Amendment News:
Earlier this month, the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council made preliminary recommendations for over $56 million in habitat restoration and conservation funding from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. Darby Nelson, a member of the Council and president of the board of Conservation Minnesota, continues a series of posts describing activities that would be funded under the recommendations.
Last week I described many of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council funding recommendations and types of conservation work to be done in the Northern Forest region of the state. This week we focus on the Metropolitan Urbanizing Area.
Remember, programs and dollar amounts are LSOHC recommendations. The legislature makes final decisions.
First, the LSOHC will make good on its obligation to Anoka County to complete their 550 acre land acquisition along the Rum River and Cedar Creek. We allocated $1.9 million toward the $3.8 million project last year. An equal amount this year enables completion of the acquisition. The project acquires a total of 2 ¼ miles of shoreline along those two streams providing important protection for fish habitat. The land will also be open to public hunting within a buffered zone. Purchase by developers was imminent.
The Council prioritized protecting habitat corridors in the metro region, with emphasis on the Minnesota, Mississippi and St. Croix rivers. Several programs addressed that priority. A million dollar allocation to Washington County will help preserve fish and wildlife habitat by protecting 253 acres of critical riparian habitat and one mile of shoreland. The work will complete a permanently protected three mile continuous corridor along the lower St. Croix.
The Minnesota Land Trust and partners will use their $1.2 million in Outdoor Heritage Fund dollars to protect Valley Creek. This stream that flows into the St. Croix is one of very few trout streams in Minnesota where trout populations can perpetuate themselves through natural reproduction. According to Tom Waters, retired fisheries professor at the University of Minnesota, not only is this stream one of the best producers of trout in the state but it is believed to be in the top ten percent of trout streams in the world by that measure. More than twenty endangered or at risk wildlife species call the stream’s watershed home.
The Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge Trust will use their grant to leverage an additional $2.28 million from other sources to protect, enhance and restore a total of 500 acres. The Refuge is open to public hunting. Projects will include restoration of wetlands, prairies, forests and habitat for fish, game, and wildlife with work to be conducted in eight of the Metro Urbanizing Area counties.
Dakota County is to receive $2.1 million for riparian and lakeshore protection. Permanent conservation easements will be acquired from willing landowners for 620 acres along the Vermilion and Cannon rivers and associated tributaries. An additional 84 acres of permanent easements will be sought along Marcott, Marion and Chub lakes. Additional funds will go to restoration and enhancement work on fish, game and wildlife habitat.
Great River Greening and a host of partners will use their allocation for restoration of 1652 acres of prairie and 216 acres of forest and 51 acres of prairie enhancements on the Anoka Sand Plain. Work will be done on state WMAs, National Wildlife Refuge and Scientific and Natural Areas.
The DNR’s Aquatic Habitat Program, Wetland Wildlife Program, and Forest Wildlife Habitat Program, among other non-governmental entities, are large programs that plan to do conservation work in all five of our regions. All of which will put additional projects into the Metro unit, including forest enhancements, wetland restorations and enhancements and riparian conservation.
Next week I’ll describe programs we recommended be funded in the Prairie Section of the state.
Darby Nelson
