New round of Cedar River watershed conservation projects underway

MARION -- When Brian Lensch grows corn and soybeans on land he rents north of Cedar Rapids, do you know what he’s not thinking about?

The saturated buffer that filters water from underground drainage tiles to keep nitrate out of Barry’s Run, a nearby tributary of Indian Creek.

“I haven’t noticed anything different,” Lensch told Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig Thursday morning.

That’s the goal, Naig said during a tour of two water quality projects in Linn County.

These projects that filter agricultural runoff before it gets into creeks that drain into the Cedar River benefit Cedar Rapids, which draws its raw drinking water from the river. Installing the projects without disrupting agricultural production is a way to get more farmers to sign on to the voluntary measures, Naig said.

“When people do get together is when people start saying ‘yes’,” Naig said. “Then more people say ‘yes’. Then you start to build a culture of conservation that really takes off.”

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has partnered with the city of Cedar Rapids and other agencies on a new round of on-farm conservation projects in the Cedar River watershed. By grouping projects together for design and installation, coordinating groups can save money and get things done faster, city and state leaders said. Linn County landowner Curt Zingula described the approach as the “easy button” because he did not have to plan or pay up front for the work.

Collaboration helped save $10,000 on a bioreactor on Cedar Rapids city land near the Tuma Sports Complex. The system uses an underground trench of wood chips to filter tile lines from about 120 acres of rented farmland.

Agricultural runoff is the largest source of nutrients that create an oxygen-deprived “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. Excess nitrate and phosphorus also can contribute to poor water quality in recreational lakes in Iowa.

Although Iowa has been in a period of drought the last two years, a new analysis from the Environmental Working Group shows the majority of Midwest counties showed increased precipitation between 2001 and 2020.

During that same time, crop insurance payments for excess moisture in 661 Midwest counties added up to nearly $13 billion — one-third of the nearly $40 billion in total crop insurance payments for all causes in these counties.

Farming near streams and lakes can increase fertilizer runoff and erosion during intense rains, which are increasing with climate change.

Naig said he hadn’t seen the analysis, but felt it wasn’t the state’s role to discourage farmers from planting in flood-prone areas.

“I’m not one to say that we shouldn’t plant even in areas that border rivers and streams because if we took all those acres out of production it would be a significant reduction in our acreage in the state of Iowa,” he told The Gazette on Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture does say farmers can’t get crop insurance for planting in a wetland area unless they have a conservation plan.

The Environmental Working Group encourages reforms, including reducing premium subsidies to farmers who plant in high-risk areas and eliminating the yield exclusion provision allowing farmers in particularly wet or dry areas to ignore bad years when calculating insurance guarantees.

After talking about conservation, Naig was scheduled to visit Kroul Farms near Mount Vernon to learn about their farm and business and encourage Iowans to participate in agritourism this fall.

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com