State forest nursery in jeopardy

DES MOINES — There was no lack of passion or shortage of ideas at a meeting on the future of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' nearly 80-year-old state forest nursery.

Raise the price of seedlings to cover escalating costs. Drop the price of seedlings and make it up on volume. Consolidate the nursery operations at its 98-acre Ames location. Operate the nursery as a business.

About 25 representative of woodland owners, forestry businesses, and conservation groups as well as a handful of legislators were unanimous in their support of the nursery at the Monday afternoon informational meeting in Des Moines.

'This would be the worst possible time to close the nursery,' Dave Bartemes of Urbandale, one of several Iowa Woodland Owners members in attendance. With the growing attention to water and soil quality, farmers, forest land owners, landscapers, and tree services need a reliable and affordable source of native tree stock.

'We all agree with everything you all are saying,' DNR Director Chuck Gipp said after about an hour of comments. 'But we have a math problem.'

That is that the nursery, which by law must be self-supporting, is losing $500,000 a year largely because of declining demand for seedlings.

The DNR's state general fund budget has shrunk from $22 million to about $15 million this year. While an extra $200,000 or $300,000 to keep open the nursery doesn't seem like much, something has to give, Gipp said. Nearly half of DNR's budget goes to state parks including 20 that already operate with just one permanent employee.

So if funds are shifted, Gipp asked, 'Which park gets closed?'

State Forester Paul Tauke said a decision on the nursery's future will have to be made as soon as the coming week — before it's time to begin planting seed stock.

Iowa State University Forestry Extension already has issued a bulletin warning that the nursery will close this year and neither Gipp nor Tauke were able to offer many alternatives to closing.

Al Wagner, an Iowa Woodland Owners member from Linn County, seemed to sum up the sentiment after 90 minutes of discussion.

'I don't want to lose the nursery,' he said 'but I don't have a good solution to offer.'