Buffer strips were born of farmers’ insights according to Pete Nowak, Professor of Environment and Resources at UW – Madison’s Nelson Institute. Nowak has spent the better part of his career documenting and encouraging such insights between these agri-business leaders and the scientific community.
Pete Nowak’s office is in the basement of Science Hall. Science Hall is an elder on the UW-Madison campus. Its thick brick manor-like silhouette is a heavy anchor at the foot of Bascom Hill. The oversized wooden doors open with surprising ease.
Sounds of spring-time grit on the well-trodden steps and clunk of radiators silently speak to visitors as they move downstairs. Reaching Nowak’s office, A sign on the door indicates humor replaces sunshine; “Manure Management Improvement Project.” A quick knock on the door and a cheerful greeting beckons entry. An enthusiastic smile sits amidst stacks of sociology texts, watershed maps and soil studies.
“Most farmers are professional problem solvers, yet we’ve ignored this capacity for too long,” begins Nowak. His work, finding ways to keep agriculture-related pollution out of rivers, streams and lakes, brought him to Wisconsin in 1992.
Nowak explains that farmers’ observations changed the way environmental engineers, ecologists, and other scientists looked at agricultural run-off. Nowak, raised on an Iowa pig farm, was privy to his father’s conversations with friends and other neighboring farmers. He recalls listening to one past discussion in particular: Scientists were beginning to look at water quality in relation to agriculture. These scientists had presented calculations regarding the amount of water running off farm fields. They had explained to the farmers, how the water traveled down the hillside in sheets. The problem?
Smiling at the memory, Nowak leans back in his chair. “None of those farmers had ever seen a 2-inch, 1-acre sheet of water moving down their fields.”
When it rains or when the snow melts, water does travel. It collects in small areas then begins to overflow and meander; joining into increasingly larger pools and streamlets. It builds momentum as it moves across fields; carrying soil, manure, or pesticides along with it. The slower the water moves, the fewer contaminants it carries. If it moves fast enough, it both pushes and agitates soil particles and contaminants along with the flow.
According to Nowak, many people in the science community felt contour stripping provided protection to our waters. Contour stripping is used on hillside fields. The crops are planted horizontally, or perpendicular to the slope. Rows of plants run like corduroy across the hillside. Alternately, without contour strips the crop rows run vertically up and over the hills, creating little troughs that water can race down.
The wooden desk chair gives a sharp squeak as Nowak sits suddenly forward.
“The problem is, that contour strips are a soil conservation measure; contour stripping was never meant to stop runoff (water & contaminants) from entering our streams.”
Nowak calls this “dime store science;” investigation of one problem, sometimes with a strongly anticipated outcome, but applied as the solution to multiple other problems. It is true that water moving across contour strips is slowed down, but it still travels. Regardless, farmers and scientists alike thought it was good enough, but it wasn’t.
After the nation’s adoption of the Clean Water Act, comprehensive assessment and monitoring of our rivers and lakes told a different story. It proved many of our waterways were degraded to the point of ecosystem collapse – even those waters adjacent to lands using good management practices, such as contour strips. A technique was needed that would prevent runoff from reaching open water.
It is Nowak’s opinion that farmers understood how to apply the buffer strip practice to their own land. Intimately familiar with differences in soil type, the slope or “lay of the land” and other nuances, these land owner observations were important to the development of the science behind the buffer strips. Just as those questions raised by Nowak’s father caused those scientists to revisit their theories, today’s farmers offer ways to explore an even wider range of scientific variables – and the principals can then be applied more broadly.
Buffers are no longer used only in agricultural settings, according to Jeremy Balousek, Urban Conservation Engineer with the Dane County Land and Water Resources Department (DCLWD).
“Everything we do comes from agriculture,” begins Balousek. He was also raised on a farm, and now holds a Master of Science degree in Agricultural Engineering. He has worked with DCLWD for over 14 years.
Balousek explains that he works closely with urban planners to encourage the same type of conservation practices that have been used by agriculture. Currently, when a community expands its boundaries, he helps coordinate the evaluation and protection of the natural resources present. Then he communicates the information to both the expanding communities and contractors working in the area.
Currently, all new construction must be at least 75-feet from any body of water. Balousek notes that while this is the law in Dane County, it may be different in other counties. He also notes that in some cases, this may feel excessive. Just as frequently however, there are areas for which this may not be enough.
Buffer strips are calculated to remove physical pollution according to Balousek. Physical pollution in this case refers to the soil particles that may be carried on the water. Certain contaminants, such as phosphorus, primarily travel within the soil structure. Thus buffer strips halt a great deal of phosphorus from entering our waters.
However, cautions Balousek, there are times when chemicals more readily travel through the soil and 75 feet is not adequate protection. For example, nitrates may chemically combine more directly with the water. If this occurs in an area of sandy soils, the liquid may travel right through the soil structure and into both groundwater – and drinking water wells – and surface water.
