An Urban's Rural View

There Are Wetlands, And Then There Are Wetlands

Urban C Lehner
By  Urban C Lehner , Editor Emeritus
Connect with Urban:
@urbanize

A few weeks ago, in "A Winter Walk in a North Dakota Wetland" (http://tiny.cc/…), I quoted a North Dakota farmer at length on the benefits wetlands afford wildlife. My post attracted a lot of comment, much of it negative. The most thoughtful rebuttal came in an email from Roger E. Neshem, a farmer in Berthold, N.D.

It's quite lengthy, but this is an important debate and I'm willing to give it some space if you're willing to read it. I should add that I'm open to other thoughts on the subject, including rebuttals to either the original post or this one. Please feel free to share those thoughts in the comments section below or by emailing me.

Truth emerges from competition in the marketplace of ideas, so let the competition continue. Here's Roger E. Neshem's contribution.

"We are blessed with some very fertile soil here that is quite heavy and makes our limited rainfall go quite a ways. However we have been wet for a good 15 years now and it is a fact that we lose more money every year to too much water than to too little water. We are all no-till here and our best crops and most profitable years of the last 20 have been in years where rainfall does not get out of the single digits during the growing season!

"The wetlands the other gentleman you referenced in the article is talking about are 'real wetlands' or as we call them in these parts sloughs. These are deeper depressions that maybe get farmed one in 10 years here if ever. They have an abundance of hydrophytic vegetation and are often a different soil such as a Parnell clay instead of our Forman-austad-tonka loams that cover most of my farms. They will hold water late into July or even later most years, only then dry out in time for fall work where maybe some guys will burn them or perhaps disc them in hopes of not catching snow and reducing their size come spring.

"These sloughs do offer protection for wildlife in all of the months of the year. These sloughs are not the target of farmers here. In most instances they are not viable candidates for drainage as they are much larger and deeper depressions. Often having water 2-5' deep in our area. These we don't plant every year and then watch drown out in a 2" June thunderstorm. These sloughs are what I call beneficial wetlands in that they offer water collection and provide wildlife habitat.

"The 'wetlands' I curse every month of the year are much smaller and should fall under different standards than the ones the gentleman in your story waxed so poetically about as if they were his best friend. It is the NRCS-defined 'wetlands' that are our biggest water management obstacles. Much of the wetlands on my farm are .1 to .2 acres. They may sit 4-10" of water before they are considered full and then run off and over the terrain to fill the next micro depression of the same size and depth. These areas meet NRCS wetland criteria depending on which day of the week they get looked at and by whom. I have witnessed NRCS field workers dig and dig and dig and dig to find one tiny fleck of oxidization so that they can check off the 'wetland' as a wetland. It doesn't matter if they only find one tiny spot or edge of depression or if they dig all day and night to find that bit of soil that is oxidized. Once they find it you now own a wetland here because our soil series contains the soil class tonka which is considered hydric. Never mind that tonka makes up about only 15% of the soil series Forman-austad-tonka loam because it only needs to be present and that makes a wetland a wetland I guess. 

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"These NRCS 'wetlands' that I complain about daily are planted every single year and worked every fall. It's the June or late May deluges we get that make them become saturated to the point the crop may be lost. Many years we could replant them but most we do not as you have to drive over the crop and the chances of a mid-June planted crop making it here is rather slim and not worth your time many years.

"These 'wetlands' I talk about are quite different than the ones described by the gentleman in your article. If they drown out after planting they do not provide cover for anything except maybe a stray weed that is eliminated on a herbicide pass which then makes the 'wetland' a benefit to nobody. No birds nest in the barren .1 acre wasteland, no crop is raised. The only thing that it does is contribute to taxpayers' share of our farms multi-peril farm payout. They will also be the reason for many farmers here eventually reverting back to conventional tillage.

"There is currently more ground worked black here than I have seen in 15 years. Farmers are needing to turn the residue over so that it can dry out in spring versus having a full soil water profile protected by residue that becomes a water inundated mess when we have a wet May or June. I feel we have done wonders for our soil with no-till but in our cool springs we are now going the other way because of all the residue.

