Funds available for conservation practice
Are you losing soil? Are gullies forming? Do your cattle need a better or alternative water source? Do you need to move cattle from a stream? Is your septic system failing? Are you farming marginal crop ground and wondering, is it really worth the cost for what it provides in production?
These concerns and others are concerns that can be addressed through a conservation plan. A conservation plan is a record of your decisions concerning how you plan to manage the natural resources on your land. It is your plan, based on your goals. Through the Marion Reservoir WRAPS Project and the "High Priority TMDL" designation of the watershed, there is more cost share available for conservation practice implementation.
With the recent heavy rainfalls we have had in the reservoir watershed, more environmental concerns may be occurring. A good time to address these concerns is now, after wheat harvest. Maybe a field could be improved through implementation of a grass waterway, terraces, conservation buffers, field borders, or filter strips.
Funds are available through the WRAPS project, the Buffer Initiative and the TMDL designation. There is not a deadline to sign up for cost share, but there are limited funds. Individuals may come in to the Marion County Conservation District Office with concerns and NRCS staff will help determine how to address conservation needs and develop a plan.
At least 70 percent cost share is available, based on county average cost, for these projects. This is unlike many of the national farm programs that require a lot of paper work and a contract. A simple one-page form is all that is necessary to receive cost share through the WRAPS project and TMDL designation. WRAPS project and TMDL project are strictly voluntary incentive programs for landowners and operators who request cost share funds for implementation of "best management practices."
The Kansas Water Quality Buffer Initiative also is a voluntary incentive program. The initiative provides state payments in addition to the Continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CCRP) annual payment for establishing grass filter strips or riparian forest buffers in High Priority TMDL Watersheds.
The initiative also includes a statewide tax incentive to producers enrolling filter strips and riparian buffers. The buffer initiative does require a contract, similar to a CCRP, with the State Conservation Commission for 10 to 15 years.
That acreage does not have to be entered into the federal program in order to participate but can be. If the contract is through the buffer initiative alone, the producer can hay and graze that acreage without penalty.
The state will pay a rental payment on a per-acre basis. The state payment will be 30 percent of the allowable federal Soil Rental Rate (SRR) and any federal SRR incentive excluding the federal maintenance payment. All acres shall be maintained as specified for the life of the contract period. Your local Marion County conservation has the forms to sign up for these incentive payments.
The initiative targets improvement of surface water quality by encouraging landowners to establish filter strips and riparian forest buffers along surface waters of the state.
The grass and tree cover provided by these practices will improve water quality by filtering sediment, pesticides, nutrients, fecal coliform, and other pollutants from the field runoff prior to entering a stream or river. The roots of these plants also will remove potential pollutants from ground water, assist in streambank stabilization, and provide valuable wildlife habitat.
Measures have been implemented by Kansas Wildlife and Parks to restore large buffer strips along the shoreline of the reservoir leased to area producers for crop production. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers local management and Tulsa District are requesting additional funding to address the erosion along certain areas of the reservoir shoreline.
Also, a request has been made to Congress to add funding to the corp budget for Marion Reservoir to conduct a General Information Study (Feasibility Study) to determine how much of the nutrient loading is coming from the bottom of the lake, how much is being added through crop production, and/or how much phosphorus is found naturally in soils of the watershed.
The Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams have include the Marion Reservoir, along with two other watersheds, in a grant application to promote less expensive implementation of practices to address bacterial pollution in non-confined and confined livestock operations within TMDL areas.
With the significant amount of rain we've experienced these past few weeks, concerns are being raised about the amount of sediment and nutrients being brought into the waters of the Marion Reservoir.
Water quality in the reservoir is a direct function of the health of the entire watershed. Every drop of water that flows into the lake that doesn't have sediment or nutrients with it is one less problem to deal with in the future. Any conservation practice implemented or established before the watershed is designated as a Conservation Security Program (CSP) Watershed will help the landowners and operators qualify their land for that program that rewards the participant for good stewardship of land.
Implement those practices now, while there is cost share available.
