Amendment News:
Darby Nelson continues his series of posts on projects recommended for funding this year by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. Darby is a member of the Council and president of the board of Conservation Minnesota.
Forest/Prairie Transition
The Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council’s Forest/Prairie Section is a long skinny piece of land that runs from Wright County in the west corner of the Metro area north to the Canadian border. It follows a slightly curved path through the eastern half of Stearns County, through Alexandria and just east of Fergus Falls then through Detroit Lakes to Thief River Falls to Roseau. This is where the western prairie meets the eastern forest. (Again a reminder. Programs and dollar amounts cited below are L-SOHC recommendations. The legislature makes final decisions.)
The Board of Water and Soil Resources Reinvest in Minnesota and Wetland Reserve Program, DNR’s Aquatic Habitat Program and their Accelerated Wildlife Program, The Nature Conservancy’s Accelerated Prairie Grassland Restoration and our Conservation Partners small grants program all will do significant work in this section. Other programs will add eleven additional projects scattered over Roseau, Red Lake, Polk, Becker, Ottertail and Todd counties.
The vast majority of the work in this zone will be enhancing existing acreage. At over 22,700 acres, more enhancement work will be done on this section than in any of the other four sections. Just over 2000 acres are to be protected through easement or fee title.
Southeast Forest Section
The Lower Mississippi River Habitat Restoration Partners, composed of over twenty agencies and organizations, envisions a long term effort to work on habitat improvement along the Mississippi River corridor from south of the metro to the Iowa line. They intend to reconnect tributaries to flood plains, restore backwaters, and floodplain channels wetlands and associated prairies. Lower sections of the Zumbro, Vermilion, Cannon, and Root rivers and channels and backwaters of pools of the Mississippi will also be targeted.
Specifically, the partnership plans to start by spending its million dollar grant to protect 86 acres of wetlands, 135 acres of prairie and ninety-eight acres of forest in the lower Root River floodplain in Houston County.
Some of the acres will be restored, others enhanced, and those that will be acquired will connect to existing federal conservation lands. The upshot is to improve habitat quality for fish and wildlife. Eighty-two species of greatest conservation concern will also benefit from this habitat work.
As is true for the other four sections, a number of the large programs will also be doing projects in this section. Over half the money to be spent on conservation efforts in the Southeast Forest Region will go toward habitat restoration.
Ecology teaches us that everything is connected to everything else. The challenge of restoring the Mississippi from St. Paul to the Iowa line is a poignant illustration of that truism. Here’s what I mean. The Minnesota River is a major tributary to the Mississippi, and empties a huge load of sediment when it flows into the Father of Waters.
Several months ago I attended a meeting of citizen activists in Hutchinson concerned with the condition of the Minnesota. A visitor, who had driven all the way from Rochester that evening, was given time on the agenda. His message was simple: ninety percent of the sediment load entering the Mississippi to foul Lake Pepin waters and the big river downstream came from the Minnesota. “We can only do so much to improve the Mississippi habitats from where I live,” he said. “You must help us by improving your river up here.”
Indeed, that’s one of many reasons the L-SOHC is also putting dollars into projects along the Minnesota. We truly are all in this together.
Darby Nelson
