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(clarinet)
- [Voiceover] The following program is a production
of Pioneer Public Television.
(clarinet music)
(piano music)
- Hello, and welcome to Compass,
a new production from Pioneer Public Television.
I'm Les Heen, your host for Compass,
and this is a weekly discussion of public policy
and important issues facing our viewing area.
This week, we will discuss how buffer strips
are affecting the regions' soil and water
conservation efforts, not to mention,
what sort of rules and regulations
are tied to those issues.
We will also touch on what efforts
are being made on farmers at the legislative level.
First, we have the story of how one farmer
from Walnut Grove is seeing the benefits
and results of buffer strips on his own land.
We'll also see some tips from (mumbles)
Soil and Water Conservation district
on how even non-farmers can work on their
conservation skills.
Here's a report from Pioneer's Laura Kay Prosser.
- I think conservation's important, just keeps
our resources where they are.
They don't remake soil very fast.
It takes generations to build back your soil
and once we lose it, it's gone,
and it won't be back in my lifetime.
There's a lot of things that people do
already that they probably don't even
consider conservation, but they're doing it
already just as a normal farming practice.
- [Voiceover] Mike Landuyt believes in conservation,
not just in the region, but specifically on his own land,
which is why you will see water basins,
tiles, buffers, and even tissue testing
practice there.
- We put our first buffer on probably about
13 years ago, maybe 14.
It was a CRP buffer that we started with.
Then three years ago, we did a bunch
of CSP buffers to tie into our CSP program requirements.
The buffers were pretty easy to create.
Just two of us went around on the Gator
and measured off 50 feet and flagged it
so that we didn't fertilize in where the buffers
were gonna be or till it.
Most all our farms have creeks or ditches in them.
So, we just pretty much went to every one
and measured it off, found we had a lot of places
that already had more than the 50 feet anyway.
So, that part was pretty easy,
and we had few where we left some spots
that didn't even need to be in just
to get to other big spots where we did need them.
- [Voiceover] From Mike, that means a mixture
of basins and buffers placed where they
best fit the land.
We can hay our CSP buffers.
That's one of the things that drew
us to them.
With feeding cattle, we can utilize the hay,
but I prefer the basins because I think
they stop more things.
To me, you only need buffers in the low
spots where the water goes in.
If you have a man-made ditch where
the spoils are five feet higher than the ground
or around it and the water's going in anyway,
I don't see the point, but there's definitely
spots where water runs in and by holding
the water up on top the hill, it isn't flowing
in as fast through the spots where the water
does go into the creek.
So, you're stopping some erosion just by
slowing it down up there and keeping it back.
See what works, what works best for you because
I don't believe in mandatory buffers,
but there's definitely spots that
people need to quit farming.
Everything works together.
There's no one silver bullet that
is gonna cure it all.
It's gotta be a systems approach
and you gotta use the different pieces
and fit it together like a puzzle.
- [Voiceover] Over the course of three years,
Landuyt has been involved with two or three
different programs.
Through his local water and soil conservations,
he's found help in financing his buffers and basins.
- You gotta be patient to work through
the government stuff.
They did a pretty good job with us
to make it as easy as possible.
There really wasn't any challenge.
So, there's just the work of it,
matching the right program to the right spot
and maximizing the use out of it,
figuring out which, how it work best and
try to get the benefits they say there is
and the benefit back to us.
They're the experts on it.
So, I let them choose which one's the best
for this year, but most of them involve
a 75% cost share, maybe just a minor
tweak in what you're already doing
would classify it, probably just inventory,
what you're doing and look for ways
that it could be considered.
I guess, that's probably the first step.
- Districts have many tools in the toolbox
that we work with farmers on to implement
conservation practices, everything
from the State Cost Share Program
to providing technical services
to the CRP, RIM, CREP, just a wide variety
of tools, and there's many programs that
we can help them with that don't have
necessarily a program connected to them,
but if they want to do some type of management
practices, we don't always have a direct program,
but we can work with them on managing their
conservation lands as well.
- [Voiceover] However, conservation isn't just
a farmer's game.
- We all have a part.
I don't care whether I live in a house in a town
or whether I own a business in town
or whether I'm an agricultural producer.