"This is leading to decreased planted acres every year and lowering of our APHs. More and more farmers will revert back to conventional tillage as it is our only weapon we have to manage water here and get a crop planted. So the question is whether it is better to save these .1 and .2 acre non-beneficial 'wetlands' or to take a million acres of no till in my county and turn it back to conventional tillage? No NRCS program can compete with all the great benefits of no-till but no-till is going to go away due to NRCS covering all wetlands with one blanket guideline regardless of size depth and planting history.

"My county has been one of the largest for prevented planting acreage in the U.S. for 4 of the last 5 or 6 years. The nearby town of Minot suffered severe damage of 4,000 homes in June of 2011 due to flooding. Much of which could have been prevented had we some water management on our farms here in the fall of 2010 as we went into that fall very wet and came out wetter, so when it rained instead of going into the soil the water ran across it to the Mouse River and did billions in damage.

"This fall we were even wetter than 2010. Where I have installed tile on my farm it ran right up until it succumbed to -20 temps in late November. I have installed enough tile to see its wonderful benefits here in our no-till ground. It is my belief no-till and tile would be perfect match here in this harsh climate.

"I do understand there is mitigation option for us but let me break it down for you and then you can ask yourself if you would mitigate.

"Let's start with a .1 acre wetland. Mitigation rules currently state we cannot commingle wetlands; we must create a new one for each we convert. The new wetland must have a 50- foot grass buffer strip around it (mind you none of our farmed wetlands have that today but would require it if we were to move them). We simply plant them now on our regular planting pass except they drown out due to heavy rains coupled with decreased evaporation from increased residue on soil surface. The same scenario the Corn Belt would face had the NRCS not have helped them pay for the miles of tile installed there.

"So our .1 acre wetland is 4,356 square feet or a circle with a 37.2 foot radius. However we must add a 50'. Buffer strip around outside so the diameter goes from 74' to 174' to accommodate for the buffer and voila, our wetland is now .545 acres without even allowing for a different conversion factor of 1.5/1 which is currently required!!!! It is absurd!

"The economics of creating all these new wetlands makes one look for alternatives, which has led to many leaving the farm program. Now this was fine as long as we could still qualify for insurance subsidy but with the new bill requiring conservation compliance I feel we are being targeted here in the areas west of the traditional Corn Belt. There is all the talk of lost wetlands and habitat.

"One only has to look at the numbers of the non-native species, the pheasant, to see that draining wetlands does not hurt the bird as it prefers a dry habitat. Our wet springs have led to a decrease in pheasant numbers because it's too wet!

"I am not anti-conservation. I am pro common sense and try to do what I feel is best for my farm and those around me. I'm not irrational or asking to do things that will hurt others. I'm trying to help myself through keeping up with our no-till program and commitment to conservation through smart, realistic and effective water management on my farm."