While larger setbacks are not a legal requirement, Balousek encourages greater distances between construction areas and the water when such conditions occur. In general, he promotes thoughtful land use planning overall, as a means to protect both the natural landscape and human health. He admits however, that urban policy is still a bit behind their rural counterparts. In the latter case, the buffers are calculated in a much more site-specific manner now.
Back in the Southwestern Dane County countryside, bicycles buzz down Fritz Road in Montrose township. The riders may not even realize they are crossing the meanderings of Flynn Creek and the West Branch of the Sugar River multiple times. Likely their route has been chosen for its hilly challenges amidst a scenic rural landscape. Such a landscape is due in part to continuations of the buffer strip initiative.
“It made financial sense [to put in buffer strips] or we couldn’t have done it,” states Steve Haak. He no longer milks cows, but is still cash cropping the family farm, just across the valley from the O’Connor farm.
Haak motions to a large expanse of river bottom, just south of Dane County Highway A. The grassy landscape stretches out for a mile in each direction up and down stream. At the Fritz Road bridge over the West Branch of the Sugar River a sign reads “Public Fishing Access” and directs anglers to enjoy rustic access winding narrowly along the streambank. Immediately adjacent to this public treasure, a private landscape seamlessly stretches, over 100 feet outward in some places; An unheralded wetland gem.
Sandhill cranes call out their landing while a great blue heron stands motionless just next to grass-choked oxbow pond. It is evening, and the toads and frogs sing from every direction; geese provide a staccato counterpoint from the freshly greening hayfield to the north.
Despite the aesthetic significance, Haak explains that if there had not been some sort of payment arrangement, the farm would look much different today. Instead of acres of marsh, there would be pasture and row crops. The soils along this 2-mile stretch on the West Branch are extraordinary – so much so that even the threat of the occasional flood made it profitable to plant.
Flooding is frustrating though. So when the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) offered the Haak family an amount close to the annual net per acre income, he agreed to manage the land differently. He entered into a contract with NRCS, a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The contract oversight is typically managed through USDA partnerships with county-based Farm Service Agency (FSA) committees. This in turn sometimes includes oversight by county land conservation departments; the latter is the case in Dane County. Yes, it’s complicated, but that doesn’t seem to faze Haak.
Haak understands he isn’t getting paid just to watch it go idle. There are active and demanding management strategies which he must coordinate. For starters, he was required to christen one contracted set of acreage by planting over 500 floodplain tree species (swamp oak, green ash, etc…) by hand. He must also mow or burn grassy areas where invasive or other undesirable species (as defined by the NRCS) begin to creep in.
The list of his management requirements – and thus the requirements of his contract – changes as the science changes according to Haak. For example, when he enrolled in buffer strip program 15+ years ago, trees and certain brush species were “not a problem.” Now he has to hike into the area, and cut down and/or chemically treat small stands of certain trees that have popped up over the years. No new contract was issued, just new requirements.
If he fails to keep the area managed per any single year’s guidelines, he could be fined and required to pay back the entire contract – that’s up to 20 years of payments and tens of thousands of dollars for some farmers.
Haak motions to several acres recently mowed and tilled. The spot is not in a buffer program, but is adjacent to a buffer strip. It used to be in a similar farm land conservation program, but last year when the contract ended, he didn’t renew. He was afraid he couldn’t keep up with the management of a particularly nasty grass on the NRCS’s invasive list: reed canary grass.
“Reed Canary grass is almost unstoppable… I don’t know how much longer we can manage all of this,” comments Haak. “… Burning doesn’t work because it is a grass… cattle have to be almost starving before they will eat it; so rotational grazing won’t help after the fact [reed canary grass is established] either.”
Haak also explains that if he doesn’t return the land to a farm use, he will be taxed at a much higher, recreational rate for the acreage. Unlike the O’Connor’s, Haak still owns the land, thus access rights and management practices are still under his control. He doesn’t think the tax system is unfair, but does question the reed canary grass requirement. Haak understands the wildlife cover (places for animals to live or hide) provided by reed canary grass may not be ideal, but it still holds the soil in place and helps prevent runoff from reaching the stream.
There is hope however, that these acres will return one day to a farm program like the current buffer strip initiative. When asked if he would consider re-enrolling the acres if a solution to the reed canary grass requirement presents itself, Haak gives a quick nod.
“Maybe tilling up the soil for a few years will be enough to discourage it [reed canary grass],” adds Haak.
While the scientific community understands the value of buffer strips as a means to protect waterways, it knows less about the waters that may be present in the buffer landscape itself. Reflecting on the oxbow pond within Haak’s buffer strip, one wonders what the heron was after beneath the glassy pond surface.
Torque Writer (TM) This work is protected by US Copyright law, and may not be reproduced (wholly or partially) without the written consent and signature of the author, Rebecca L. Olson.
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