Cover crops are an effective tool to reduce soil erosion and increase nutrient recycling to farmlands, thereby also decreasing the soil and nutrient loads entering ditches and waterways, trapping Nitrogen that would otherwise leach away. Cover crops can have numerous other benefits including improvement of soil quality by building soil organic matter, weed control, pest management, fertility management, water availability, and agricultural landscape diversification.
Lake County Soil & Water Conservation District offered producers two cover crop cost shared programs:
• Indiana State Department of Agriculture/Clean Water Indiana assisted 6 farmers.
• Lake County Surveyor’s Office/MS4 Stormwater Quality Program assisted 11 farmers.
Both agreements offered the producers $20 per acre on a maximum of 40 acres, $800 cap/year to offset the cost of planting an approved cover crop. Over 2,000 acres of cover crops planted in 2013 were responsible for the following nutrient reductions to water bodies:
• 1,816 fewer tons of sediment (nearly 161 dump trucks)
• 2,651 fewer pounds of phosphorus (prevented 1million pounds of algae from growing on surface water
• 5,294 fewer pounds of nitrogen (63 million gallons of water could have been contaminated)
This is to improve the water quality of Lake County. These conservation measures will provide stabilization of the surrounding agricultural land to minimize sediment and nutrient loading into the watershed.
New this year - Lake County SWCD has a Stormwater Educator, Lynette DuBord, who teaches students about the impact of stormwater pollution.
The purpose of our educational programs is to teach students about stormwater runoff and how pollution in stormwater runoff can negatively impact the quality of our water resources. Students in K-6 learns what they can do to reduce stormwater runoff in their backyard, reduce the amount of pollution in stormwater runoff and understand how we are all connected in the water cycle.
SWCD has Agreements for Education and Outreach Services to MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems) communities:
• Lake County Surveyors MS4
• Town of Merrillville
• Town of Lowell
• Town of Dyer
• Town of Cedar Lake
• City of Hammond