R2002-156 AUTHORIZING AGREEMENT AMENDMENT

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to establish the practice. The nice thing about this program is, if the landowner chooses they can enter the property into the state side of CRP called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which allows the them to eatend there CRP contract an additional 15, 35 or permanent years. (Yes, the landowner can actually take the land out of production forever if they choose to, and get a one-time lump sum payment for that. The landowner will retain a11 rights to the property. In exchange the land will never return to farmland during the time of the easement.) The Sand Creek Watershed did not have any filter strips that where signed up for a permanent easement. We did, however, sign up severallandowners for the federal 15-year program. Another federal program that we signed up several landowners in was the Conservation Reserve Program for waterways. This program allowed us to enter the land that needed a new waterway into the program. The majority of the landowners that came into our of�'ice qualified for this program. This program provides the landowner up to 90% cost-share with the landowner paying the remaining 10%. Plus, the landowner will receive a rental payment based on the soil type on a yearly basis for 15 years. When you run the math, the landowner is basically getting the waterway 100% paid for by the government, which is the best deal that we can offer, if the landowner qualifies. Because of the federal programs that are cunently being offered, we did not use as much Sand Creek cost-share money as we predicted we would during the first year of the program. Results Who aid for what? Practice Amount Federal $ State $ Cit � Waterwa s 224952 ft �23,980.60 �6,380.00 �8.159.58 Tile installed �" 9099 ft �9.264.05 $0.00 53.929.50 Structures installed 4 �5,400.00 $0.00 �5.000.00 Terraces 3797 ft $Q.00 $0.00 �5.695.80 Pond 1 $0.00 $0.00 �5.000.00 Filter Stri s ""` 36.7acres Totals $38.644.65 $6,380.00 �27.784.88 ***CRP Filter strips: As was mentioned before this was a very attractive program for some of our landowners. The United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resource Conservation Sen7ce(NRCS) manages the program. According to their files we signed up 36.7 acres of filter strips in the Sand Creek watershed. These acres will be maintained for a minimum of 10 or 15 years. The cost to install these practices is very hard to determine after the initial cost-share because the landowner receives a$120— 190/ acre/year payment for the life of the contract. Ncedless to sa��the Feds put a lot of money into this Pmgram.