropland provides efficient delivery of nitrogen to surface water. MLRA 104 forms the headwaters for many watersheds in the western part of the region.

· MLRA 105, called the Northern Mississippi Valley Loess Hills, includes 22,210 square miles in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois. While the majority of land use in MLRA 105 is agriculture, small and moderate dairy and beef enterprises are most prevalent, as is hay and pasture. Topographic relief and the potential for soil erosion are severe in MLRA 105. Karst topography makes the agricultural landscape extremely susceptible to nitrogen losses to groundwater and surface water. Groundwater-fed streams are capable of supporting native brook trout, but are sensitive to degradation from land use changes.

Land-Use Trends: Between 1982 and 1997, according to USDA National Resource Inventory surveys, the region has experienced several land use shifts:

· A 20% reduction in acreage of hay and pasture. These conserving land uses, if well managed, favor reduced runoff, minimal leaching of nitrate-nitrogen and very little soil erosion.

· A 60% increase in acreage of soybeans, an annual crop usually raised in rotation with corn. On steeper slopes, this rotation poses a threat of severe soil erosion and leads to greatly increased leaching of nitrate nitrogen compared to hay and meadow.

· Enrollment of 820,000 acres of cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) by 1997. This helped to offset the effects of increased soybean production. Much of the CRP acreage came out of corn production, which declined by 13% over the period. However, since 1997 the contracts on much of the CRP land have expired, and many acres have been returned to crop production.

· A 7% increase in forest land, an environmentally positive trend, although production potential of the reforested areas is uncertain.

Land-Use Trends, 1982-1997*
Land use	Area (1000 acres)
	1982	1997	Change	% Change
Corn	5,612.60	4,873.80	-738.80	-13.16
Soybeans	1,472.40	2,350.20	+877.80	+59.62
Pasture	2,373.30	1,849.40	-523.90	-22.00
Hay	1,838.30	1,494.30	-344.00	-18.71
Forest Land	3,196.80	3,431.30	+234.50	+07.34
CRP		819.00

Among the forces behind these land use trends are four that stand out as especially significant:

· Continuing Dairy Herd Decline: Milk cow numbers declined by an average of 31% between 1982 and 1997 in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. This trend is continuing. According to projections by the Food Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri, dairy cattle will decline by 32% in Minnesota, 22% in Wisconsin, and 11% in Iowa from 2000-2010. At the same time, California is expected to increase its dairy numbers by 11%, as the industry continues its westward shift in response to economic, demographic and political forces. As dairy numbers decline, so does the local demand for hay and pasture. Conversion to row cropping affects runoff and biodiversity.

· Beef cow reductions: In the period between 1982 and 1997, beef cow numbers in the three-state area declined by 33% in Iowa, 13% in Minnesota, and 6% in Wisconsin, further reducing the demand for hay and pasture. The Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative is currently leading a cooperative effort to help producers who are trying to reverse this trend.

· Federal Farm Program Incentives: The federal farm program provides additional incentives to shift production from hay and pasture to corn and soybeans. In recent years of depressed market prices, up to 70% of net farm income from corn and soybean production has come from federal payments based on acreage and yields of these program crops. Because hay and pasture are not eligible for federal payments, the economic return to these land uses has fallen sharply relative to corn and soybeans. Inadvertently, the federal farm program is fueling the trend from hay and pasture to row crop farming by selectively supporting only the latter.

· Habitat Degradation: As grasslands, woodlands and wetlands have been gradually converted for suburban developments or row crop production over the past several decades, and as fields have been tiled or ditched and watercourses have been straightened, the destructive forces of floods, stream bank erosion, sedimentation and nutrient contamination have been unleashed on downstream communities and on fragile fish and wildlife habitats. Habitat restoration can help reverse this trend.

104 and 105 MLRA Map with Five State RC&D Areas by Patrick C. Henry, GIS Specialist, Northeast Iowa RC&D

(Back to the top.)

Greater Blufflands Map (below) by Lester Johnson, Resource Conservationist, Jo Daviess County (Illinois) Soil and Water Conservation District

Land-Use Trends, 1982-1997*