More money coming for SE MN trout streams

[h2ofwlr]

By John Weiss, Rochester Post-Bulletin
Posted: Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:37 am


Trout streams in the region are going to get yet another big boost of interest — and dollars — to help them and their watersheds.

Over the past several years, the state has been pumping a lot of money into stream restoration through the Legacy Fund, and Trout Unlimited has the Driftless Area Restoration Effort program. Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the Upper Mississippi River Basin will be one of several key areas nationwide to get attention through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program.

That program will spend about $1.2 billion over five years in the key areas to help landowners, soil and water conservation districts and others control erosion that can clog trout small streams, and the giant Mississippi River, with sediment.

The idea is to concentrate resources on key areas instead of spreading them out, according to Trout Unlimited. "TU has long advocated for, and worked hard to achieve, landscape-scale solutions for the many challenges America's fisheries and watersheds face. This approach means focusing funding, science and partnership work — involving landowners and a wide swath of conservationists on priority areas to achieve robust fish habitat improvements," it said.

Besides the $1.2 billion, the service wants to raise that much more from partners such as conservation groups.

The Driftless Area, which includes trout streams in southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa and southwest Wisconsin, has also been designated by the Natural Resources Conservation Service as the Driftless Area Landscape Conservaiton Initiative. That is expected to result in some $6.5 million in conservation spending on watershed restoration, forestry, prairie and wetland restoration projects.