Iowa - Middle Raccoon Watershed Partnership, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), City of Des Moines Drinking Water

Even before the National Conservation Buffer Initiative started, Jon Judson began working through the Lake Panorama Association, the Middle Raccoon Regional Watershed Foundation, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to persuade farmers to install filter strips along streams. Early on, he contacted Future Farmers of America (FFA) to start a local Green Stripe project, under which Monsanto pays an FFA chapter $100 each for up to ten landowners who enroll land in Green Stripe. At first, Judson says, the students had mixed success going door-to-door.

"I realized it would take some economic incentives to get farmers into the program, so the Lake Panorama Association offered a $100 per acre one-time bonus for signing up. When CRP [Conservation Reserve Program] came along, we put a little notice in a newsletter that hits 1,300 landowner-operators--and no one signed up. I looked at the economics and soil rental rates, and felt it was too good a program to pass up. We put a personalized letter with the NRCS buffer pamphlet and mailed them to about 800 people." Then, Judson gave FFA chapters the names and phone numbers to make follow-up calls or visits. Monsanto agreed to treat landowners enrolling land in CRP for buffers as Green Stripe participants, as long as FFA members made the contacts. "Then," says Judson, "we started hitting the newspapers," which are often happy to cover FFA students.

In 1997 one FFA chapter rented 17 acres and worked with the farmer to put in demonstration stream buffers to show other landowners. The chapter also generated several newspaper articles. According to Judson, over 300 people came to one field day. "One FFA chapter did such a good job of enrolling landowners (20-plus) that Monsanto paid them $1,000 ($100 per landowner), gave them the state award, and then a federal award. So, this one chapter got $4,200. That hit the papers, and now the students are even more excited. They can see--in cash--the benefits of the program, and the community sees it as a community program. Nobody can find anything wrong with it."

CRP has clearly made a big difference. Carroll County farmers offer a number of reasons for enrolling land in CRP--to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, enhance wildlife habitat, and to make their farms look better. But the financial incentives obviously help. Lynn Betts, NRCS Communications Director in Iowa, conducted a number of interviews with Carroll County farmers. Dave Wendl told Betts, "With the financial incentives, you can get about what you can get from farming it. And the $100 from the Raccoon River was important." Joe Frishmeyer said, "For me, this was a no-brainer. I've lost the whole crop in this area one out of every three years... Wildlife needs cover, seclusion, food, and water. It's all here [in these buffers]." Leon Kennebeck enjoys the appearance of his filter strips and says, "It's also important to me to keep herbicides out of the stream and keep the soil in place. I have three wells in the buffers... I'm also concerned because I go to Lake Panorama to fish."

"In a little over a year," says Judson, "we signed up over 80 landowners; whereas the year before, we got no one. We just needed the right kind of marketing and selling." Judson's outreach was sufficiently powerful that a 97-year-old farmer received the brochure in Arizona. When he got back home to Iowa, he drove down half a mile of pothole-riddled dirt road to Judson's house just to ask about the program, and what he could do with two creeks on his Iowa property. Judson told him it wouldn't be a lot of acres--that at 66 feet wide, he'd have about 2 acres of buffers per quarter mile, and might get $160 to $170 per acre in CRP rent. Then Judson sent him to the NRCS office. "I said we'd write a [Middle Raccoon] check for $100 an acre. He had two questions: Is there plenty of money left? and How long can I put it in?"

As they come into the third year of CRP buffers, Judson says Iowa's 420-square mile Middle Raccoon Watershed now has about 75 miles of buffers averaging a little over 100 feet wide. This translates to 12 or 13 acres per mile. There is a cost to this success. "We're creating a significant workload for the [NRCS and conservation district] office," Judson says, "so we're looking for ways to get money for additional staff and, probably, a district employee. We've thought about trying to hire some farmers to go out and do it because the one-on-one approach really helps. But, it's a combination of things. You need all the tools--good information, the involvement of people in the community. Just having fliers in field offices just doesn't do it; it helps, but you need to go further." They did, enlisting the help of many others. The Middle Raccoon Watershed buffer partners are:

• Lake Panorama Association. Contributes funds to cost share on prairie grass and tree plantings and offers a one-time $100 per acre bonus to farmers who establish buffers. Also, offers the services of Jon Judson to promote and work with landowners on how to install buffers.

• Pheasants Forever Chapters. Provides cost share for prairie grass plantings; in some cases, arranges for a prairie grass drill to plant the grasses.

• Carroll County Conservation Board. Provides the prairie grass drill and operator at a nominal charge to plant warm season grasses.

• Raccoon River Watershed Project. Developed a landowner database of land along streams that would be likely candidates for buffers. Paid for printing and mailing of a direct mail piece asking those landowners to consider buffers.

• Trees Forever. Contributes funds to help cost share tree and prairie plantings.

• Monsanto. Funds FFA to work with landowners; pays FFA $100 per landowner enrolled in Green Stripe, up to $1,000.

• FFA. Students from six chapters contact landowners and encourage enrollment of stream buffers into CRP.

• Pioneer Hi-Bred, Inc. Contributed $5,000 from a community investment grant program to promote conservation buffers.

• Middle Raccoon Regional Watershed Foundation. Administers the private cost-share funds from partners.

• NRCS. Encourages landowners to enroll in the continuous CRP sign-up and offers technical assistance to landowners and project partners to establish buffers.

• Farm Service Agency (FSA). Promotes buffers and makes annual rental payments and cost-share payments. Cost shares for site preparation, seeding, and tree planting. Payment rate for establishment is projected at 50 percent of cost, through a flat rate.

• Conservation District. Promotes buffers, approves buffers as part of conservation plans, and coordinates and participates in information and education efforts.

Another partner may be joining these ranks. The City of Des Moines draws its drinking water from the Raccoon, and its Water Works Department has begun reaching out to groups such as the Middle Raccoon Regional Watershed Foundation. As CEO and General Manager of the Water Works, L. D. McMullen is responsible for providing safe, healthy water to the people of Des Moines. Traditionally, this has been achieved by "treating the river water for whatever it brought." He is concerned that agricultural conservation efforts such as the National Conservation Buffer Initiative may be overly "technology driven." He said, "We [water managers] are looking at the impact of various activities on water quality, rather than just at how many miles of buffers have been put in. The real question is how these BMPs [best management practices] have affected water quality." He hopes the buffers being installed on the Middle Raccoon and in other watersheds will make enough of a difference to avoid having to alter or expand the city's water treatment. For example, he says it costs $1,000 a day to run the nitrate reducer--"one of the most sophisticated in the world"--after a severe rainstorm, and "that's money I'd rather not spend." McMullen is spending a good deal of his time working with groups such as the Farm Bureau, the Raccoon River Watershed Project, and others to try to develop "more of a water quality-driven source water protection program."

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