During this week’s Wright County Board of Supervisors meeting, Wright County Conservation Board Director Eric Rector updated the supervisors on a couple of projects. The first involved the conservation board partnering with a private company that operates wetland mitigation banks.
“Received a million dollar grant for development and construction for nitrogen reducing wetlands and we couldn’t find willing landowners so that Cooperating Partner had to turn that back and move it to a different project.”
Rector tells RadioOnTheGo News the project entailed acquiring property that would allow Elm Lake northeast of Clarion to outlet through the property and into the Iowa River, creating nitrogen filtering wetlands, allowing the water level for Elm Lake to be decreased to control/kill off the rough fish, like carp, that have caused the deterioration of water quality at the lake. The other project involved acquiring 60 acres of land along the Iowa River corridor.
“We also had to turn down $156,000 in habitat stamp that we were awarded because we couldn’t come to terms with another partner on a project for land acquisition.”
Rector says Elm Lake is on the impaired waters list in the state of Iowa.
