Dentist seeks buffer zone along the Zumbro River
Star Tribune - Tom Meersman
http://www.startribune.com/local/52031387.html?page=4&c=y
ROCHESTER - The Zumbro River is slow and lazy on a summer's day as it curves along a gentle bend near Terry Klampe's home just outside Rochester.
But all is not tranquil in Olmsted County.
Klampe, a dentist and ardent conservationist, has filed a complaint to give the river some space in farm country.
Farmers are thwarting the law by planting corn and soybeans to the edge of the river and its tributaries, Klampe said, violating pollution rules that require a 50-foot buffer of permanent vegetation to protect streams and lakes from soil and chemical runoff.
The consequences ripple all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where government scientists reported Monday that excessive fertilizers washing into the Mississippi River have created an oxygen-deprived "dead zone" that threatens marine life in about 3,000 square miles of ocean.
"I have nothing against farmers, but they need to respect the environment just like everyone else," Klampe said. "Rivers and streams belong to the public, not to the farmers."
Klampe's complaint -- complete with aerial photographs -- puts the spotlight on a widespread problem in rural Minnesota.
A state study estimated that more than 30 counties have 1,000 acres or more being cultivated within the required buffer area. The total acreage being farmed illegally is at least 300,000 acres and could be two or three times that much, said Tabor Hoek, a private lands specialist with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.
The 20-year-old rule requiring the buffer strips, known as the agricultural shoreland ordinance, is rarely enforced.
Some farmers have never heard of the rule, said Andy Hart, an Olmsted County farmer who has been growing corn and soybeans along a tributary of the Zumbro River for three decades. Most farmers like him have trees and other vegetation along the waterways, said Hart, but others simply farm all the land they possibly can. "I know a lot of fields have been farmed a certain way for 50 years or more," said Hart, who also serves as a supervisor on the county's soil and water conservation board.
Conservationists have complained about the lack of buffer strips, but violations can be hard to see, said Scott Sparlin, executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River. "If there's not a road to it and you can't see it except from the river, you don't know any different," he said.
Klampe's formal complaint, accompanied by aerial photos of farm fields that are too close to streams, sparked an investigation in Olmsted County.
"We've never had a complaint like this," said Phil Wheeler, the county's planning director.
Officials are trying to verify Klampe's complaint with visits to farms, said Wheeler, and will eventually send letters to those who are in violation. He estimated that 10 percent of the county's 700 miles of streams and rivers do not have 50-foot buffer strips on each side, based on 2004 data.
'Scumbro,' not Zumbro
A 10 percent violation of a pollution rule may seem like a small number, but small areas can allow a lot of soil and agricultural chemicals to run into streams, said Olmsted County water coordinator Terry Lee. State pollution officials have so far tested the water quality of about half of the county's streams and almost all of them have failed because of too much sediment.
The main cause: no permanent vegetation along stream banks. That means runoff and erosion from farms during heavy rains and wind storms, said Lee. Without root systems that can hold soil in place, banks can collapse.
"Sediment is the number one pollutant in streams," said Lee. The cloudy water reduces light needed by aquatic plants, he said, smothers insect habitats and fish spawning areas, and degrades the overall ecology. "It clogs up the system," he said.
Planting fields within a few feet of public water also means applying manure, fertilizers and pesticides there, said Klampe, which violates other setback rules and causes excessive algae growth and other problems downstream.
"The Zumbro has a lot of potential to become a beautiful stream, but it's been ignored," he said. "It's more like the Scumbro, not the Zumbro."
The 50-foot rule applies to all public waters. It does not include small streams that drain less than 2 square miles of land, or to intermittent streams that dry up for part of the year.
Although the problem is widespread, correcting it is not difficult, said Ross Hoffmann, water quality project coordinator at the Cannon River Watershed Partnership. He has educated county commissioners, township officers and farmers throughout southeastern Minnesota about the rule and how federal and state conservation programs offer financial help to plant buffer strips.
"The buffer can be forest, grass, alfalfa or native grasses," said Hoffmann. "Basically we want to slow the water down and allow sediments to settle out and have the nutrients used by the plants there."
Studies have shown that buffers cut the amount of fertilizers and pesticides reaching a stream by half, and reduce sediment by 75 percent.
Hoffmann said that for an average 340-acre farm with a half-mile of river running down the middle, 50-foot buffers on each side would take up 6 acres, or about 2 percent of its area. Buffer strips won't solve the entire problem, he said, but they're a good first step that can achieve significant results.
"Some farmers really don't like the idea because they view it as taking land out of production and leaving bushels in the field," said Hoffmann. But other farmers realize the benefits of cleaner public waters, he said, and are glad to learn that they can grow hay in buffers or use them for limited pasture.
Educate, not enforce
Dodge County began enforcing the shoreland ordinance in 2007 and sent letters to 198 landowners who were farming too close to streams. Officials gave the farmers two years to correct the problem, and as of February, 63 farms had made the changes, 76 were in the process of complying, and 60 had not replied. If cited, violations are a misdemeanor and carry a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail under the county's ordinance.
Hart said that county planning and zoning officials take the right approach with farmers if they provide information and education rather than "going at them with a big stick."
Mike Thompson agrees. He farms about 4,200 acres in Olmsted and Wabasha counties, some of which is along the Zumbro River and is wooded. Thompson said those who farm large areas are mostly aware of the shoreland rule, but he's not so sure about others.
"Some smaller guys farm right up to it. Their ancestors gave them the farm and that's what they're farming."
That will need to change, said Peder Otterson, program manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The agency's approach is not to blame farmers or counties, he said, but to face the problem squarely and cooperatively.
"If we're seriously concerned about the future of our waters, we need to be doing this," he said.
Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388
Posted: August 20, 2009