State Technical Committee Meeting

State Technical Committee Meeting

June 28, 2007

693 Federal Building

NRCS Conference Room

Des Moines, Iowa

1:00 p.m.

MINUTES

Present: Rick Van Klaveren, Chair; Lyle Asell, Paul Tauke, Ken Herring, and Bill Elm, IDNR;

Jim Munson, FWS; Rick Robinson and Doug Gronau, Farm Bureau; Susan Heathcote, Iowa Environmental Council; Merlin Plagge, FSA; Lee Faris, Farmer/Rancher; Jerry Miller, ISU Extension; Ken Tow, DSC; Duane Sand for Mark Ackelson, INHF and representing the State Soil Conservation Committee as the new Chair; Brad Riphagen for Shannon Ramsay, Trees Forever; Joseph Prucaski, NASS; Teresa Opheim, Practical Farmers of Iowa; Linda Kinman, Iowa Water Agencies Association, John Glenn, Iowa Watersheds; Inger Lamb, Iowa Prairie Network; Duane Sand, SSCC; and

Cy McDonald, Iowa League of RC&Ds. Others not members: Jim Gillespie, DSC; Kelly Smith and Todd Bogenschultz, IDNR; Violet Cunningham, Iowa Watersheds; Vickie Freidow and Robin Holcomb, FSA; Jim Ayen, Paul Sweeney, Allen Gehring, Monica Monk, Larry Beeler, and Shelly DuBay, NRCS.

Welcome Comments – Rick Van Klaveren

The minutes from March 15, 2007, were approved with a motion from Jerry Fine and seconded by

Duane Sand.

Rick Van Klaveren shared that Iowa NRCS has balanced the budget for this fiscal year. NRCS National Headquarters did not think Iowa would be able to balance the budget. With difficult budgets, Iowa NRCS looses the flexibility to make business decisions. Iowa NRCS will be able to pay employees salaries and buy a few supplies. An Agricultural Engineering position was advertised that was going to be paid by other states to fill the needs of the Multi-State Design Engineering Team. This position was not filled due to lack of qualified applications. With balancing the budget, Iowa NRCS looked at critical positions that were needed across the state to get our work accomplished to meet our customers needs and requested a waiver to only advertise within the state for (4) GS-9 soil conservationists. The new soil conservationist positions are located in Newton, West Union, Corydon, and LeMars. Iowa NRCS has provided 14 employees on detail to Louisiana to help with Hurricane Katrina issues and three (3) soil scientist on detail; two to California and one to Maine. Rick announced that Marty Adkins, Assistant State Conservationist for Water Resources, has been asked to go to National Headquarters on a detail to work in the National Easement Program Division for two months. Roberta Moltzen, who worked in the Iowa NRCS State Office, was reassigned as the new State Administrative Officer. She is replacing Deb White who moved to the Wisconsin NRCS State Office as the State Administrative Officer and was replaced by Roberta Moltzen. Roberta was a supervisor for the Forest Service in South Dakota and Oregon. Those positions she served in the Forest Service are very similar to NRCS State Conservationist positions. Roberta is highly qualified to be Iowa’s State Administrative Officer and Iowa is very fortunate to have her.

Rick mention the ethanol corn issue for the future. How is this going to affect agricultural from a conservation standpoint? Rick asked if we should ask to have the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association become a member of the Iowa State Technical Committee to get their views of conservation for the future. There was a discussion and a concurrence from the group to invite the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association to the join the committee.

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EQIP Sub-Committee Update – Larry Beeler

Larry Beeler is filling in for Deb Ryun as the Chair of the Sub-Committee. Larry provided a handout on the Iowa 2007 Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) applications. The document provided the project summary with the requested amount of funding from the CIG. Iowa advertised a request for proposals two months ago with seven requests for funding. Larry provided details. The Sub-Committee recommends funding the application from Agren with their project dealing with prescribed burning. If the entire State Technical Committee has comments, please provide them to Larry Beeler within two weeks by email . There was some discussion.

The National CIG award recipients were announced Tuesday this week. Iowa has four (4) that were funded including Iowa Soybean Association to continue to work with nitrogen efficiency project; Midwest Forestry and Biofuels to utilizing Osage orange as a source of biofuel out of southeast Iowa; United Egg Producers for feeding and altering diets for egg laying hens and how that may impact air quality; and Iowa State University stewardship in bioeconomy and Iowa market based model. This information is on our website with the details.

