A crew builds a grassed waterway July 16 in the headwaters of the Root River’s south branch in eastern Mower County. This project was one of seven grassed waterways led by Mower SWCD in 2020, with most funded through the Root River One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P).

Busy year in Root River’s uplands

More than 4 miles of grassed waterways built in eastern Mower

Cedar River Watershed District
4 min readSep 16, 2020

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Sept. 16, 2020 — Water quality in the Root River watershed got a protective boost this year with the construction of more than 4 miles of grassed waterways in the upland areas of eastern Mower County.

Mower Soil & Water Conservation District, based in Austin, led seven projects that built nearly 4.2 miles — 22,040 feet — of grassed waterways through mostly cropland in the headwaters of the Root River’s south and middle branches. These projects involved 10 different landowners, who qualified for state funding to cover 90 percent of the costs.

Grassed waterways are graded channels seeded to grass or other vegetation that slow stormwater along a path that often has eroded the land into a gully or ravine due to rain storms. These waterways also move stormwater through cropland to a stable outlet at a speed that doesn’t cause soil erosion.

Stormwater flows down a grassed waterway built by Mower SWCD in northern Mower County.

Most of this work was funded through a state grant for the Root River One Watershed, One Plan (1W1P). All three branches — including the north — of the Root River State Water Trail — begin in eastern Mower County.

Top soil is added to a grassed waterway being built in July 2020 in eastern Mower County in the headwaters of the Root River’s south branch.

Mower SWCD board member Jim Kellogg, a member of the Root River 1W1P’s policy committee, said he’s pleased to see progress happening in Mower County through the new 1W1P funding.

“These are win-win projects for conservation and the farmers who are losing productive land to erosion,” Kellogg said. “Hopefully this will create more interest in the county for other conservation work.”

A grassed waterway nears completion in July 2020 in eastern Mower County in the headwaters of the Root River’s middle branch.

Mower SWCD’s Paul Hunter, a USDA-certified conservation planner, has helped lead the waterway construction this year as well as work with landowners on an overall conservation plan for their land. As a certified planner, Hunter can produce a conservation plan that is required for anyone seeking to apply for funding from the federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) program with USDA-NRCS.

Hunter’s work involves doing field walkovers, drone flights and landowner conversations to create an in-depth evaluation of a farm. From that, Mower SWCD is better able to provide a landowner with an array of options for potential funding and technical support to help protect or improve water quality and soil health.

Mower SWCD’s Paul Hunter, a district tech and a certified conservation planner, checks an erosive field in fall 2019 in Mower County’s Frankford Township.

After harvest this fall, Hunter wants to connect with more farmers and landowners — especially in the targeted areas of the Root River’s middle and south branches — to look at fields for constructing grassed waterways in 2021 through the 90-percent cost-share assistance. More grassed waterways and other conservation work are planned for the Root River watershed in Mower County next year.

Starting as a drainage ditch in eastern Mower County, the Root River flows east through much geologic diversity, including glacial till, karst topography and bluff land before emptying into the Mississippi River in Houston County.

Highlighted in blue — including much of eastern Mower County — is the area covered by the Root River One Watershed, One Plan’s comprehensive planning document. The Upper Iowa River watershed in the LeRoy area also is incorporated in the plan.

Root River 1W1P’s planning area covers more than 1.3 million acres in parts of six counties — Dodge, Fillmore, Houston, Mower, Olmsted and Winona — and includes the Root River Watershed; Minnesota’s portion of the Upper Iowa River Watershed; and Houston County’s Mississippi-Reno Watershed.

About 13 percent of the Root River 1W1P’s planning area is in Mower County, which also hosts the headwaters of the Upper Iowa River. Included in that area are the Mower County townships of Bennington, Clayton, Dexter, Frankford, Grand Meadow, LeRoy, Lodi, Pleasant Valley, Racine and Sargeant.

After several years of planning, the Root River area’s watershed-based plan in 2018 started its first budget and projects with state 1W1P implementation funding from the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources (BWSR). The Root was one of five 1W1P pilot projects launched in 2014 by BWSR.

Under this plan, Mower SWCD and its partners in the Root aim to address challenges facing the quality of groundwater and surface water while also working on areas of soil health.

Mower SWCD and other local agencies also benefit from technical services provided to ag producers thanks to funding by the Root River 1W1P grant. Ag producers in vulnerable wellhead protection areas, nitrogen-impaired watersheds and townships can get assistance for soil health and nutrient management.

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Cedar River Watershed District

Formed in 2007, CRWD works to reduce flooding and improve water quality on the Cedar River State Water Trail and its tributaries in southern Minnesota.