Ducks get $20 million

[Blaithin]

Do you think easements are the answer to those issues Chuck?

[bucket]

Its not impossible to have both land for conservation and bio-diversity and healthy family farms.

In fact many farmers and ranchers do both, knowing that we need to protect our natural resources and build resilience into our farming systems.

DU has often been criticized as a hunters club for for saving game birds. I think they do more than that.

If you want to be objective about conservation and agriculture coexisting then you need to look at the impact of both and look at how many acres are going into conservation versus how many marginal acres are now going into farming. I don't have the numbers, but I think you will find that farming is winning by a large margin.

Farmers are clearing more land and breaking up more marginal land for crops. There are more and more fence line to fence line fields with almost no wildlife habitat on them. Former tree rows are being cleared. Potholes drained. None of this will lead to more wildlife and conservation. It has the opposite effect.

When the wet years come back and all the approved drainage works...there will be much bigger problems to deal with...WSA doesn't think to far ahead and the employees will be retired or moved on if those problems arise...or they always have the fall back that " we never could predict that" or a generational change or a new owner...may not even know. Alot of drainage gets done with out approval...

The WSA should know where every tile or drainage is....they don't and they say they can't stay on top of it.

The process is flawed...and farmers that do it know it and the companies installing tile are not responsible for having a permit in hand when they start. Imagine buying a lot in the city and building a house without a permit???? There is a reason for it...

[chuckChuck]

Do you think easements are the answer to those issues Chuck?

In some cases yes. But from what I have seen the compensation is too low to be much of an incentive.

Easements or not, access to land will be at a premium in the future so there will always be a market for farm land with or without conservation areas, easments and rules attached.