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

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Comments

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Minor Crop Farmer
1/8/2014 | 5:14 PM CST
We'd die without drainage in our NW Washington area. Our land is all PC. Question: can't you tile without using cost share or NRCS? We do all our land improvements on our own dime.
Unknown
1/4/2014 | 8:23 AM CST
Randy your response is to Roger but I will add my view as well. You or anyone else for that matter can buy land and make all of the wetlands that you want. This is supposed to be a free country built on property rights and individualism instead we are heading to communistic ideals. When you or a group of people like yourself dictate what people can do on there private property with no regard to their rights is crazy and truly un-American. I understand you have a right to your opinion but you don't have a right to others rights. This is why their are public lands that were bought by the public. If you want you can lobby congress and try to have them put more "wetlands" on public ground or purchase ground in the free market and develop it into your wetland paradise. It is really sad that in todays America this has become acceptable to tread on the constitutional rights to what ever someone sees fit. We are a country built on majority rule but minority rights, that is what the constitution was written for to protect the rights of the minority, the majority cannot and should not overstep this line.
Randy Young
1/4/2014 | 1:19 AM CST
Mr. Neshem. Over the years I have walked many thousands of acres of cropland and wetland in the PPR (boots in the field if you will). I have enjoyed nearly every minute of it. I live in the country and many of my family are currently farmers and live on the farm; some were raised on my grandparentâ?™s farm. I do not fear farmers. I do not respect or disrespect someone just because they are a farmer as there are good and bad in all professions. I am aware that each field has its own identity and each should be judged based on its own merit (and to state that a whole county or even a single individual has or is committing fraud without the proper evidence is folly, and I have done no such thing. Fraud is a word that should be used with reservation, not just tossed about arbitrarily). As I am sure you are aware, in North Dakota we are dealing with inflow, flow through, and outflow wetlands, and a variable wetland cover cycle driven by climate. All are normal for the area, and yet it seems to me farmers in the region consider dry conditions to be normal and normal conditions to be wet. Climate drives hydrology and thus water permanence, which in turn drives the wetland cover cycle. The PPR is now growing more permanent wetland vegetation on areas that were once prairie grass because of the higher water levels in the region. It is normal. I believe the answer is not to drain the region, but to accept it for what it is. Moreover, it has been my experience that many of the acres that are not farmed perpetually now seem to have been unfarmed before the shift in wetland permanence class. It seems to me the reason is that land was wet then too in the spring, only for a shorter duration. People forget or are unaware that there are two conditions occurring simultaneously. Wetlands are wet in the spring even when groundwater levels are low because they are catch basins for the spring meltwater, and wetlands are wet in the spring due to fluctuating groundwater levels when they are high. It seems to me that the occurrence of higher water levels is being used as a reason to pay indemnities on many acres of land that would have been wet anyway when water levels were low. Many use the arguement of rain in the summer when in fact experts in the region of found it is the fall and winter moisture that primarily affects the wetness of the soil in the spring. That is because the region has the ability to transpire and evaporate away more moisture than is received in almost any given year, even in the recent ones. But when the plants are removed, much of that ability is lost. Have the higher water levels affected some land and made it unavailable? Of course it has. In order to answer the question of how much a field has been affected one needs to look at that field specifically. It is a fact that millions of acres of wetlands have been destroyed in recent years in the region, and it is a fact that millions of acres are paid on each year because they are too wet to plant. I also believe one should not be quick to discount aerial and satellite imagery. I have seen some images, even 50 years ago, that are quite impressive. 2011 was a tragedy for many in the region, and I am sorry for all those in the area that were affected by the flooding, but that event does not in itself justify the rest. For many years now I have listened to my friends stories of sandbagging in Fargo, and Iâ?™ve seen firsthand the flooding in Fargo and the surrounding area. I have experienced the somberness and eeriness of driving on roads and all that can be seen aside from the pavement ahead is water; it is like driving on top of a lake. And my mind goes to the question of why is this happening. Is it higher water levels, or is it the effect of millions of acres of potholes drained by those who want to plant every acre. It is probably both. To me the question is not whether one wants to plant every acre: The question is should one plant every acre. I think the answer is no. And I do not want my tax dollars being spent to encourage such behavior. This is my last post. I look forward to reading your reply. Good luck to you in the coming years. Ms. Dukowitz, thanks for your comments; I will research the information you have provided.
