Contacts
Scott Flaherty 612-713-5309
A bronze monument unveiled last week along
County Road 6 in western Minnesota's Big Stone County does more
than mark the location of one of the National Wildlife Refuge
System's newest wetland restoration projects. The marker stands
as living proof that good things can, and do, happen for
conservation when farmers, government and non-government agencies
and local citizens get together for a common purpose. But, like
most monuments, the bronzed inscriptions don't always tell the
whole story of how such good things come to be.
About 120 people, including about 80
students from Ortonville Elementary School gathered at a former
soybean field five miles east of Clinton, Minn. on Friday, May 2,
to dedicate the Centennial Waterfowl Production Area (WPA), a
596-acre restored wetland that, when filled with water, will be a
rich nesting ground for migratory waterfowl. The lack of winter
runoff and spring rains made the project area appear more like a
dry, contoured black desert than a wetland haven for breeding
migratory waterfowl. But that didn't matter to those present,
most of whom had a part in making the project a reality.
"While we certainly would have
preferred to have water and thousands of ducks out there for you
to see, it's also fitting for all of us to see the beginnings of
this project, which over the years will provide nesting habitat
for waterfowl and other wildlife for generations to come,"
said Steve Delehanty, manager of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's Morris Wetland Management District. Delehanty and his
staff oversaw the project, which was made possible by area land
owners, Ducks Unlimited, USDA's Natural Resources Conservation
Service, Big Stone County, North American Wetland Conservation
Council, Upper Minnesota River Watershed District and the fourth
graders at Ortonville Elementary.
There were short speeches by staffers David
Sturrock and Tom Meium representing Senator Norm Coleman and Rep.
Collin Peterson, by Bob Usgaard from Ducks Unlimited and by Robyn
Thorson, new regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. But of all the dignitaries taking the stage, none got
the rousing reception served up for Kyle Kirkeby. Kirkeby, a
fourth grade teacher at Ortonville Elementary, incorporates
wetland education into his conservation curriculum. His students
not only learn about wetlands, they raise money for area wetland
restoration projects. "We learn about habitat loss and the
planet's diminishing rain forests, but we can't really do
anything here for those far away places," Kirkeby, a
waterfowler, said. "We chose to do something right
here."
The students raised money by selling passes
for school privileges such as chewing gum. After two years, the
fourth graders (now fifth and six graders) had amassed $4,386,
not a lot of money in the world of wetland restorations. But this
is where the students learned another lesson, a lesson in the
magic of matching grants. The students' money was matched with
$4,000 by the Citizens for Big Stone Lake, a local citizen action
group, and $4,000 from the Upper Minnesota River Watershed
District. The savvy students had now amassed $12,386 for their
wetland project and they weren't finished yet. Big Stone County
added another $12,500. Add another $34,000 from Ducks Unlimited;
$49,750 from a Natural North American Wetland Conservation Act
grant (administered by the Service) and $171,982 from the USDA's
Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Centennial WPA
project had its bankroll.
According to Diane Radermacher,
administrator of the Upper Minnesota River Watershed District,
Kirkeby and his students have been involved in wetland projects
since 1995 "It's a lot easier to go to county commissioners
with plans for wetland projects when they learn school students
are behind the projects," Radermacher said. "In the
past eight years the students have had a hand in restoring 43
individual basins totaling 460 acres of water."
Most of the land for the project was farmed
by Bill Moberg, whose efforts to earn a living from the drained
wetland were frustrated by regular flooding. Moberg was
instrumental in encouraging landowners to participate in the
project. Neighboring landowners entered into voluntary easement
agreements with the USDA, or sold land to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
During upcoming seasons, the Service will
begin seeding the upland portions of the Centennial WPA with a
mixture of 13 types of wildflowers and nine types of grasses
including purple prairie coneflower, wild bergamot, smooth blue
aster, blue grama and little bluestem. The native plants not only
attract waterfowl, but an abundance of songbirds and other
wildlife.
The Centennial WPA is named in honor of the
100th birthday of the National Wildlife Refuge System. In March
1903, President Theodore Roosevelt set aside three acres on tiny
Pelican Island, Florida, to protect pelicans and other birds.
Since then, the National Wildlife Refuge System has grown to a
nationwide network of more than 95 million acres, 540 refuges and
3,000 waterfowl production areas, including a 596-acre plot
marked by a lone bronze marker on Country Road 6 in Big Stone
County.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the
principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting
and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for
the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service
manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System,
which encompasses 540 national wildlife refuges, thousands of
small wetlands and other special management areas. It also
operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices
and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces
federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act,
manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally
significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat
such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their
conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program
that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes
on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife
agencies.
-FWS-
|
