Agren Projects

Monitoring Wetland Sites

The Challenge:

Lands enrolled in the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) and Emergency Watershed Protection program (EWP) must be monitored annually to determine compliance with contract and/or easement terms. In 2003, when NRCS staff found it difficult to complete all the required monitoring, they solicited bids from the private sector to conduct the required annual reviews and prepare final reports for all enrolled acres.

Agren's Solution:

In 2003, Agren submitted the successful bid to monitor more than 30 WRP easements in two southwest Iowa counties. Our staff developed a case file for each landowner and conducted on-site field reviews of every easement. The monitoring process included completion of an NRCS worksheet and photo documentation from specified photo points or problem areas for each site. Landowners were invited to accompany the staff person on each review.

Results of each review were submitted electronically to both the NRCS field and state offices, and landowners received a copy by mail. Discrepancies between the contract and actual practices were reported immediately to NRCS field staff for follow-up. On our own initiative, we submitted summary reports to each county and met with state NRCS officials to discuss the process, actual findings, and other pertinent information. Each project concluded with submission of a final report to NRCS.

In the past five years, we have monitored WRP and EWP sites in two southwest Iowa counties, four central Iowa counties, six counties in the Iowa Great Lakes region of northwest Iowa, and 15 counties in the eastern third of South Dakota.