Butterflies, bees and other pollinators will hopefully have growing populations locally with the help of a grant and donated land.
Brown County Soil and Water Conservation District recently received a $30,975 matching grant from the Indiana State Department of Agriculture and the State Soil Conservation Board.
BCSWCD was one of 13 soil and water conservation districts and soil health organizations to receive the funds through the Clean Water Indiana program. Including the districts’ matching contributions, a total of $1.6 million will be implemented to improve soil conservation and water quality initiatives throughout the state.
Funds will be used locally for the creation or restoration of pollinator habitats and prairie plantings in and around Brown County, according to a press release.
“It is becoming more and more well-known that there is a need to care for the pollinators of the planet,” BCSWCD Director Erin Kirchhofer said. “In Brown County, it has become a point of community action to preserve as much space as possible for the birds, bees and butterflies that populate the area.”
One of those groups pursuing that community action is Brown County Pollinators, which started a campaign to ask the community to donate a total of 100 acres in an effort to restore pollinator habitat.
St. David’s Episcopal Church also hosted a Pollinator Camp for local youth last summer to raise awareness of the need for habitat creation and preservation.
Applying for the grant was inspired by the passion the BCSWCD and Kirchhofer witnessed from the work St. David’s and the Brown County Pollinators are doing to create and preserve pollinator habitats, Kirchhofer said.
Kirchhofer said the district has identified continuing to offer “cost-share programs to landowners to help implement conservation best management practices in this area” as a way to meet five natural resources goals outlined in the BCSWCD business plan.
The Brown County Clean Water Promise (BCCWP) cost-share program is a matching grant program that reimburses a certain percent of project cost participants up to the approved maximum cost-share amount per project. It is intended to connect the soil and water conservation district with locals interested in conservation practices who may not qualify for other funding.
Of the five goals in the business plan, two specifically speak to the enhancement of native habitat and the protection of water quality.
“Habitat improvement can take many forms, but this grant is to support practices that improve both water quality and soil health through the restoration and/or creation of habitats that attract and support pollinators,” she said.
Pollinator habitats improve root structure, erosion and add nutrients to soil, which all improve water quality, said BCSWCD educator Kady Lane.
When water quality is improved, pollinator habitats are able to better thrive. Lane said habitats and water quality go hand-in-hand.
The first goal of the grant is to enhance Brown County’s native habitat through the protection of water quality by offering cost-share incentives to local residents to convert unused land into pollinator spaces. A part of this goal is to have a total of 300 acres converted through the planting of native species.
The second goal is to strengthen and protect the soil from “non-point sources of pollution by offering cost-share measures to encourage landowners to install buffer strips dedicated to pollinator habitat on agricultural land and to encourage the use of native plant species,” according to Kirchhofer.
Non-point sources of pollution usually result from runoff, precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage or hydrologic modification, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website.
The website also states that NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and groundwater.
The final goal is to offer resources to Brown County landowners as a way to “help implement conservation best management practices for the creation of pollinator habitats and for the reduction of sediment runoff and of non-point sources of pollution,” Kirchhofer said.
“We wanted to find a way to help make the desire to create habitat space to attract them something that everyone in Brown County could do,” Kirchhofer said.
“Native seed mixes and plants, as well as the specifications for pollinator planting/habitat creation can be expensive and the planning process for plantings daunting.”
Kirchhofer continued that this grant will allow the soil and water conservation district to help offset that cost and to help landowners “navigate the planting specifications.”
“Because it can be very technical, we are also very lucky to have partners at NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) and ISDA to help with the planning/planting process. They are both key players in making sure that the work that is done by all, is done correctly so that the impact is a lasting positive one,” she said.
This grant is accessible to individuals and organizations. There will be an application process.
Exact details are still being worked out by BCSWD. A separate announcement will be made when the application opens.
In the meantime, interested parties can contact the office at [email protected] or call 812-988-2211 for more information or to be added to a list of those interested in applying once the application is available.
Clean Water Indiana is managed by ISDA’s Division of Soil Conservation and funded by a portion of the state’s cigarette tax. The program provides financial assistance to landowners and conservation groups that are working to reduce runoff from non-point sources of water pollution, whether it’s on agricultural land, urban areas or eroding streambanks.
