Blue Earth River project waits for word on funding

Project has impact on

Minnesota River cleanliness

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

FAIRMONT -- Funding for the Blue Earth River Basin Initiative's pilot program for cleaning up the river is another appropriation in danger of the budget-cutting axe in the Minnesota Legislature.

It's another Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources-recommended project that Sen. Dennis Frederickson, R-New Ulm, has been trying to save.

Along with a number of other projects, the BERBI project was "zeroed out" of the LCMR's laundry list of environmental grants by a Senate subcommittee. Frederickson got the $622,000 appropriation put into the $1.3 billion environmental, agriculture, economic development and natural resources funding bill which was passed by the Senate earlier this past week.

Now, the program that hopes to clean up the river by break the corn-soybean rotation cycle faces the uncertainty of conference committee scrutiny during negotiations in combining the Senate bill with a similar House measure that doesn't include any of the "zeroed out" projects.

So, why is a senator whose primary environmental focus has been the state of the Minnesota River pushing so hard to get funds for the BERBI?

"Well, the Blue Earth system is part of the (greater) Minnesota River (watershed), and while it's about 20 percent geographically of the Minnesota River system, it contributes about half of the pollution load. So, it's a major contributor," said BERBI Executive Director Linda Meschke of Fairmont.

The Blue Earth river starts at Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge just north of Algona, Iowa, meanders northward to its confluence with the Minnesota River at Mankato. It travels through some of the most intensely row-cropped acres in the country.

The Watonwan and LeSueur rivers are included as part of the Greater Blue Earth River because both flow into the Blue Earth before it flows into the Minnesota.

"The Blue Earth watershed system includes about 2.3 million acres, and 2 million of it is corn and soybeans so what we're trying to advocate is to plant 'third' crops. It isn't any one crop but rather a wide diversity of crops grown in the region to diversify the plant species and also help reduce some of the pollution by breaking up the corn-soybean rotation," Meschke explained.

There's a growing belief among soil scientists and environmentalists that the tradition, and pervasive corn-soybean rotation is not sustainable in the long term.

One of those unsustainability proponents is Gyles Randall, University of Minnesota soil scientist stationed at Southern Research and Outreach Center, Waseca.

"It's a very easy management and takes less work, but it results in increased soil erosion," he said.

"So, we're trying to target these third crops toward areas that are more prone to pollution. The reality is we're still going to have corn and soybeans grown so if we can get some perennials, some grasses, some hay crops, some trees, some native grasses -- whatever it might be -- on areas that are prone to polluting either with soil erosion or nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, that's what we need to clean up the river, to mitigate those issues," Meschke said.

Even with approval of the $622,000, BERBI will be handicapped in attempting to show a difference.

BERBI officials initially asked the LCMR for nearly $7 million to fund a program in which farmers along the river would be asked to sign a 10-year contract to plant only "third crops" along the river.

However, Meschke said the $622,000 would only cover 250 acres divided into "demonstration plots" as a fairly large portion of the money would go to the University of Minnesota for "third crop" research.

"About 35 percent will go to the University of Minnesota for research related to these issues so that includes agronomic research, economic research and hydrologic or environmental-related research," she explained.

"Then, the balance would come to us for easements with the landowners. So, quite simply it is just to pay the farmers to grow something besides corn and soybeans."

Meschke said the immediate plan is to try to get at least three bienniums of financial aid from the LCMR, but the long-term plan is to make the program, if it is successful, self-sustaining.

While the LCMR money can't be used on the Iowa side of the border, she said BERBI is working with counterparts in Iowa to get a similar program started with possibility federal funds. Obviously, not having a program between the river's headwaters and the border would defeat the purpose of the project, she said.

Although the program is not totally defined as yet, Meschke said the plan was to operate within 1,000 feet of the river and third-crop sites would be analyzed as to their crop-erosion potential.

"What we would try to do is look at, for example, steeper slopes that might adjoin the river that are in corn and soybean production," Meschke said.

If BERBI gets the money, Meschke said the program would be launched July 1. The first cropping season then would be in 2004.

However, Meschke said a major by-product of this project would be trying to develop value-added markets for "third" crops.

"This payment is essentially for the farmer to take the risk to go to these other crops because having markets are a big issue. If they're going to grow (these crops), there may be limited markets so farmers are taking some risk in switching to these other crops."