We have all had our part ever since
we've started settling in changing
the landscape, making changes,
doing things to the landscape that are not
natural to the landscape, in particular,
the impervious surface, if you get a hard rain
and you have a roof or concrete or whatever,
you know that that area is, the weather's gonna
run right off it.
It won't absorb it, and so you need
to make certain that when you have those surfaces,
where the water's gonna run off, you either
have a holding pond or you have some time
of grass strip so that when it runs off the impervious
surface, cause it's gonna carry the salts,
it's gonna carry the oils and all that from the concrete.
So, therefore, you need to make certain that
you have some type of area, holding area,
that that stuff can go to rather than the direct
because it's gonna get to the direct surface
water at some point in time.
So, there's a lot of things that we
as non-farmers can do.
Make certain that the fertilizer that I use
doesn't have the phosphorus,
make sure that my laundry detergent doesn't have
a lot of phosphorous in it,
make certain that my cleaning supplies
are very environmentally friendly,
recycling, using less water, and making certain
that you turn your heat down.
So, when we look at the fact that
farmers have their way of helping
with the environment, and we as homeowners
and businesses have our way of helping,
it's just two different ways of working
to make certain we protect the environment.
(piano music)
- With us now to talk about how counties
and other areas are working to promote
buffer strips in our region, we have
two folks with us.
We have John Jaschke.
He's the Executive Director of the Minnesota
Board of Water and Soil Resources,
and also with us is a State Representative
from District 16B, Paul Torkelson.
Paul, John, thanks for coming in.
- Thank you.
- Nice to be here.
Thank you.
- I was thinking about this issue
just a few minutes ago about buffer strips,
and a few years ago, people would
have said, buffer what?
What is this?
I mean for farmers and for soil conservation people,
it was a big deal, but for a lot of other people,
they weren't even sure what buffer strips were.
So, we've seen tremendous changes on this issue
just in the last couple of years, haven't we?
I mean, Paul, certainly with you being an author
of the bill working on this, you've seen
some tremendous changes on this issue.
- Well, that's true.
For people that don't understand buffers,
I like to call them grass sideburns.
You know, you put grass sideburns on your
ditches and streams to keep, help control
water quality, but they're really not a new topic.
In fact, there are lots of buffers in place
all across the state of Minnesota.
They're somewhat scattered,
but this legislation will make
it a little more even landscape across the state.
- Now of course, in your work at the Board
of Water and Soil Resources, you have
heard, this is, of course, no new issue to you
in that you've seen, I suppose, a change from people
talking about 6.5, 16.5-foot
buffer strips to wider strips.
So, how has this issue changed in the time
you've been watching it?
- Well, buffer strips are a conservation practice
that have been around since the 1940s.
So, it's not new technology and it's not
terribly complicated.
Buffers have been a very important part
of protecting water quality since that time
when people identified the fact that they
could both hold the bank together when the water's
flowing in the channel or the stream,
and they can also provide a filter
as the water comes across the land
and enters the stream, and so,
it's a very important practice, but it's not the only one.
There are other practices too that can also
achieve those same kinds of benefits.
- And we should mention of course,
that a big reason why this got a lot of attention
in the last couple of years is of course,
Governor Dayton announced his idea about 18
months ago, I think now about 50-foot buffer
strips on waterways and once that happened,
then I suppose we had a fairly long
and involved process, as I recall
over the last year or so, in is that
the right amount or should buffers
just be in some places at that length
and not in others and Paul, I know
you spent a lot of time on this.
So, where are we today?
- Well, I certainly did spend a lot of time
on it, and you might recall the governor
had some meetings across the state
prior to session last year that really
highlighted, as a result, those meetings
highlighted how controversial some of this is,
and so, that was kind of the groundwork there
that was laid that helped us understand how it
would affect the (mumbles) landscape,
and we moved forward with discussions,
myself and John and representative
of the DNR working on some language
that we thought would work.
We kind of got it done at the last minute,
and I fully expect that we will be doing
some repairwork on that language
this coming session to really tighten
it up and make sure that there's
a clear understanding of what's
expected as a result of this legislation.
- So, what are some of the key takeaways?
I mean, since the last session ended,
I know you've been talking to farmers
in community meetings and what are some
of the key takeaways of the legislation
as it ended last session?