Roger Neshem
1/1/2014 | 8:45 PM CST
Randy I have thought about your post and it seems more and more that you believe all of ward county nd is committing insurance fraud. That seems to be your biggest gripe with all this. That I can assure you is not the case as to what we are here. Until you have had your boots on our ground you don't understand how it works. And of course Grundy has less pp than us because of drainage! That was my point. It runs off or down and thru!! We could look at many other counties in the prairie pothole region throughout Midwest that have drainage so therefore they don't have pp and according to you are not committing fraud. I appreciate your opinion. However to call us all frauds and to say this ground was only farmed a couple times in droughts of 80s is completely false. You missed the point of my entire original letter.
Roger Neshem
1/1/2014 | 5:43 PM CST
Sorry for the block I see it's tough to read. Been relegated to the iPhone which makes posting nice concise writing a little challenging for me. That or my long windedness forced the giant paragraph.
Roger Neshem
1/1/2014 | 5:27 PM CST
Randy Grundy is the pinnacle of dirt in America possibly so to compare us to them is probably not fair. My mistake. Do you think yields and acres planted would be same for Grundy if there was not any tile in ground? They probably pump more water thru their tile in a year than my county could in a decade due to differences in rainfall. Do you not think they contribute to dirty rivers with all that black soil and moisture? My guess is they do. So it's not just wetlands that add to your fears of farmers and land stewardship. We do purchase inputs and have costs associated with pp. some are qualitative others are quantitative. They are there and they are real. I'm a farmer and it is my intention to plant every acre every year. You don't have to believe that if you don't want to. It's your right. When Mother Nature does not cooperate we have purchased insurance and follow the rules thereby entitling us to the agreement set forth in our crop insurance agreement. I'm not denying we have potholes that we do. We farm around the big ones >.5 acres no problem. It's the small ones I have issue with that we plant and lose many years. These "wetlands" even with tile function as wetlands. They retain and filter water just as they would without. The difference is they are still productive to having something on them not a barren waste as they are now without internal drainage. These areas will never be wildlife habitats or the reason water becomes contaminated thru drainage. Our nitrogen fertilizers are applied at planting to soils with 25+ cecs. This is not the type of ground conducive to leaching of fertilizers rather we lose it thru denitrification when soils become saturated and the N gasses into the air. Tiling these wetlands would not cause a loss of soil as you state but rather help retain it thru reduced ponding and allowing us to continue to utilize no till practices on our farm instead of reverting to conventional tillage. Randy when you look at crop years and see that they call planting period dry or abnormally dry do not take much credit in those numbers. They are generalities the NWS uses for regions over time with limited data. Case in point 2004; we had 22" snow on May 12. I remember it we'll. my sister got stuck in my driveway coming home from college for summer break. We continued planting efforts up thru June 17th I believe in what was one of the most miserable springs on record here. 2005 was no different except we didn't have snow. 2006 was a dry year. 7.8" rain on my house April thru September. One of our best years all around on our farm. Keep digging thru those numbers. Look at 1999 the NWS calls 1999 normal. I know this from wetland determinations conducted by nrcs they call it normal. It was the first year of mass pp here in ward county yet they called precip normal. Allowing farmable wetlands to collect crop insurance does not fuel their demise it merely fuels the reason not to address them. Simply plant them one in four years and you can collect? To me that doesn't encourage one to destroy them but merely to sit back and collect money. I have had plenty that haven't qualified for pp the past couple years. Many in 2012 because we were considered dry yet our area was terribly wet and we were one thunderstorm from not gettin half the farm planted. Thank goodness that didn't happen. The spike in pp numbers could be directly correlated to the rise in no till practices here. Things use to get planted end to end. Everything was worked black as coal 3 maybe 4 times per year. Erosion and fuel use