Payment Schedule – Larry Beeler

Larry Beeler shared Iowa NRCS is going to continue to improve the cost share payment process. In a previous meeting Iowa NRCS discussed how Iowa NRCS are going to use average cost. Example would be 50 percent of the average cost how to determine how much a producer gets paid to install a practice in a cost share program. Iowa NRCS will continue to streamline this process by coming up with a payment schedule starting October 1, 2007. So if a producer applies one foot of terrace then XX amount is what they are going to get paid. It will be on a per unit basis instead of a percentage cost share. This will help NRCS in two ways: the contracting will become easier with the producer and easier for the producers to know exactly what amount of funding they will be receiving. There was a detailed discussion. The cost lists will be approved by the State Conservationist and provided to NRCS National Headquarters.

WRP Update – Monica Monk

Monica Monk, Easement Program Coordinator on the Iowa NRCS staff, stated she was filling in for Marty Adkins while he is on detail to NHQ. Iowa NRCS submitted two special projects in March; one for the Missouri River Flood Plain and one for the Lower Cedar Iowa River Flood Plain; which were funded for an additional $5 million. Monica provided details on the special projects. She provided a handout that is in draft form titled “Iowa Wetlands Reserve Program Special Projects Request for Proposals – July 2007” and went over the document in detail. If there are comments/concerns on the draft document please contact Monica at (515) 284-4222 or email by July 27. Applications are due to the Iowa NRCS State Office by close of business October 15, 2007. There was some discussion. The entire State Technical Committee concurred on the concept of the request for proposals.

Monica also mentioned the WRP Reverse Auction that NRCS National Headquarters had funding available. Iowa did not ask to participate this time since this is still in pilot stage.

Iowa NRCS is working with partners and volunteers to do easement monitoring and management. Iowa NRCS has just started the official live on-site volunteer working under Monica Monk in the pothole area (Hancock and Winnebago Counties). It is required to do an on-site inspection once every three years. Monica provided details on the process and procedures for this volunteer. In one month, the volunteer inspected 30 easements, with 1,200 easements to complete. There was some discussion.

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General WRP sign-up update – Iowa NRCS will be ordering 124 appraisals where 47 percent have said yes, 53 percent have said no. Monica provided details on the applications and acres. There was a detailed discussion.

State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) Initiative – Vickie Friedow

Vickie Friedow provided a handout stating on March 20, 2007, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced a new initiative to allow FSA State Offices to address local wildlife conservation needs through habitat restoration. This initiative allows producers to install practices that benefit high priority state wildlife conservation objectives through the use of targeted restoration of vital habitat. The proposals will be considered by the FSA State Committee after a review by the State Technical Committee. The conservation department in the FSA National Office will review all FSA/State Technical Committee recommendations. The proposals should be submitted to the Iowa FSA State Office by close of business July 16, 2007. The proposals will be ranked and submitted to the FSA National Office by November 1, 2007. There are 500,000 acres nationally, with a reserve of 50,000 acres. Iowa was allocated 27,700 acres. Vickie provided another handout that provides additional details of this initiative and went over the document. There was some discussion. Rick Van Klaveren asked that a SAFE Sub-Committee be developed with the individuals listed below. The charge of this Sub-Committee would be looking at the applications/proposals. At the next meeting State Technical Committee Meeting, the Sub-Committee would provide the ranking criteria used and make recommendations to the entire State Technical Committee.

The following individuals that will be on the Sub-Committee are:

Jim Munson, FWS, Chair Larry Beeler/Mark Lindflott, NRCS

Dean Lemke/Randy Cooney, IDALS-DSC Rick Robinson, Farm Bureau

Matt O’Connor, Pheasants Forever Todd Bogenschultz/Kelly Smith, DNR

Bruce Cordes/Vickie Friedow/Robin Holcombe, FSA

CRP Update – Vickie Friedow

Vickie Freidow provided a handout on Mid Contract Management (MCM). The Farm Service Agency (FSA) CRP handbook regulations require management activities to be established for all general CRP practices on all continuous CRP practices beginning with Sign-up 26 or since 2003. FSA State Committee does not have the authority to exempt practices from required management. The FSA State Committee must submit a request, with justification to the FSA National Office, Conservation Department, to exempt any practices from the management activity requirement. The FSA State Committee, upon recommendation of the State Technical Committee, must approve/disapprove all management activities, including CREP, continuous CRP, and FWP. The Sub-Committee includes:

