Steve Gravelle, CR Gazette –
Local efforts to improve and manage Iowa’s streams could end if the Legislature doesn’t fund the program in its closing week.
“It really needs to get some funding this year, or the whole effort really kind of goes away,” said Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids. “It’s kind of a farmer-led watershed improvement effort. It would look awfully bad if for lack of funding the Legislature allowed this to die.”
The Senate has adopted an amendment appropriating $5 million to fund the Watershed Improvement Review Board. It’s up to the House to either approve the amendment from Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, send it to a conference committee to negotiate its place in the budget, or reject it all together, shutting down the program.
“Without the money, the board won’t have anything to do,” Hogg said. “This is something that got bipartisan support in the past and I hope it gets bipartisan support now.”
The board was last funded in 2010. Dvorsky’s amendment would draw new funding from the state’s budget surplus.
“It’s going to be really, really slim pickings as far as other funding sources,” said Jerry Neppel, environmental specialist with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Division of Soil Conservation. “The other funding sources are on hard times too.”
Formed in 2005, the 15-member board reviews applications for watershed management projects submitted by local government agencies — often soil and water conservation districts but also city governments. The board includes four legislators and representatives from the Department of Natural Resources, the Farm Bureau, and commodity groups.
The board was created in 2005. Its $5 million annual budget was reduced in later years to $2 million, then eliminated completely during the last recession. Neppel saidthe board is managing $4.2 million to finish projects already under way.
“I’m getting calls already (asking) ‘When’s the next request for applications?’” Neppel said. “Until it actually gets passed by both houses and signed by the governor, I really don’t know what’s for sure.”
Board approval is often required before a project seeks other funding sources. Bob Ballou of Monticello, the board’s chairman, said the state’s seed money has leveraged $70 million in other funds.
Ballou, who represents the Iowa Soybean Association on the board, said the projects enjoy solid farm support.
“Everyone has been pretty well-informed,” he said. “I think folks will be making calls” to lobby for the funding.
The board has funded $1.9 million for eight projects in the Cedar River watershed, including a project to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into Lime Creek in Buchanan County, and improvement projects for Price Creek in Benton and Iowa counties, the Yellow River’s headwaters in Allamakee and Winneshiek counties, and Bloody Run Creek in Marquette.
“When you have an opportunity to get all the interest groups together on a targeted watershed improvement program, you ought to take it,” said Hogg.
