By Lori EhdeRock County’s Rural Water system is served by a series of wells fed by shallow, underground aquifers.Rural Water Director Dan Cook said an important role of Rural Water is to protect local drinking water from contamination."We want residents to know we’re trying to watch out for the sensitive areas around the wells and protect their water for the future," Cook said.The Rock County Land Management Office and Rural Water have for many years been monitoring the Wellhead Protection Area, and particularly the Drinking Water Supply Management a Area.Along with identifying this 7-square-mile area, officials are closely monitoring streams and waterways that feed the area.State laws and local ordinances take into account these areas and encourage voluntary restrictions on ag production there."It’s created an area around the wells where nothing happens," Cook said. "We have the ability to say, ‘This is an area of too much sensitivity where we want to monitor livestock and land use activity."Runoff from nearby corn and soybean fields can poison the drinking water supplies, so Cook and Land Management officials are working to educate farmers and landowners in these areas.They were invited to a meeting Monday night where they learned what they can do to protect the water and to get involved in programs with state and federal incentives.About 30 residents and landowners were invited to the meeting for an update on wellhead protection and specifically the Southwest Minnesota Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.CREP is an enhancement of the long-standing CRP program that encourages farmers to take out of production environmentally sensitive land.Farmers receive monetary incentives for participating. Essentially, they get paid not to farm it.CREP works much the same way, but it applies only to land in a drinking supply management area, and the sign-up incentives are more generous. For example, qualified applicants receive:oannual CRP rental payments, which include a 30-percent incentive bonus, plus a $5 per acre maintenance allowance for the first 15 years.oa one-time signing incentive payment of $10 per acre per year, or $150 per acre.oa one-time, up front Reinvest in Minnesota payment of 17 percent of the county assessor’s estimated value of the enrolled land.The CREP contracts are for 45 years, and landowners retain all hunting and property rights.Strips of grass and trees bordering water ways in place of row crops are common ways to handle CREP land taken out of row crop production.In most cases, approved conservation practices CREP land are installed at no cost to the landowner.The idea is that the vegetation filters contaminants from water before it drains into the drinking water supply."The key thing is we want people to know we’re doing what we can to protect the water they’re drinking," Cook said.Keynote speaker for Monday’s event was Tabor Hoek with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.In addition, the program included updates from Assistant Land Management Director Doug Bos, newly hired CREP agent Justin Decker, U.S. Natural Resources and Conservation Agent Kurt Halfmann and representatives from the Minnesota Department of Health and from the state office of Minnesota Rural Water.For information on CREP call the Land Management Office, 283-8862, ext. 3.
