MASON CITY – The Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors held their regular meeting Tuesday morning at the courthouse.
The board gave tentative approval to work with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources on furthering the Union Hills wetland restoration project. Union Hills is a wildlife management area located 4 miles north of Thornton on Hwy 107 and 2 miles west on B55. It is 2,125 acres in size. An Iowa DNR representative told the board that more land has been acquired that will allow the DNR to adjust drainage tiles that will help fill wetlands. Work on a dike would also need to be completed. The board gave tentative approval pending legal opinions and paperwork.
According to a federal government website, Union Hills waterfowl production area in Cerro Gordo County is the largest in Iowa at over 2,000 acres. A University of Iowa publication says that Union Hills is “one of the highest quality wetlands the Iowa DNR’s wetland monitoring crew has sampled. After being sampled for five years straight, results have shown it is nearly free of excess
nutrients, and chemical contaminants. It also supports a rich diversity of aquatic plants and animals. This wetland is now used by the monitoring program as a reference site representing the benchmark in quality.”
See the agenda and video of the meeting for more.
Watch video:
httpv://youtu.be/XREwE1B94vY