- Well, the first key, I think, is that it's
focused on water quality.
The governor's initiative kind of came
out of the Pheasant Summit talking
about wildlife habitat and while wildlife
habitat is important, I don't think that
anyone is going to go out and start taking
farmer's land away from them for the sake
of wildlife habitat, and there certainly are many
voluntary programs where farmers do
supply wildlife habitat, but this is really
focused on water quality, but also it's
focused on the integrity of our ditch system.
Our drainage system, surface drainage system
in Minnesota is vital to the success of agriculture.
We can't grow our crops well if we don't
have land that's well drained,
and part of that drainage is through
the ditch system, and buffers
not only protect the water quality
of the ditch, they also protect
the ditch itself cause if you get
too close with your equipment,
and start plowing up the top of the ditch,
you're gonna cause some severe damage
to drainage ditches.
These buffers will give us that setback
that actually protects the ditch itself.
- I don't know, (mumbles) I know when I've
seen pictures of buffer strip examples,
you'll say, and here's an example
of a buffer strip that's a certain width
and here's in another width and sometimes
you'll see pictures of here's what happens
if there is no buffer strip, and I know
I've seen some of those along the road
where you drive by and you see that a ditch is,
there's a section of the ditch that's
sort of caved in, and that's sort of
the worst case example
of what happens if a buffer strip
is really not in place, right?
- Yeah, that may or may not be
the result of the lack of a buffer.
Sometimes, that sloughing of the bank
has to do with the type of soil
and the type of underground water movement
that's involved, but buffers do have
the potential to help protect the integrity
of these ditches and also improve water quality.
Now targeting, of course, is what we would like to see,
put the buffers, the right size buffer
in the right place to get the job done.
The one-size-fits all is really not the best
use of our land and our resources.
That's why you'll see some variances
within this bill such as along public waters.
It doesn't have to be just 50 feet all the way along.
We're allowing for a 50-foot average,
but it can be as narrow as 50 feet.
So, a farmer can cut a straight line for his row crop.
- Sure, cause that's another part of the thing is
how does it affect the farmer in the field
because of course, in simple terms,
rows are straight, ditches, maybe not, right?
- Well, some people's rows are straight.
I'm a farmer by trade and I wouldn't guarantee
that all mine are straight,
at least they didn't used to be before
the advent of GPS.
- Yeah, it got easier when you had the controls, right?
- That's right.
- A couple of things I would add,
I think, you know, for example
Torkelson mentioned one of the reasons
the governor, I think, looked at this issue
and thought something needed to be done
was because of just a little bit of unevenness
in terms of the way the buffers were in place.
As Representative Torkelson said, many landowners
have buffers in through voluntary programs.
We also in Minnesota had a couple of laws
or requirements actually that were in place
that were left to local governments to implement
and that still will be the case with this law,
except that now, it will basically
have them all move forward at about the same pace
whereas previously under the existing law
that was in place prior to this one
coming in online, counties had some election
about what they could do and when they would do it,
same with the ditch authorities,
and so, we will see the buffers get in through
much of the same proceedings
that we would have otherwise seen
but they will happen in a more predictable
and a faster rate.
- Now I know there have been many public
meetings that have been continuing
since the session ended, and one
of the things that you have to do,
either one of you, and that is clear up
misperceptions about what's in the law
what isn't in the law.
So, tell me what, as you talk to people,
what are the misperceptions?
What are people telling you
or what are they really confused about
that would be good to clear up?
- Well, I think it's really important
that we realize what this bill
is designed to effect and that is
public waters but not just any public waters,
just public waters that are on a public
waters inventory back in, I believe
the 70s or early 80s, the DNR
went through a process where they
identified a public waters inventory
in the state of Minnesota.
That process included vetting
where landowners and county officials
looked over these various waters
and determined which ones needed
to be on the list.
So, we kind of know what that inventory is,
and that's a good starting place
to work with that inventory of public waters.
On the ditch side, we're working with the public ditches.
Those are the ditches that are overseen
by either a county board or a local
water authority, and again,
we know what that inventory is.
The governor wanted to move quickly
on this issue, and to move quickly,
we need to know exactly what we're
dealing with.