were high. Then we implemented no till and things started to get wet and not dry out. This is not HEL ground this is heavy dirt so there are no restrictions on tillage. However tWe are now forced to undo years of conservation practices thru no till because our only weapon in fighting wetness is cold hard steel. How would you try to dry out your ground in wet spring? Nothing works except turning over dirt. Money is not everything and I guess neither is conservation???? Draining 10 .1 acre wetlands has a much smaller carbon and environmental footprint than turning over a few hundred thousand acres of no till ground right? When I spoke of Minot flooding I feel it started with saturated soils. We receive rain and the water cannot go into soil. It's impossible. Drainage would have helped immensely in the spring of 2011. But since there is none we lost 4,000 houses. Oh we'll houses aren't everything. I'm with you randy on continually handing money to farmers but policy is written so that we as farmers are enticed to stick with government programs. They attach strings to programs(money) in an effort for us to play by what they deem to be smart and reasonable. I'll be the first to say government is often neither of those two but we are forced to play by rules they set and we receive the rewards they give us for thAt. By allowing us more freedom on water management you the veteran, hardworking, tax paying, conservationist would be sending fewer of your dollars to evil villains such as myself who thank you for your service. I'm trying to address what you hate. Sending me money for not planting crops due to water. If you were to see in person what I want to accomplish you would not be so critical of me and the farmer in general. I have captured more carbon and reduced more erosion in one year thru my continual conservation efforts than you will in your lifetime of using electricity, using gas, heating your home, living in a city and in general not being directly responsible for conservation ona scale any grander than the opinions you voice about your views on it. We could go on and on about what I do affects others all the while your narrow minded statistic driven viewpoint spreads falsehoods that affects more people than What I could ever do on my farm. The type of water management we need in the Dakotas would have a net positive benefit for all thru decreased indemnity payments by taxpayers, decreased flooding and erosion and the continuation of mass conservation projects like no till farming. Without it a greater divide will grow between ag groups and conservation groups. Tax payers will fund farmers for problems only the farm program keeps them from fixing. It will be a war of those who own land versus those who wish to control it. In the end this is America where we have the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Randy, if you could convince me how on my farm I'm infringing on even one of those three things thru the ideas I have written about on here I would be shocked. No one knows my land better than I for I dig, crawl and walk on it daily. Your view from satellites do not tell even part of the story of wetlands and conservation. I guess in the end we could just plant all of the USA back to grass and trees. Let everyone grow their own food. I assume they must be able to as they are always quick to tell us farmers how we should go about growing it for them when in reality they can't tell the difference between smart effective water management and what the EWG puts out as propaganda against us farmers daily on such things.
Bonnie Dukowitz
1/1/2014 | 6:30 AM CST
Some very good points, Randy. You have, however, brought out an issue of great importance. EWG. Thank you for bringing up the dollar amount. To be balanced with the information you provide, which EWG fails to, you should mention many of the government dollars are cost share dollars which go into conservation practices. Buffer strips, trees etc. These activities are matched by the participant. In other words, the dollars do not go to the farmer, but to such places as the state tree nursery and the farmer digs in the pocket to match this rather than lining it with cash. The perspective of EWG is very slanted and biased. It is used to promote their own agenda and to generate more tax-exempt revenue. Their info. is not reresentative of where the program dollars go. I guess we would have been better off selling our land to residential developers rather than trying to preserve it in unison with making a living. For your info. According the USGS, the largest single contributer to the dead zone in the gulf is the greater Chicago area. Not a lot of farm land their, but lots of pavement and storm sewers.
Randy Young
1/1/2014 | 12:54 AM CST
