More Than $130,000 Received Locally For Lake And River Enhancement Projects
By EILEEN OAKS
The Watershed Foundation Marketing and Outreach Specialist
NORTH WEBSTER — Recently, The Watershed Foundation assisted in writing the grants that were awarded $45,000 to both the Whitley and Kosciusko county Soil and Water Conservation Districts from the Indiana Division of Fish & Wildlife through the Lake and River Enhancement program for land treatment projects.
In 2016, the Indiana Division of Fish & Wildlife awarded a total of $1.296 million in grants for Indiana watersheds, divided among 33 lake and river projects in 25 counties and 36 watersheds.
LARE is funded by Indiana’s boater registrations. The projects include dam removals and other biodiversity improvement tactics, as well as erosion studies and stream bank stabilization. But they also fund watershed land treatment that could help address high-profile nonpoint source pollution in Indiana watersheds.
“Securing this grant will really help fund more permanent practices like something you can see after a year. One example is like a filter strip or buffer strip that will go along a ditch or stream and filter the runoff from fields,” said Scott Ziegler, TWF watershed conservationist. “Right now, we’re in the process of getting producers signed up for cover crops so they can try it out.”
The highly competitive grant is gifted based on the success of the organizations in previous years. TWF is unique in that the full-time staff includes three experienced farmers and watershed conservationists who collaborate with other government programs. In the past two years these visionaries have worked to help double the acres of cover crops in our watershed, which decrease erosion, increase soil productivity, and decrease nutrient runoff.
“We have a history of success and a good reputation. This grant is building on the previous two years, which were funded by other grants and supporters of TWF,” said Sam St. Clair, watershed conservationist for TWF. “The general donations successfully funded the past projects in the watershed and now we’re recognized with another grant. All this money goes directly toward practices and with very minimal administrative costs.”
Among the other grants, TWF also helped secure $41,000 for Kline Island repairs on Webster Lake that will help improve an additional 200 feet on top of the 300 feet restored in 2015. This island repair was a collective effort from TWF, the Webster Lake Association and Epworth Forest Camp.
“The Healthy Shorelines Initiative gained national attention in April 2013 when TWF was honored by the National Fish Habitat Partnership (www.fishhabitat.org) as one of the 10 ‘Waters to Watch’ across the country,” said Lyn Crighton, executive director for TWF. “The success of this program, and many others that we have partnered on to enhance our watershed, is a major factor in our ability to receive these grants.”
The Watershed Foundation was founded in 1997 to protect and improve water quality in the Upper Tippecanoe River Watershed; spanning from Crooked Lake in Whitley County to Lake Tippecanoe in Kosciusko County. The Clean Waters Partnership was founded a year ago as an extension of TWF in the Warsaw-Winona area.
During the past 19 years, TWF has worked with farmers and lake residents to implement more than 200 water quality improvement projects. In the last three years alone, these efforts have prevented more than 556 million pounds of weeds and algae from growing in area lakes and streams.