If we deal with an inventory that we're not
sure where it starts and stops,
you can just imagine the difficulty
of working with landowners when you're not
sure what's going to be affected.
- So, in other words, you could imagine,
somebody will say well, how accurate
is this area versus another area
and it would be way too difficult to try
to map out massive areas at once instead
of remap the state, right?
So, I mean, that's kind of the idea is,
work with the best information that we have now.
Is that sort of what it is?
- That's correct.
These public waters inventory is held
at the state level.
We know what it is.
The ditch information, the public ditch information
is really held mostly at the county level,
and it's in a variety of farms.
In some cases, the counties have already
digitized this information and it's readily accessible,
but in other cases, it's probably on a piece
of paper in a cardboard box in the basement
safe at the courthouse, and so, it's gonna
take some time and effort to really
get this information in a form where
it can be utilized.
- Yeah, and so, John is this,
so, as you've been working through this
with your agency, I mean, obviously
there's laws and then there's rules so,
what are some of the next steps that
for the Board of Water and Soil Resources here?
- Well, I think, it's very important to have
this inventory, these maps prepared,
and that's the responsibility of the Minnesota DNR,
and they're undertaking that task,
and they have committed to being
completed with that task by July of this summer.
So, we will have that for everyone to see,
and that was as Representative Torkelson
said, a very important part of it because
one of the things that we did when we were
working on the legislation was to see
where we had some successes in other parts
of the state, where local governments
had been more proactive and we found
about a half a dozen counties that had been
doing that, maybe even another one
if you think about the ditch systems,
and they had been very successful by first
communicating to landowners what the expectations
were and giving them some sense of what
they could do to meet those expectations
and so that began with a good set of facts,
and a map was part of that.
So, we wanted to make sure we could
replicate that statewide.
As was mentioned, some of those records
needed to be retrieved and put in a more accessible
form so landowners and local governments
can readily use that to make decisions.
So, we're getting ready to help landowners
understand what their expectations are
and having the local governments,
the Soil and Water Conservation districts and
counties and watershed districts work with them
to figure out how to best get their buffer in
if that's what they're gonna be doing.
- Sure, and I expect because you're working
statewide on this issue, you've seen tremendous
differences, not only county to county
but also then from the types of counties,
if it's a row-crop part of the state
versus a forested part of the state.
I suppose, you have huge differences
in the implication to this law
as well as, as you said what counties
have done up to this point, right?
- Well, that's true.
You know, Minnesota's a very diverse state
and we're lucky to have those resources
to take care of and use both in the
agricultural part of the state, where this law
primarily has its effect.
It's gonna be, I think, county by county.
They're gonna tell us what the best way
to carry it out is going to be.
They're gonna have some options about that.
One of the changes that took place
over the session that last year
was at the state originally was going
to be the enforcement authority
for this law, and that got transferred
to local governments and so,
they're gonna both be helping
and helping the state make sure that the law
and the privileges along with it
are gonna be consistently applied,
from landowner to landowner.
- Sure, and then I expect the implications
because in the counties it's been in very
different places, it's important for people
to understand what things are like
in their county or if they're farming
and they may have land in one county
and land in another county, they may
have over the years, seen some very
different responses from the two
or three different counties, even another area, right?
- Yeah, I think that's true because it was
very much a discussionary decision
under local government's level
about whether they were gonna do
a zoning program to put a buffer in or not.
I will say this though that, some people
said that we had a big compliance problem,
and I think that really wasn't the case
and our early assessment was that
the law itself didn't require buffers.
In fact, as Representative Torkelson
mentioned, we have a buffer law
in Minnesota that was there to protect
the ditch system from being excessively
sedimented by people not taking care
of their land, and that was there
since 1977, but it required a specific
legal trigger to get the buffer strip in,
and so waiting for that legal trigger
to occur meant that we only had
20% of the ditches with that one-rod
buffer requirement.
So, this law will make that happen more quickly.
So, we'll get those buffer strips in
and the ditch authorities will be able
to manage that if they choose to by
putting them in through their normal proceedings.
- A very important part of this work was
just the local control issue.
We thought it was very important that counties
and local drainage authorities be the ones
that had the authority.
We also depend heavily on our Soil
and Water Conservation districts.