Sorry for the delayed response, but I wanted to take your challenge. Mr. Neshem, I am not wrong. I respect and appreciate your opinion, and you are correct that other regions have drained their land, whether rightly or wrongly, but that is not the issue as I see it. At the time that land was drained people were likely unaware of the effects of their actions. Today however they are. When you drain a wetland, you send not only the water downstream, but soil, pesticides, and salts (depending on the type of wetland). Just because you own the land (or operate it if you donâ?™t) doesnâ?™t give you the right to do whatever you want on the land if it has harmful effects to others, even in a free country. Not to mention if it violates treaties (Boundary Water Treaty of 1909 with Canada) although not your issue. You farm among wetlands, enjoy them. Not everything is about money. Land that is planted is not PP, so the example you provide is irrelevant, unless you are planting it only once in four years, once in 17 years, or only in abnormally dry conditions. The rule is currently 1 in 4 but prior to 2012 was unlimited. However, even 1 in 4 leaves it virtually unlimited, because you can plant seasonal wetlands 1 in 4 years, even if only to a fall crop. In addition, I find your comparison of conditions between Grundy Iowa and Ward County inappropriate. Your county is littered with water filled potholes south of Hwy52 and Hwy2, and archived maps show it has been since at least the 1960s, and Grundy has none. Archived maps show Grundy had none as far back as the 1950s. Moreover, Grundy has a tremendous amount of natural drainage, not man made. You donâ?™t farm in Grundy Iowa; you farm in North Dakota Mr. Neshem. Your growing season is shorter, the average production in your county is less, and you have a tremendous amount more natural water holes. If you want to review Ward county: Great. US drought monitor shows 2002 had an abnormally dry planting period yet the USDA shows thousands of dollars paid for excess moisture; 2004, USDA shows thousands paid in Ward County for excess moisture during an abnormally dry planting period; 2005, moderate drought during the planting period yet USDA shows thousands paid for excess moisture; 2006, abnormally dry planting period but USDA shows thousands paid. If you would care to provide me the land sections and quarter sections where you farm, Iâ?™d be happy to look at archived images of your land and juxtapose those images with weather and payments you have received. Now on the subject of money, when crop insurance pays basically unregulated on all land deemed crop land by FSA, to included farmable wetlands only available during dry conditions, they fuel their destruction. Now public record shows Neshem Farms (Roger A. Neshem, Cheryl Neshem ,and Clara Neshem have received from the taxpayer over 1.5 million dollars between 1995 and 2012. Roger Neshem Jr. has received from the taxpayer about 135 thousand dollars; Ronald Neshem has received from the taxpayer more than 440 thousand dollars. and Donald Neshem has received about 350 thousand dollars from the taxpayer. Is this your family Mr. Neshem? You can check these figures using the Environmental Working Group Website. I believe if we are going to discuss the issue I should understand what you have to lose. (Bonnie has received 180 thousand dollars, but she farms in a different state and county). Of course donâ?™t you also farm in Mercer and Mclean Counties (?). What have you reeived through PP? Mr. Neshem I pay every year toward those payments. My neighbor works two jobs to support herself and her high school son (so she doesnâ?™t see him much) and she pays every year also. I am happy to pay and protect the livelihood of farmers if they need it. I served overseas in two conflicts for the rights and equality of all American Citizens, and to make America strong. I support the American farmer, a farm industry that leads the world in agriculture, and a crop insurance program with integrity. However, I do not support entitlements in crop insurance, and practices that drive irresponsible land stewardship. I pay about 330 dollars an acre toward taxes on my land. You pay about 9 dollars an acre? The return on PP acreage is between 150 and 400 dollars an acre depending on the crop, twice what CRP will pay. And even at 60% you profit off the land because there are no inputs, but who gets 60% anymore. Buy-up at +10 or enterprise units will put you at 80%, still with no input cost and a reduced premium. Even if you rent the land youâ?™re turning a profit. Ms./Mr. Unknown. I am not a hunter. I care about my family and the state and direction of our country. Perhaps you could put your name on your comments in the future. Randy Young.
Unknown
12/30/2013 | 2:55 PM CST
Roger you hit it on the head every time. Maybe we need a new organization to be developed to look out for these rights and maybe take a class action lawsuit to court. I can't even imagine the losses this type of policy has cost us in this region. Until this happens our rights will never be respected. It is almost impossible to for us to utilize no-till and cover crops with this type of wetland policy. It seems all both parties agree with anymore is a subsidized hunting program that these so-called non-profit groups are pushing their hidden agenda with.
Bonnie Dukowitz
12/30/2013 | 8:31 AM CST
Why then Randy do you single out crop insurance and N.D.?
Urban Lehner
12/30/2013 | 8:05 AM CST
