Back to nature
Program returns Mississippi River bottomland from swamp acreage to original forested state
RIDGELY, Tenn. — On land where he grew soybeans as recently as 15 years ago, Brad Keiser walks through a dense thicket of 20-foottall cottonwood and willow trees, recalling how this acreage within sight of the Mississippi River never was much good for raising crops.
“Really and truly, it shouldn’t have been cleared to start with,” said Keiser, a 62-year-old farmer and attorney in this community 90 miles north of Memphis.
Up and down the river, farmers spent much of the last 150 years felling and draining great swaths of the primeval bottomland hardwood forest that once spread across 20 million acres of the Lower Mississippi Valley. Prompted by lucrative commodity prices, generous government farm programs and the advent of heavy machinery, they converted more than 80 percent of the forested swamp into crop land.
But that trend is reversing. Farmers like Keiser have taken advantage of farm programs such as the Wetlands Reserve Program to place marginal and low-lying land under conservation easements so it can be restored to forested wetlands.
Now, a new initiative targeting “batture lands,” or acreage outside the levees along the Mississippi, promises to return even more land to its original state.
Through a program known as the Mississippi River Basin Initiative, farmers are receiving up to about $3,500 an acre to
put land in conservation easements to be replanted in native trees.
Funded mostly with $138 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Resource Conservation Service, the plan targets 40,000 acres of batture land between the Missouri Bootheel and Baton Rouge, La. Under a variation of the long-standing Wetland Reserve Program, farmers can agree to sell 30-year or perpetual easements, with most of them choosing the latter.
The program has many benefits, proponents say. It should improve water quality in the river by reducing the amount of fertilizer compounds and other nutrients from farms contributing to an oxygen- depleted “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, the habitats for fish and wildlife creatures will be enhanced, as will recreational hunting and fishing opportunities.
But beyond the environmental improvements, the program also benefits taxpayers, officials say, by removing flood-prone, damaged and marginal crop land from farm-support programs and establishing a better buffer to protect public levees from damage.
“It more than pays for itself over time,” said James Cummins, president of the Mississippi River Trust, a nonprofit conservation group supporting the program.
During an initial signup period this past year, about 7,000 acres were approved for funding in the program. Roughly half of that land was in Tennessee, where 19 landowners received $10.65 million for 3,740 acres, said Matthew Denton, district conservationist in Lake and Obion counties for the NRCS.
“Up front, it seems like a lot of money — 10 million (dollars) is a lot of money — but these easements are permanent. Long after we’re gone, they’ll be helping improve water quality, preserving habitat and reducing flooding,” Denton said.
About two-thirds of the Tennessee acreage in the program lies in Lake County, where a local levee failed during the historic flood of 2011, washing away some crop acreage and covering other land with several feet of sand.
Melanie Marvin Hill was among the landowners with substantial damage.
“We started talking with USDA to see what kind of assistance was available and we found out about this program,” said Hill, who has about 400 acres in the program.
“It just seems like this is a great opportunity. We could recoup some financial benefit, but also it’s letting it go back to what its original use was.”
That original use, said Cummins, includes serving as a “big filter” to help prevent contaminants from reaching the Mississippi. “It’s the kidneys, if you will, of the river.”
For every 250,000 acres of crop land taken out of production, he said, the amount of nitrogen and phosphates entering the river is reduced by 4 million pounds annually.
After the land is placed in an easement, officials develop a site plan for it. By early 2014, the planting of trees — native species such as oaks and cypress — is scheduled to begin. More than 300 trees will be planted on each acre, funded through the NRCS program.
Cummins said the program has met with an “extremely positive” response from farmers, more of whom are expected to sign up.
“Let’s keep the best land in production and try to restore some of the land that probably shouldn’t have been cleared to begin with,” he said.