Power Cost Meters - How & Why

The Elmer Manske farm, one of the first to enroll in the Coon Creek project, following installation of contour stripping and other conservation practices. (Photo: NRCS Wisconsin)

Leopold, the father of wildlife management, and other faculty and staff from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Erosion Experiment Station in nearby LaCrosse served as advisors to the project. They worked with Bennett’s team to craft many now-traditional land management approaches, such as integrated planning, to address concerns ranging from overgrazing to pollution to crop rotation.

Incentives encourage stewardship

The demonstration program offered an array of incentives to encourage participation by area landowners not naturally inclined to join forces with the federal government. Producers who signed their five-year contracts early on were eligible for $.50/acre payments, foreshadowing future financial assistance programs designed to promote wise stewardship of natural resources.

CCC staff construct a terrace outlet channel on a Wisconsin farm as part of the nation’s first large-scale soil and water conservation demonstration project. (Photo: Civilian Conservation Corps)

The Soil Conservation Service supplied Coon Creek farmers with seed, fertilizer and fencing, and the Civilian Conservation Corps provided a significant amount of labor. Known as the “CCC Boys,” they were indispensable. They quarried and crushed millions of tons of limestone, installed nearly 29,000 miles of terracing, cultivated and planted many millions of trees and cleared channels and reservoirs of nearly 400,000 square yards of sediment and debris, in addition to other back-breaking tasks.More than half of the watershed’s 800 farmers became cooperators during the project’s first 18 months, and another 68 joined soon thereafter. Today, thanks to their pioneering example, more than 95% of the 92,000-acre watershed is covered by a conservation plan. Some current landowners still adhere to agreements their parents worked out with Bennett’s team more than 70 years ago, farming the same contour strips and following the same fence lines.

A series of aerial photos taken over 75 years in the same area in the Coon Creek Watershed show significant increase in the use of conservation stripcropping. Click here for larger view. (Photo: NRCS Wisconsin)

So what has been the impact of the groundbreaking project Leopold called an “adventure in cooperative conservation?” Going by the numbers, a satisfying portrait emerges: erosion has decreased 75%;  the watershed is now 44% forested; and gullies—some described as “big enough to hold a house”—were reduced by 77% by the late 1970s. Flooding, once common on area farms, has been minimized. Conservation practices have also reduced valley sediments 94% since the 1930s—good news not just for the immediate area, but for the health of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico as well.Due to better local stream flow resulting from better farming methods, trout have returned to streams that in Bennett’s day were filled with sediment. By one account, cold water flow is up 10% from 1950. A recent study commissioned by Trout Unlimited shows that improved habitat and water quality helped develop the region as a major fishing destination—a boon to the local economy.  

Coon Creek’s enduring benefits

But the project’s legacy extends far beyond these numbers. Every single American farmer or rancher who voluntarily implements conservation practices on private working lands—practices that yield public benefits we all enjoy—has ties to Coon Creek Watershed’s visionary farmers, bankers and public servants. Their bold action in a time of adversity helped make the case for establishing the Soil Conservation Service (today’s NRCS) and for a strong federal role in furthering private lands conservation through technical and financial assistance.Leopold first articulated the idea of “cooperative conservation” in discussing the Coon Creek project, and two other bedrock principles of conservation were similarly defined as the planning process moved forward. The first principle is that proposed conservation actions must benefit a producer’s bottom line, as well as the environment—good conservation must equal good economics.The second principle is that proposed conservation actions must be based on sound science. As the Coon Creek demonstration proved, if farmers and ranchers have access to timely, factual and site-specific information, they will have the confidence to make the right decisions for their businesses, their families, their communities and the environment. NRCS personnel and researchers nationwide still work hand-in-hand and across disciplines to develop conservation practices, policies and incentives to meet unique regional needs and to make the best use of agency and landowners’ resources. These principles continue to guide our work in this century. As conservationists, even in 2008, we follow in Bennett’s footsteps to help people help the land. 

NRCS Chief Arlen Lancaster and Wisconsin State Conservationist Pat Leavenworth at an April 2008 ceremony marking 75 years of conservation achievement in the Coon Creek Watershed. Click here for larger view.(Photo: Alice Welch/USDA)

Begun in one century and enduring into the next, the Coon Creek project remains one of conservation’s great and most inspiring success stories. The conservation practices put in place in southwestern Wisconsin transformed the landscape there and served to bring the benefits of natural resources conservation to people and communities all across America. For all of us for whom conservation is our purpose and our passion, Coon Creek’s legacy is one worth remembering—and celebrating—in this 75th anniversary year.
  
Conservation Incentives thanks USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Arlen L. Lancaster for this article.