About 94% of Mower County’s agricultural land already complies with the state of Minnesota’s new 50-foot buffer requirement along public waterways, including the Cedar River, according to Mower Soil and Water Conservation District staff.

Extensive mapping work by the Mower SWCD confirmed that 94.4% of the county’s farmland already satisfies the new Minnesota buffer rules. Nearly 100% of public ditches in the county also meet the state’s 16.5-foot buffer requirement.

Compliant buffer. This aerial photo shows a buffer in compliance In Mower County with the Minnesota’s new state buffer law. Photo by Mower SWCD.

“A vast majority of Mower County’s farmers and ag landowners have been proactive on buffers over the years,” said Justin Hanson, Mower SWCD manager. He said that landowners have been great to work with on various field practices that reduce and filter stormwater runoff.

“We appreciate their efforts and look forward to working soon with the others who mostly need to buffer small tracts of land,” he said.

SWCD staff will contact those landowners about non-compliant land in the coming months along with options for how they can correct it, he added.

Compliant buffer. This aerial photo shows a buffer in compliance In Mower County with the Minnesota’s new state buffer law. Photo by Mower SWCD. 

Mower SWCD staff, led by district technician Aaron Gamm who serves as the county’s lead on the state buffer plan,  conducted their own mapping of buffers along public waterways and ditches. Staff then compared those maps to new state buffer maps.

Overall, Mower County has 445 miles of public waterways, including 21 miles of public ditches – with about 280 acres not in compliance with the buffer law. Once all is in compliance, about 5,223 acres will be buffered in Mower. In the Cedar River Watershed District’s portion in Mower County, nearly 234 miles of public waterways or about 95% are properly buffered.

In 2015, the state Legislature passed a law seeking to establish riparian (the area between land and a river or stream) buffers and water-quality practices to protect water resources from erosion and runoff pollution; stabilize soils, shores and banks; and provide habitat and riparian corridors.

Statewide, the law seeks to establish 110,000 acres of vegetative buffers of up to 50 feet along lakes, rivers, streams and ditches to help filter out phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment. The buffer width will be an average of 50 feet on public waters and at least 16.5 feet on public ditches. Private ditches no longer are required to be buffered.

Buffers need to be in place for public waterways by November 2017 and on public ditches by November 2018.

Mower SWCD and all other SWCDs in Minnesota are implementing the state’s buffer requirement, including by planning; providing technical assistance to landowners; reviewing alternative practices for approval; and tracking and reporting progress.

Uncompliant buffer. This aerial photo shows a buffer not in compliance in Mower County with Minnesota’s new state buffer law. Phot by Mower SWCD.

By July, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources expects to finalize buffer protection maps.

During recent years of higher crop prices, Hanson said, incentives offered by the Cedar River Watershed District and Turtle Creek Watershed District, both managed by Mower SWCD staff, helped keep a lot of expiring Conservation Reserve Program farmland enrolled and, in turn, buffer in place along waterways. In 2015, the number of Mower County CRP buffers and wetland enrollments increased to 2,474 acres compared to 175 acres in 2014.

Under the federal CRP land conservation program, farmers sign contracts for 10 to 15 years to remove environmentally sensitive land from farm production and to plant species to improve environmental health and quality.

For more buffer information, go online to www.dnr.state.mn.us/index.html and www.bwsr.state.mn.us/buffers. Questions also can be directed to Mower SWCD’s Aaron Gamm at 507-434-2603.