Jim Munson, FWS, Chair Larry Beeler/Mark Lindflott/Roy Campbell, NRCS

Randy Cooney, IDALS-DSC Rick Robinson, Farm Bureau

Todd Bogenschultz/Kelly Smith, DNR Bruce Cordes/Vickie Friedow/Robin Holcombe, FSA

New MCM practices established are: CP21 – filter strips; CP22 – riparian buffer; CP23 – wetland restoration, CREP; CP29 – marginal pastureland wildlife habitat buffer; CP30 – marginal pastureland wetland buffer; and CP37 – duck nesting habitat. Vickie provided another handout from the FSA Iowa State Office Agriculture Resource Conservation Program Manual 2-CRP (Revision 4) Iowa Amendment 7 and Amendment 20. There was some discussion regarding burn plans for MCM and the process between FSA, DNR, and NRCS.

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The Iowa FSA State Committee met to review the rental rates and made recommendations to the FSA National Office. Iowa FSA is waiting for the approval. The new rates will go into effect August 1, 2007 or sooner. Vickie provided details on the process of the request for changes. There was some discussion.

Conservation Compliance for Field Coming out of CRP – Paul Sweeney/Jim Ayen

Paul Sweeney shared that there has been a lot discussion on how to develop or determine if a producer will be in compliance with land coming out of CRP and that land being a part of a conservation system in Iowa. Paul gave some examples and provided a document “Conservation Compliance for Fields Coming out of CRP” – side one; “CRP Tillage Document Sheet” – side two. Iowa NRCS wanted this to be simple to explain to the producer and so the producer knew what was expected of him/her when they brought the land out of CRP. Paul went over the document in detail. The conservation plan on the producer’s field must meet the present criteria of Section III of the NRCS Field Office Technical Guide. The producer will not be able to use the grass cover of a period of time and average that into their next crop rotation. Paul asked that if there were comments/concern to contact him within two weeks. Iowa NRCS feels this is technically sound procedures and would like to make the recommended to the State Technical Committee to use this document in the field offices to help producers with expiring CRP contracts. There was some discussion. There was concurrence from the State Technical Committee on the recommendation to use this document. This document was sent out to NRCS field offices.

HEL Compliance Soils with Conservation Plans Exceeding 2T – Paul Sweeney

Paul Sweeney provided a copy of Iowa Amendment 2, dated June 2007, Title 440 – Programs, Part 512 – Conservation Systems and Plans, Subpart A – Conservation Systems, IA512.02 Acceptable Conservation Systems of the National Food Security Act Manual (NFSAM). Paul stated that the first two bullets on the amendment are National NRCS Policy. The Iowa portion states “For only those fields where the predominant HEL soil map unit has a soil loss tolerance (T) of two or three tons per acres; and where the HEL field has a crop history for crop years 1981 to1985, or had been cropped prior to December 23, 1985 and had a plan approved after July 3, 1996 – the Iowa State Conservationist authorizes the responsible field office employee to approve alternative conservation system if the system has a predicted soil loss less than or equal to the conservation system described in the Iowa FOTG Section III, Part IIA2 and the planned systems does not exceed 4T (four times the tolerable erosion rate).” Paul gave examples. There was detailed discussion.

2007 HEL Compliance Variances – Paul Sweeney

Paul Sweeney provided a copy of a document that was provided to the NRCS field offices titled 180 – CPA – 2007 Variances Due to Special Conditions (Severe Weather), dated May 29, 2007. This document provide variances to be granted to producers as a result of the severe weather conditions experienced in southwest and western Iowa this spring including the last spring blizzard, late freeze and below average temperatures, and heavy rainfall the weeks of May 4 and May 11. The variance may only be granted to producers who request relief prior to carrying out their tillage operations and has been documented as per the National Food Security Act Manual (NFSAM) Part 520.15(e). Paul went over the details of the document and provided examples.