1114-006 Walnut Creek Watershed Final Report

(2017) 1114-006 Walnut Creek Watershed Final Report. Agriculture and Land Stewardship

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Abstract

The specific mindset and act of putting conservation on the land has swept through the Walnut Creek Watershed like wildfire the past three years. Landowners whom in the past have never darkened the door of their local soil conservation office are now leading by example, installing practices that conserve their soil, ensuring a livelihood for future generations while at the same time giving the gift of clean water to their neighbors downstream. Many of those landowners are also making conservation a part of their lives by donating time and money to the local SWCD. Funding provided by the WIRB Board was the fuel that ignited this monumental change in lifestyle. Conservation now flows through the veins of all who live and work in the watershed. With or without cost share conservation will be put on the land for years to come. But the fact of the matter is there is still much more work to be done in the watershed and cost share enables landowners to do more work in a year’s time than they could afford to do on their own. Conserving this size of watershed is not and never was something that could be done in a three or five year time frame. Conservation takes time. The two projects we have completed thus far should be considered as phases of a much larger project, reasonable goals that were accomplished in the timeframes allowed by the grants. Walnut Creek is not privy to other special funding sources such as the Publicly Owned Lakes fund, which means that WIRB funding is basically our only chance at securing an outside special source of money for our watershed. The Montgomery and East Pottawattamie SWCD’s would love to continue working with the WIRB board to fuel this fire of conservation which was ignited three years ago.