Wetlands Reserve Program Reaches Milestone

By the time the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) started in 1992, Missouri had lost 87 percent of its original 4.8 million acres of wetlands. While some wetlands naturally disappear, most are lost when people drain them. Millions of Missouri's original wetland acres were drained to produce agricultural crops, especially in the Bootheel. More recently, however, the majority of wetland acres that are drained are used for development.

Through WRP, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has purchased 700 easements. In exchange for the easements, landowners receive cash payments for converting marginal-use land to shallow wetland areas and maintaining them.

"This is a major milestone for WRP and wetland restoration in Missouri," says State Conservationist Roger Hansen. "Our job isn't finished, but we are making good progress."

According to the 2002 National Resources Inventory (NRI), the United States gained about 26,000 acres of wetlands each year on agricultural land between 1997 and 2002. The total of those new agricultural wetlands and wetlands restored on other land is about equal to the 56,000 acres of wetlands that disappeared annually in the contiguous United States during the same period. Most wetland losses today occur when wetlands are drained to facilitate urban development.

Missouri's success with WRP is a major contributor to offsetting wetland losses caused by development and other land-use conversions. The 1997 NRI showed that Missouri had 897 thousand acres of wetlands. The release of state-level 2002 NRI data is pending. However, preliminary estimates suggest that Missouri had no net loss of wetlands between 1997 and 2002, and might have realized a small net gain.

Hansen attributes Missouri's success partly to federal regulations that do not allow farmers to remain eligible for USDA programs if they drain wetlands to create more cropland. However, Hansen says it also is because more people recognize the value of wetlands.

Wetlands support diverse populations of fish, wildlife and plants. They protect water quality by filtering out pollutants. They provide natural flood control by absorbing or temporarily storing excess water, and they offer aesthetic and recreational opportunities.

Kevin Dacey, wetland biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), attributes Missouri's success to educational efforts and the cooperation of several agencies.

"We're making progress in wetlands restoration because of the combined efforts of private landowners, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Ducks Unlimited, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other state and federal agencies," Dacey says.

Dacey says four wetland teams in Missouri have done a good job of educating private landowners about the benefits of wetlands. Each wetland team is comprised of an NRCS soil scientist and an MDC wetland biologist. The teams, located in NRCS offices, are the delivery system for WRP in Missouri. WRP contracts typically are awarded for frequently flooded cropland along major rivers and their tributaries. Wetlands created under WRP account for one-third of the wetlands in the Missouri River floodplain.

Dacey says Missouri uses the most innovative methods of restoring wetlands, including creating sloughs and oxbows in association with dry mounds to create diverse wetland wildlife habitat.

Missouri is also the first state to establish an agricultural wetland mitigation bank. The bank allows southeastern Missouri farmers the option of draining small wetlands in their fields and buying into the creation of a larger wetland complex. Missouri farmers also may mitigate wetlands by draining troublesome ones in their fields if they create wetlands of equal or better value elsewhere on their farms.

Hansen says this wetland mitigation approach has worked well in Missouri.

"The new wetlands that farmers are creating are higher quality wetlands than the ones they are draining," Hansen says.

Hansen says some wetlands benefits, such as positively impacting water quality and flood prevention, will become more obvious in the future because the benefits are cumulative and they will become more measurable as monitoring techniques improve.

For now, 100,000 acres is a measure that makes conservationists happy.