They will not be buffer cops; however,
but they have the technical expertise
to go out and evaluate the landscape
and get these buffers installed where
they really need to be.
Now, one of the big discussion points
has been private ditches.
They were not part of this legislation,
but they are important and we do
want our local SWCDs to get out there
and look at them, and make recommendations
to landowners and operators as to what
might be the best practice to apply,
and on a voluntary basis, these landowners
and operators can incorporate those
practices into their operations,
a very critical part of the legislation.
I would also mention one more thing.
To get this work done, it takes some money for SWCDs,
and not as part of this bill, but as part
of other legislation that was passed last year,
we came forward with significant funding,
increased funding for SWCDs to allow them
to do their work better, and we're not
granting it out to the best ones.
Most of it's going out in a blanket form.
So, we're gonna try and kind of again, even that
playing field so that all counties have the resources
they need to do this work well.
- So, it sounds like from that, that part
of this huge thing is not only the training
but then also the education where a landowner
may not have been familiar with it,
may have had some understanding of the issue
of sedimentation and buffers to protect
the ditch system itself but perhaps not
so for water quality, what their options
are for what they put on it.
So, is there gonna be a huge phase of this
just being education of landowners
and farmers and also local officials
on what they need to do next?
Is that the next big thing here?
- Absolutely, I contend farmers kind of know
how to farm.
They don't necessarily have the technical expertise
to know how to maintain their ditch banks
and river banks because it's not something
they do on a regular basis.
So, getting this technical expertise in place
at our county level will be a great help.
It's really important that we maintain that
landowner and operator cooperation.
If we alienate those folks, it's really hard
for them to step forward and do
what they need to do, but if we work
with them hand in hand, I believe
we'll make great progress on water
quality here in the state of Minnesota.
- And, so in addition to the education
piece, then between now and the end of May
when the Minnesota Legislative session ends
of course, they're be some more discussions,
some more refinements, looking forward
to try to figure out how do we
need to change this a little bit or tweak it.
So, any really big changes, you think,
over the next few months?
- I would not say really big changes,
but I do believe we will have some clarifying legislation.
There's a lot of questions out there,
some issues that we didn't think about
that have come forward, and other issues
that just weren't as clear as they
needed to be in the language of the bill.
So, I believe we will prepare and pass
legislation to make this as clear
as possible so that counties and landowners
and operators really know what's expected of them.
- One thing I would add is that the education
is very important and fortunately, we have some
time to make sure that opportunity is given
it's fullest chance because the legislation
says that the requirements don't kick in
until November of 2017 for the public
water buffers and November of 2018
for the public drainage system.
So that gives plenty of opportunity,
I mean, it's going to require a ramp up
and that's important to have that money
for the Soil and Water districts and local
governments to help landowners.
We're gonna be looking for every
option we can to help them
with a voluntary approach to make those
buffers become real.
I should point out too in those half a dozen counties
that we talked to before the legislation was passed,
they had, I think in the case of Olmsted County,
which of course is in southeastern Minnesota,
they told me that they had 470-something
landowners that they had communicated with
about the expectation to have the buffers in,
and that they ended up only having two
of them that they actually had to go
to a compliance or enforcement action
on because the landowners once they understood
what the obligations were, they found
a way to get it done.
So, if we can achieve that same kind of
rate of compliance, we'll be doing very well.
- Good, good, now just a couple of quick things,
and before we close this out,
where to go for more information.
I see you've got on your vest there.
It says, it's the Bowser website, which is
a little bit too small for us to see,
but if people go to Pioneer.org
we'll enclose links to that,
of the Board of Water and Soil Resources,
and certainly, people can go to the
legislative website as well.
Google the Minnesota legislative website
and look at the bill and bill summaries, right?
- Absolutely, and I would say, stay tuned
because I'm expecting that we will
have some clarifying legislation
and if you have input on that, on things
that you think are important issues
to be dealt with here, please reach out
to your local legislator or to me personally.
I will do my best to hear your concerns.
- Representative Paul Torkelson and John Jaschke
from the Board of Water and Soil Resources.
Thank you for joining us.
- Thank you very much.
- That's it for this week on Compass.
Join us next week as we take a look
at how one small town is finding success,
and that success is coming, despite being
way off the beaten path.
Thanks for watching.
(piano music)