Minnesota Buffers for Wildlife and Water - Phase V
The Clean Water Fund (CWF) and Outdoor Heritage Fund (OHF) were used together to secure easements on buffer areas. 71 easements have been recorded for a total of 1,083.9 acres and are reported in the output tables for the final report (acre total does not include Clean Water Fund acres). The total acreage from both CWF and OHF sources for recorded easements is 2,105.0 acres. Only the OHF acres are being reported in this final report to be consistent with the approved accomplishment plan.
The sites enrolled were generally farmed sites adjacent to a sensitive water feature or drained and farmed floodplain wetlands and associated upland habitat. Expiring Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts were also enrolled. These sites originally offered limited ecological benefits. Through a combination of a scoring and ranking process and eligibility screening, each application was evaluated, with the applications that provided the greatest habitat and environmental benefits after restoration and protection being selected for funding. Factors considered during site selection included: linear corridor connectivity, length and width of the filter strip, adjacency to a public water, size of the site offered for enrollment, additional wildlife benefits, highly erodible land or partially highly erodible land, threatened and endangered species, and addressing water quality concerns.
MN Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) is a voluntary, federal-state funded natural resource conservation program that uses a science based approach to target environmentally sensitive land in 54 Counties in southern and western Minnesota. This is accomplished through permanent protection by establishing conservation practices via payments to farmers and agricultural landowners. Landowners enrolled in the federally-funded CRP for 14-15 years; CRP is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture-Farm Service Agency (USDA-FSA). It uses agricultural land for conservation benefits, rather than farming or ranching; The same land was also enrolled into a state-funded perpetual conservation easement through the Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) Reserve program, administered by the Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR). Private ownership continues and the land is permanently restored and enhanced for conservation benefits.
The RIM payment rates were consistent throughout most (2018 - 2022) of this appropriation but CRP annual rental rates fluctuated, so the state's contribution to the overall easement cost varied in reaction to the CRP rate.
The largest easement funded in this project was a floodplain easement in Nobles county (53-01-19-01). The total easement was 209.2 acres (104.6 acres funded with this project) and protects portions of both sides of Kanaranzi Creek and its floodplain areas. This easement is adjacent to an 80.9 acre MN CREP easement funded with ML2016 RIM Buffers Phase VI and a 60.1 acre MN CREP easement funded with ML2017 RIM Buffers Phase VII. These three easements total 350.2 acres of protection along Kanaranzi Creek.
$4,544,000 in the first year is to the Board of Water and Soil Resources to acquire permanent conservation easements to protect and enhance habitat by expanding the clean water fund riparian buffer program for at least equal wildlife benefits from buffers
Project selection criteria for the buffer program is designed to compliment historic investments to protect wildlife habitat in the degraded prairie region of the state. Providing connections between and adjacent to these previous habitat investments is a
Clean Water Fund, Clean Water Fund and USDA-FSA-CRP