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The TUDARE Project is a region-wide effort to restore and protect the coldwater streams and w2atersheds of the 24,000-square mile unglaciated, or "Driftless" Area of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota. To learn more, visit us at www.tu.org/driftless. Jeff Hastings, Project Manager The content of this e-newsletter is authorized for free distribution. What you will find in this newsletter:
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Report from Project Manager, Jeff Hastings This past year was one of our most successful in moving forward our agenda for the Driftless Area. We wrote, or helped to write, grants that brought in an additional 3 million dollars to accelerate stream restoration projects. Some of these projects are highlighted in this newsletter, and other projects we hope to highlight in future newsletters. We also secured a couple of grants to help with our outreach, and hired a half-time Outreach Coordinator…Duke Welter. Many of you know Duke and know he will be a great asset in helping us create a regional identity for the Driftless Area. Duke has also been instrumental with helping me improve our website, workshops and these newsletters. Finally, I want to give a big shout out to our volunteers that we count on so much to help us with the funding, running our workshops, and making the stream restoration projects happen. Moving TUDARE Forward: Planning Conference at Galena November 13 With six years of success and experience, how should TU's Driftless Area Restoration Effort (DARE) move forward? That was the question November 13 as over 40 TU leaders, conservation professionals and agency personnel met in Galena to plan the next five years for the TU largest-ever Home Rivers Initiative. Developing a regional identity for the Driftless Area is key, long-time TU leader Steve Born of Madison told attendees. The area shares common landforms, history, natural resources and resource challenges, and is interdependent economically, he said. "And it is connected by its waters, which offer us challenges as well as opportunities. TUDARE's efforts should be toward finding sustainable, durable solutions which can be monitored and maintained." Don't forget the economy and the culture, said recently-retired DNR fisheries leader Dave Vetrano. This region is a system, economically linked, and assembling networks across the region can help TUDARE's efforts. By recognizing there's a $1.1 billion annual impact from recreational angling alone, communities can benefit from encouraging watershed restoration and other similar efforts. In June 2004, a handful of TU volunteers met in Galena and laid the plans for what is now TU's largest and most volunteer-driven Home Rivers Initiative. It was conceived and begun with volunteers from Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin and aided by TU staff. Jeff Hastings, TUDARE Project Manager, said, "We were pleased to have with us a wide range of people from outside of TU who are working with us, or interested in working with us. They helped us see how we can improve our partnerships with land trusts, conservation groups, agencies and businesses, and that will help TUDARE work across the region. There's a bright future here." Now it has been recognized by partners including all four states' DNRs, federal agencies and county conservation departments. Extensive training and increased financial support have led to an increase in watershed restoration projects across the 24,000 square mile region. Those projects have also become broader-based, restoring wetlands, adjacent uplands and native prairies in watersheds, for increased environmental and wildlife benefits. TU's National Leadership Council recently endorsed TUDARE and committed to supporting it for the next five years. The Driftless Area of the Upper Mississippi basin is a focus area for national environmental and conservation groups and agencies right now because of several factors. Agricultural land uses have historically impacted the condition of its waters, soil erosion and its economy. Changing land use can improve or harm water quality, fish habitat, recreational opportunities and control or send harmful nutrients down tributaries and the Mississippi and affect the hypoxic, or "dead" zone in the Gulf of Mexico. "Two Galena meetings, five years apart: it went from a small, largely unnoticed gathering of TU volunteers to an event that filled a conference room and brought people not only from TU, but from state and federal governments, federal agencies, land trusts and a variety of nonprofits interested in widescale restoration projects," said Brett Lorenzen, who chairs TUDARE's Volunteer Steering Committee and is Iowa's TU state council chair. "It speaks to the great motivation of our members, as well as the fact that local leaders at all levels see the value of enhancing the region's coldwater fisheries as well as restoring major parts of our watersheds." Attendees at the Galena conference looked at key areas for growth of the project, including projects and partnerships, outreach and communications and education and science. Their suggestions will be compiled into a draft five-year plan and circulated around the TUDARE community. Like the 2004 meeting, November's get-together was hosted by the Illinois State Council of TU. Summer 2010 Projects Across Region Leave Landowners Happy, Streams Healthy As the 2010 work season progressed, notable TUDARE-aided projects across the region included several in southeast Minnesota and southwest and western Wisconsin. Touring those projects and talking with landowners and partners, the enthusiasm for these restoration efforts is evident. On upper Trout Run east of Rochester, Minnesota, Hiawatha TU volunteers aided contractors who restored a 3,100 foot reach which had been a hard-used feedlot, junkyard and erosion source for years. Landowners Earl and Judy Prigge plan to use the area for rotational grazing, and are tickled with the results. "For years, we'd drive by and say, 'wouldn't it be nice to be able to buy that, and get rid of all that junk and do something about all that bare soil?'" Earl Prigge said. "After the big rains in '07, there were log jams with junk in them, 30 feet high. We had to get an excavator to tear them out."
Mill Creek: Community Showcase Another notable project in the area was done on the upper reaches of Mill Creek north of Chatfield, Minnesota, by the same partnership. The stream flowed through consistent 8-10-foot banks of eroding deposited soil, and insect and fish habitat was badly degraded. The project site lies below a heavy spring inflow area, where past flooding from cleared uplands deposited a thick mat of soil on the valley floor. Although the project was primarily funded through the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council, additional contributions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Private Lands Program supported several nongame practices. With U.S. Highway 52 flowing right past the site, it's a showcase for stream restoration to a lot of travelers. And better yet, it offers an illustration to neighbors what could be done to restore three more downstream miles of Mill Creek on the way to Chatfield. Chatfield is taking notice, as its Chatfield Sportsmans Club showed up for work days. That can only help the process of the community in adopting a good project for coming years.
All told, Hiawatha TU spearheaded restoration of 4.5 miles of Driftless Area spring creeks east of Rochester in 2010. That's a notable accomplishment and probably a record for a TU chapter. Blue River: Snowy Bottom Progresses In southwest Wisconsin, the Harry & Laura Nohr Chapter of TU has been one of the bright spots for stream work across the Upper Midwest. For their 2010 project, the chapter focused once again on the Blue River near Snow Bottom in Grant County, the most southwesterly in the state. This Wisconsin River tributary is marred by consistent high sediment banks and box elder corridors along streams, but these waters respond well to best restoration practices. Over three miles of the Snow Bottom corridor had been restored by the end of 2010. The valley is a rather tight corridor with picturesque limestone bluffs along the stream. Now no longer grazed, it offers a perfect opportunity to restore native vegetation. Once the box elder corridor was cleared, project planners also found they had significant room to slope back banks to reduce flood impacts. A cover crop of grasses was planted, and will be overseeded with native prairie forbs next spring. The DNR holds easements along almost the entire corridor, and along the entire restoration area.
Nohr TU's project brought in partners like the Grant County Land and Water Conservation Department and the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), as well as Wisconsin DNR, Pheasants Forever and Chicago's Elliott Donnelley TU Chapter and the Trout & Salmon Foundation, as well as three cooperative landowners. "It's important to have everybody happy with these when we get done," Pluemer said. "Especially the landowners. If they're happy with the project, then all the rest of us are happy, too." |
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Welcome to Trout Unlimited's Driftless Area Restoration Effort (TUDARE) e-newsletter.
