(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors this (Tues.) morning heard a proposal to form what would be known as the “Upper Little Sioux Watershed Management Authority”. Dickinson county already is a member of the Little Sioux Headwaters Watershed Management Authority. Amy Crouch, Little Sioux Project Director for the Nature Conservancy in Iowa told the supervisors the Upper Little Sioux WMA would help improve a stretch of the river downstream of that…
“We’re hoping by breaking it down into smaller sections that we’ll be able to get things done and get things moving. However that doesn’t preclude us from having a grant for the whole river. We can work together, we can have 28E agreements between the different watershed management authorities and so we can work together that way, too. It will be a good collaborative move to have all these watershed managment authorities.”
Lee Schoenewe, Chairman of the Clay County Conservation Board and a board member of Friends of Lakeside Lab, added the WMA would also work in conjunction with the already-existing Little Sioux Watershed Conservation Partnership…
“Having that partnership already in place for 13 years is an advantage especially because those are largely technical people and all of these WMA’s that are being formed require some technical expertise to help the board of that watershed management authority make good decisions on things that they’re looking at.”
Crouch and Schoenewe added the Upper Little Sioux WMA would be funded largely through grants and the Iowa Water and Land Legacy, which they’re hoping will be funded in the upcoming session of the Iowa Legislature.
They added an informational meeting for various stakeholders that would be involved in the Upper Little Sioux WMA will be held February 19th from 1:00 until 3:30 pm at Oneota Park in Spencer.
Crouch and Schoenewe added they will be meeting in the near future with other counties and Soil and Water Conservation Districts that would be included in the WMA to gauge their support.
