Penny and Jamie Juenemann were among 21 landowners who signed up for a pilot project funded by a Clean Water Fund grant from the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. (Photo by Ann Wessel, BWSR) TWO HARBORS — As the ongoing spruce budworm outbreak turns dense, single-species stands of trees into fire hazards in Lake County and beyond, it…
Along the Root River in Fillmore and Houston counties, crews work with SWCDs, agriculture department to treat Japanese hops, poison hemlock.
A Rochester-based Conservation Corps Minnesota and Iowa crew worked on an ongoing cedar revetment project in Riceford Creek. The crew included, from left: Lakota Kirst, 23, of Osage, Iowa; Cole Wentworth, 25, of Preston, Iowa; Alexis Schwanz, 18, of Polk City, Iowa; and Andrea Dormer, 19, of Owatonna. (Photo by Ann Wessel, BWSR)BLACK HAMMER TOWNSHIP — A trout stream bank…
Clean Water Fund allocations provide SWCDs with a trained labor force and equip CCMI crews with skills ranging from firefighting to disaster response. In Stearns County, a Brainerd-based crew helped stabilize a stretch of Mississippi River bank in a popular park north of St. Cloud.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota officials are working to sign up more landowners under a new program that pays farmers to permanently set aside farmland for conservation to improve water quality. The federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which launched last year in Minnesota, enrolls farm owners for 15 years, Minnesota Public Radio News reported. Farmers in the program are also…
REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. — Seeded with a pollinator-friendly mix and signed with white placards, the state’s first recorded Minnesota Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (MN CREP) easement borders a public ditch that runs through Robert and Cathy VanderLinden’s Redwood County corn field. It’s a conservation milestone for Minnesota, marked on June 18 with a short ceremony and site visit hosted by…
Project eyes erosion-prone gullies where conservation fixes would improve water quality, habitat.
“You have to look at what’s the best use of the land for the long-term.”
The Root River flows near Preston, where it parallels the Root River Trail for a stretch. Conservation practices being put in place in Houston, Fillmore and Mower counties through the Root River Field to Stream Partnership focus on three small watersheds. But they will benefit the Root River, and what’s learned here through intensive monitoring can be applied throughout southeastern…
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