Roger Neshem emailed this: "Randy is wrong in his assessment of wetlands These areas get planted and are reported as planted so they therefore are not pp acres but acres planted and of they do not reach insurance levels they are paid on. Now if these lands are not planted for a period of time they do not qualify for pp payments anymore until they have been planted and harvested for I believe now 4 years????? We in the Dakota's use pp more than any other place in country because we were not drained like the corn belt was prior to 1985. That is the only dofference between us and everybody else. There is no fraud here but we are often left to our judgment whether to plant after our late plant date or take pp. fraud does not occur if the weather has been non cooperative and the late plant date passes. We are merely doing what is business savy for us and is perfectly legal with today's regulations. Give us drainage and we will give back a lions share of pp indemnity payments going forward as we will be playing with the same tools in our arsenal as our foes or friends do in agriculture in areas to our east!! Look up PP stats for ward county ND and lets go with that mythic county in Iowa of Grundy. Compare precipitation and pp. Even though they have twice to three times our rainfall we have 100s of times the preventive plant acreage. Some numbers can help tell a lie. Those numbers will tell a gospel truth."
Randy Young
12/29/2013 | 9:15 PM CST
Bonnie your wrong, and you have missed the point. Moreover, I'm not opposed to subsidies or crop insurance - I favor both.
Unknown
12/29/2013 | 8:40 PM CST
Don't sound any different than flood insurance subsides. How about hurricane losses. I think the farmers in the prairie pothole region that pay taxes subsidize these losses and those people are aloud to continue to build and live there. How about make the wildlife groups pay for the mitigation of these wetland areas if you want to solve some problems. When the government passed these rules they said they would not pay for mitigation surely the land owners that is paying taxes and paying for his land should be left with the bill. People that converted before 1985 didn't have any mitigation bill. Sound like a violation of equal protection to me. These quote wildlife groups that want to shot what they are supposedly protecting are full of tax free money and subsidized government grants. I would encourage anyone to look up their tax returns, looks to me they should be footing the mitigation bill.
Bonnie Dukowitz
12/29/2013 | 8:13 PM CST
It is unfotunate, there is some fraud in everything that occurs, but not the norm. How many people take the cash, on say, a damaged shingle claim, and never even repair a tab, let alone a full shingle. As far as prevented plant, if the ground were not planted in a set number of cropping seasons, the policy does not cover that claim. A few times in the 80's does not qualify a parcel. C'mon Randy, is there any insurance of any type in this country that is not somehow subsidized by the taxpayers, which also includes farmers. Get your head out of the gopher hole.
Urban Lehner
12/29/2013 | 6:01 PM CST
Randy Young emailed me this comment: Waste? Fraud? Abuse? Crop insurance is paid for by taxpayers and is supposed to provide indemnities (insurance payments) to farmers for losses based on adverse weather events or loss of income. However, you the taxpayer have paid farmers in the Dakotas on their same wetlands for nearly two decades. Originally wet, many of these wetlands were planted a few times during a drought in the late 1980s, and have been indemnified due to excess moisture ever since. You are funding Prevented Planting (PP) insurance payments on wetlands, because they are wet. Whatâ?™s more, many of the claims have been paid through an assigned risk fund that transfers nearly the entire risk and losses to the taxpayer, while compensating companies for issuing policies on this type of land. Recently the USDA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported that of the claims audited, the private companies hired to administer the program didnâ?™t follow the rules 100% of the time. See attachment at https://sites.google.com/site/ducksandducats/
Bonnie Dukowitz
12/28/2013 | 7:11 PM CST
As it seems to be the case, Curt, residential destruction is the answer to all politicians re-election. The heck with the Food Bill, until the double burger with cheese and large order of fries is history.
Curt Zingula
12/28/2013 | 7:32 AM CST
I was involved with a local watershed authority in eastern Iowa with 2 management level NRCS people. Of course condemnation of drainage tile occurred. Neither of the NRCS people would speak up for tile. However, after I tried to defend it, both told me outside the meeting that they too supported the use of ag drainage tile. I also think its interesting to note that in the nearby metro area, wetlands can be converted to development by building up the lowland with fill dirt - several feet if necessary. This not only destroys the wetland but concentrates flood waters in a narrower path or shoves it out into development on the other side of the stream. City engineers tell me that developers have the political and financial clout to get what they want from city hall. Perhaps that could be a clue for Dakota farmers - individually you'll never get anywhere with government regulations.
Bonnie Dukowitz
12/28/2013 | 6:42 AM CST
