|
The rolling agrarian fields planted between the South Fork of the Snake River and the rocky, forested uplands are part of this open and scenic region that so attracts locals, visitors and wildlife. These treasures in the East Side District hold convincing evidence that investment in private land conservation produces public benefits. Federal land conservation projects existed on a small scale in the East Side District for decades to control the severe soil erosion on dryland farms from spring runoff and summer rainstorms, and on irrigated lands from improper water management. Since Idaho’s agricultural nonpoint source pollution legislation in the early 1980s, District landowners have allied in greater numbers with the soil conservation agencies to set about a change in how farm and rangeland management affected streams and the River. Early on, the District launched and finished three state-funded water quality projects that featured costsharing to help farmers and ranchers control serious soil erosion. Two more recent costshare projects will finish in a few years. Costsharing allowed a landowner to pay a portion of the cost of adopting conservation tillage and other agricultural Best Management Practices, while public grants helped pay the other portion. Landowners in specific watersheds were free to choose the roles different state and federal conservation programs would simultaneously have on their land. Where one program might be limited, another might make up. Coordinated planning also extended to cooperative wildlife management on some private lands adjacent to state lands, two national forests, a wildlife management area, and a national wildlife refuge. It was clear to the East Side District that an alliance of landowners and agencies at any level, ready with conservation programs, produced a greater effect together than the sum of their individual efforts. Today, many residents see the difference from just ten years ago. Gone are the stories of ten-foot deep gullies, and sediment rushing into the Snake River. The District’s naturally high erosion index and environmental benefits also made the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program a key component in many projects. The CRP keeps erodible lands undisturbed and planted with wildlife grasses and forbs. On the land still farmed and grazed, erosion is in check because the state program helped farmers and ranchers build dozens of water and sediment basins, and thousands of feet of terraces. Deer and elk are more frequently sighted, and some say that fishing on the South Fork has never been better.
|
|
A little history… |
|
Early East Side SWCD Supervisors hard at wok. |
