anyone have experience with gov grants/fencing off creeks?

Keeping your cows from pooping in the creek(or in PA, we call it a "crick") seems to be a hot button topic. I would gladly keep them from even taking a leak anywhere near my creeks if there were some grant money available. After all, I fish for fun, and I like my neighbors downstream, so, I would like to use their tax money to help them not have cow crap on their fishing hook.

I saw on RFD-TV a farmer who got a grant to fence off the creeks and let it grow wild. He also got money to develop the springs on his place and then could build small retainment ponds to funnel the water to the livestock that were not permitted to drink directly from the creek. After all, this is a good rule for all of life... "Don't s**t where you drink."

So, if I wanted to do the same, does anyone have any idea where I should look to apply for money to have a survey done and a contractor come in and make my waterways a "turd free zone?"


I'd prefer that they don't give a dump in my creek, but, everytime I ask the politicians not to crap in my water, they do it anyway, let alone the animals. So, aside from putting diapers on my animals, I would like to hear from anyone who has done this. If you don't want it public, just shoot me an email at [email protected] and we can go from there. I understand it is taboo to talk about taking tax money and putting it into farms that occupy the majority of the fertile country, but I have no inhabitions about it. I will gladly tell everyone external_link kept our feces on dry land. I might go as far as saying, "If you got crap floating towards you, don't blame external_link."

and if I can't get approved for the grant, I will gladly tell everyone, "external_link took a s**t in your glass."

regardless...

I am all ears to all advice, even if you want to rant about this. I could rant for hours, but I am pretty fat, and my soap box is starting to rot, so, I don't think it will hold my weight for that long. I should update my soapbox to a podium; complete with teleprompters and a staff of people telling me what to say. Then again, I want to spend every day out on the tractor, not sitting at the computer ranting and arguing about the government. Please keep that in mind. We all know the deal. Can we just agree not to get all heated about it? The bulk of farmers will all have my viewpoint anyhow. I probably will agree with you. I just want to see some tax dollars go towards making the neighbors happy and keeping my head off the chopping block without having to mortgage teh farm.

Thanks much

My dads only saying on the topic whenver it was discussed around him was "Do you know the difference between, pollution and ecology? Pollution is when one of my cows wades out into the creek and shuts and pi$$es in it, thats pollution and we have to spend millions of dollars to stop it. Ecology is when that deer wades into the creek and shuts and pi$$es in it and thats just perfectly natural and harmless"

Yup, I did that at our place in Lancaster County Pa. The crazy people were driving around and threatening to sue people who had their cattle in the creeks so I fenced the cattle out of the creeks that you can see from the road. They paid me to fence them off the banks, then we made stabilized crossing using pig barn slats so that they can go into the water to drink. They can still crap in the water, but they cant tearup the banks and make the water all dirty. It wasnt a bad project, but I am not real fond of having a bunch of gov employees tramping on my property. This project was through NRCS. Email me with questions. mdfyock AT yahoo.com
Mike

well you could certainly get in some debates with this topic.let me think here,fishermen dont want cows around there ponds, creeks and things,BUT they will go out and spend lots of money dumping fertilizer in their ponds?LOL heres the thing ,all the prorams ive seen for this dont even mention wildlife in the creeks and ponds ,they are simply for bank stabilization,erosion control purposes.here at least you fence off X number of feet each side of creek,drainage ditch,etc and plant it back to trees ,native grasses etc.makes good wildlife cover,helps stabilize banks,stops or helpsto stop erosion, basically everything a person concerned about his land does anyway.folks have done it around here for years as a matter of course.the problem is not cattle relieving themselves in water,unless of course you have water running off a feedlot or something in huge amounts,(which grassed areas WONT stop),but the fact that cattle tend to walk straight down a bank.this created a trail,water runs down trail,trail becomes a ditch.....bad thing about these programs,lots of places depend on creeks to water their livestock,i could show you several places where guys have had to move cattle off a place ,making it for all intents and purposes unusable for any thing because creeks have dried up simply because banks have grown up with willows or cedars(a five ft willow will use its been estimated 50 gallons of water a day,and a four foot cedar will suck up 40 gallons a day).theres ranches in south texas where the creeks have been dry for years,that have went in and done nothing but remove willows and cedars, and now have running water again after generations of fighting for water.MY opinion is this could be done sensibly and benifit everyone.instead of planting cedars,willows,russian olive ,these areas should be planted back to native grasses ONLY.cattle can effectivly use creeks IF they are directed with fences to low lying flat areas to water with little to no slope so their trails wont cause erosion problems and destabilization of banks.OK i'm out of breath, LOL

As formerly PA Mike says, I'm sure you can get something out of your local USDA/FSA/county soil & water office.

OH,I did get some info on this from my local scs office.as I recall,dont quote me its been a while and my memory is about half a day long,at that time HERE ,it may vary,they would cover maybe 25% of the costs,IF you did everything according to their specs (some of which makes you wonder like most gov deals who in the world thought of it).like i say its been a while ,and it may have been a different program than what you are thinking of ,but slopes had to be be contoured at a cetain slope,such and such grass had to be planted,x type of trees so far apart,lots of things other than just building a fence.most of which cost way more than it was worth if you had a lot of area to do.way out of range of my budget.I would have wound up re-landscaping the whole place.i have followed some of their recomendations on my own though,i try to plant at least a hundred seedlings a year mostly sumac or osage orange,i move and fence cattle off at risk slopes etc,but i simply cant afford to have a dozer come out and slope banks and things on 3 creeks accross 1000 acres,even with their 25% contribution.

EQIP is the main NRCS program for that. Up until a few years ago it was a cost share or no more than program. Now its flat dollars per practice. Im in year 2 of a 3 year contract. So far its a pretty good deal. Payment was 2.05 per foot of fence to fence off the creek. I can run 4 strand electric high tensile for less than that. Same with the water. I ended up putting in 4 tanks and a mile of 2 inch line.

I can not get NRCS to go along with putting linear weatlands, (streams, creeks rivers)into the Wheatland Reserve Program. The District Conservationist is not interested. At my farm in ND I got the swamp (depressional wetlands) contracted into WRP for 30 years (no perpatuity in ND). I also have miles of meandering creeks that I would like to keep the cows out of. The cows collapse the creek banks, wreck the buffalo berry bushes and make the water quality miserable. They have plenty of quality water avaliable in EQIP tanks and pipelines. Like my dog drinking out of the toilet when she has a water bowl, the cows still prefer drinking out of the creek they go to the bathroom in. They gain weight better and are sick less when denied the creek. Anyone had any luck getting creeks into WRP ?

Yes, there is a "boundary water" program. Set aside acres along creeks and rivers. To stop flow of chemicalsw and stack damage. See youe closest FSA/USDA guy.
They are setting one up for the Jamesw River basin in SD that will run from border to border.
ND to IA

Never seen 40,000 pounds of deer standing in a brook before. Saw more then that in beefers doing so last week.

Scale and intensity matter. And that's the difference between a few isolated deer, or even a migratory herd of bison who in years gone by might have pooped in the river as they crossed through an area compared to today's cattle herds that are larger in aggregate and stay in one location compared to bison.

It's a change in practice for most folks...and compared to most other agricultural subsidies, providing some capital to make permanent changes in how folks manage those waterways is money well spent.