This is the afternoon panel discussion at the Iowa Watersheds Conference
Thursday afternoon
Peggy Murdock
Panel discussion
Agency panel
Dennis Harper, EMD - Urban Iowa Emergency Management Division talked about
his agency's work.
Iowa is the number one flood damage state in the nation. His agency
functions as a coordinating agency in state government. They are involved
with foot and mouth disease, flooding, water supplies, and drought. They
have authority that extends beyond emergency situations, and can get
involved in watershed protection if groundwater contaminates public and
personal wells, threatening public health and safety or economic resources.
When they step out of disaster work they don't do as well because there is
duplication and a need to improve coordination and communication. They are
good at grants, coordinating during an event but not with technical
assistance. For that they rely on other agencies.
Some of their work includes repair of bridges, roads, drainage ditches,
buyouts of properties. There is a challenge getting development out of
where it shouldn 't be. They have had to learn that if there is flooding
it may be a watershed problem.
There is a need for integrated watershed education as well as integrated
planning that includes watershed awareness. The first step is for many
communities to look at a watershed approach.
His agency can't provide much if it is alone. .If there is someone there
to help deliver programs then they become effective
John Tapken, Union City, Conservation Board - Recreation and Wildlife
talked about the dos and don'ts of watershed management .
The watershed approach can be applied to a project on a two acre pond or a
larger lake. He contrasted the approach used in setting up three mile lake
and twelve mile lake. Three mile lake is a 900 acre lake where a
cooperative approach was used. The plan was presented to landholders and
they were given a month to six weeks to think about it. They built new
roads to help improve access to the lake. The result was that all but one
of the landowners were willing to sell and willingly cooperate in land
management. As a result the water quality is excellent. You can see a
lure 12 feet down in the lake.
Twelve mile lake is a 640 acre lake that was built without
partnering. Neighbors were not consulted and there was only one willing
seller. The rest of the land was condemned. Roads were closed.. The lake
is muddy and landowners are not cooperating.
Public recreation is never mentioned as a goal, but three mile lake took in
$65,000 in camping fees in one year. We need to work together.
Archeological surveys are needed. They found Indian burial grounds on the
three mile lake property. He volunteered to take care of this and met with
the official for Indian affairs, who recommended having a blessing
ceremony. He was the second white man to participate in this kind of a
ceremony.
Mel Berryhil, Program Specialist with IRWA in the Okoboji area
Talked about the work of forming the Clean Water Alliance in his
area. This was a group of people who were concerned with water
quality. They met every other month for ten years, but without any money
they couldn't act. Finally they concluded a 28E agreement with all of the
towns in the county to get funding. They will have $1.5m to use for water
quality programs in their area. In 1998 they made a five year plan for the
lakes area, working with local, state and federal people. Their goals were
to increase education activities to support the plan, implement a spill
protection plan by 2002l develop a technical position for the clean water
alliance, a watershed and lakes monitoring plan, secure permanent funding,
continuously decrease agricultural pollution and increase involvement in
the alliance. They have achieved some of their goals and made a new five
year plan.
Their initial assessment, conducted with money from a one time grant,
indicated where non point contamination was located. They are adjacent to
Jackson County in Minnesota and have formed a relationship with
them. They got a water quality lab built at Lakeside Lab where their
volunteers can take samples to a full time chemist for testing. They
established an18 member water quality commission to distribute
money. Every community in the area participates. After 12 years at the
point can take money match and spend it and do good work in the watershed.
Jerry Hatfield, Ph.D. National Soil Tilth Lab, a USDA Ag research
program. They are one of only 2 agencies in the USDA with a research
mandate. They are no longer focused only on production, but also on turf
grass.
The ARS has 20 locations that maintain watershed. People come and go in a
watershed and there has to be a structure to maintain the quality of their
records. In 1964 the Loess watersheds were used to study erosion loss.
Since 1996 they began to look at management practices to help curb erosion,
studying buffer strips and what they do to water dynamics. Some of the
water in a stream is moving into the groundwater. They study how grass
changes this dynamic.
Their data can be used to supply different types of information.