This might be the best of the best I have ever read on the subject. We are not in N.D., however we have raised crops 40 years. This past year, the last of June, there were over 300 honkers swimming in areas of a field, similar to what Mr. Nesham describes. Just a few of the very small, shallow depressions are classified as wetlands. This land has been farmed by a local farm family since about 1910 and now us. At times we get stuck. Raising crops around these, so-called wetlands is not practical and cost prohibitive. This situation has never occurred before. The balance of the field dried out, do to shallow roots. Just a small bit of installed drain tile would solve many issues and would have allowed the barley crop to flourish, rather than a yield barely to recover seed. We also have larger areas not practicable for drainage. One thing often overlooked is the NRCS employees are usually trying to abide and enforce the rules written by bureaucrats who could not grow or produce enough to feed a rabbit. Excellently written. Thank you for posting on your blog.
Unknown
12/27/2013 | 6:02 PM CST
It's is nice to here the other side for once. People don't understand the problems that we are having here in the Dakotas. I've had NRCS employees flat out and say they don't like tile. They have also said it is almost impossible to mitigate wetlands. These areas we are talking about are non-functioning wetlands that have been cropped. There is currently no justice in the process. I have have seen appeals go from 1.0 on the initial determination be reduced down to .1 of on acre. That is uncalled for and unheard of in any other profession to operate with so much error clearly there is nothing scientific about determination process. On our side we are limited to 30 day appeal rights while they have it seems unlimited time to make determinations. Now if they tie wetland compliance to crop insurance they will have the power to take your whole farm and that power lies with one person and the appeals process doesn't include a review by your peers. Currently we have waterfowl numbers 2 to 5 time that of normal so the waterfowl argument doesn't hold water! Wait until they apply mandatory cover crop planting on your land to meet compliance. Hopefully someday we can make sense common again obviously it is not today.
DARIN ANDERSON
12/27/2013 | 8:20 AM CST
I'd like to add to Mr. Neshem's comments, but he does such a thorough job in explaining the lack of common sense amongst NRCS employees and policy that there is not much more to add. I live in southeastern North Dakota and would also like to use more no-till, but because of the reasons Mr. Neshem described, we currently till almost every acre to help lower the water table so we can plant the acres that should be planted. We have been trying to tile some areas that happened to have had a wetland determination completed on the farm back in the mid-90's, which should suffice according to NRCS guidelines. A few months after they said it would satisfy their requirements, NRCS said it is no longer valid because the wetlands "didn't seem large enough" and that the last few wet years should have added to their size. What a crock of you know what. It supposedly takes hundreds of years to make a wetland, so how can a few wet years make any difference? They are simply throwing up roadblocks so we give up trying to tile this ground. Other farmers have dealt with the same issue that we are fighting and their lawyers point out that what NRCS is doing is unlawful, and NRCS eventually concedes. However, they pull this trick on everyone anyways, and farmers have to fight them on every instance. Simply a case of government having no common sense and employees prolonging every action so they have something to do (job security). If you think Mr. Neshem and I are the only ones who are having issues, you are dead wrong. Most guys just give up and are tired of complaining because nothing ever gets fixed. You can only bang your head against a brick wall so long before you quit doing it. To echo Mr. Neshem, farmers are not anti-conservation, just pro common sense, something which is sorely lacking in NRCS offices.
Curt Zingula
12/27/2013 | 7:41 AM CST
Mr. Neshem's experience and wisdom should be marketed to environmentalists and government regulators across the fruited plain! Here's another story to prove the point of ridiculousness; Following the "Great Flood of '27, Congress legislated that 30% of the flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers was to be diverted into coastal wetlands. However, Louisiana has since leveed/divereted all of the Mississippi out of the wetlands for the purpose of development. That river now dumps into Gulf near the continental shelf exasperating hypoxia. A million acres of coastal wetlands have died from the starvation of nutrients and sediment. New Orleans is at increased risk of storm surge. Shellfish reproduction is hurt due to diminished brackish water. Yet the cry of "foul" about this loss is virtually silent while the harassment of farmers up-stream about wetlands has never been worse. Why is it that development gets a free "destroy wetlands" pass (despite laws to the contrary) and farmers using no-till and sensible conservation are the villains?!