Retrospective studies can show how climate, sediment use, changes in land
use and management practices factor in.
Another set of watersheds look at herbicides, nitrate and phosphorus. In
Walnut Creek south of Ames they study the dynamics of practice. This is a
long term investment and it took seven years to get a sense of how climate
data affected the watershed.
They bring the people who dissect watersheds together with producers. In
this 1200 acre subwatershed they have offered producers yield monitors for
their combines and guaranteed that they would experience no profit loss if
the yield was reduced because of a practice.
First they were able to reduce nitrate/nitrogen by 40% with no change in
yield by changing the application times. Since then they have been able to
increase yields and reduce nitrate.
They have twenty six rain gauges and have learned that storms leave
different amounts of water in one place or another but the water volume
shows only a 10-15mm difference across the watershed.
They took grab samples from all creeks around the Walnut Creek area and
found that most are similar in nitrogen and atrazine.
They have shown that watersheds are not unique because of the land
practices but because of the producer.
Walnut Creek was chosen because there were no animals there. Now they have
expanded up to South Fork where they can study the impact of animals.
They also work in two other watersheds, Lake Springfield in Illinois and
Lake Smithfield in Missouri where they study atrazine movement. They have
partnerships in these areas .
At this point, John Glenn, the facilitator summed up some of what had been
said. He pointed out that important factors are money, planning and
coordination as well as understanding watershed dynamics. All watersheds
are unique and local face-to-face dealings are critical to success. There
are multiple benefits that include recreation and emergency management.
Q. Is anybody doing anything to check out the septic systems of rural
residents and rural developments.
A. Jerry Hatfield replied that they don't monitor some tiles because they
found which were hot. This is not isolated to just a few watersheds. The
know the source is primarily human by the nitrogen levels. People would be
shocked to learn how much nitrogen in Iowa comes from improperly connected
septic systems.
Q. What causes yield variations?
A. Jerry Hatfield: Yield variation across a field was originally thought
to be caused by nitrate concentrations but is actually a water
problem. Soils become water limited about the time the plant gets going
and nitrate builds up in soil when it is not used up. Nitrogen may be
coming out of the residual in the soil. They have looked at how to put on
a split application in the spring. Putting too much nitrogen on the soil
where water is limited causes a decrease in the yield.
There was a discussion of the "Soil doctor". A lot of producers like it
and some hate it. It has an electrical conductive probe that can show
nitrogen content as it is applying. Unfortunately the inventor has not
allowed many scientific studies.
What one tool or resource would you like to have to accelerate progress.
A. John Tapkin mentioned funding. Dennis Harper said a tool is needed so
that people can know where to go when they are shopping for resources.
Jerry Hatfield said you don't blanket Best Management Practicess across the
watershed. Tools are needed to help people realize that different
management practices are needed for different places in a watershed.
Q. About cost benefits.
A. There is a cost benefit of a reduction of nitrogen, but it is relatively
cheap. There is also an environmental cost. You can cite the reduced
labor cost, anxiety about production and increase of profitability and try
to explain this in terms of the quality of the product. Not all #2 yellow
corn is the same.
Q, How quickly does this information transfer from person to perons.
A. A watershed can become its own demonstration site. Amay farmer think
of this as his competitive advantage and may not want to tell everyone else
about this. He will blame the researchers in his field if something
doesn't look as good as he thinks it should. If farmers would brag about
efficiency as much as they brag about yields there would be no problems.
Q what kinds of residual nitrogen do you find from just ordinary breakdown.
A. nitrogen in tile lines is coming from demineralization from the
fall. If you don't recharge until April or May nitrate levels bump up
quickly and that is what is left down below. Not enough is known about
water dynamics and nitrogen dynamics. For instance, they don't know if
nitrogen in the water is from two years ago or last year. I is best to
look at the water dynamic first.
Q. Is it time to look at cost share for septic systems?
A. The state legislature & DNR worked on revolving loan funds for some
pilot counties to help owners upgrade septic systems. This program is
called clean water revolving funds and Brent Parker is the DNR person to
contact about this.
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