The Middle Patoka Watershed Project
Back in 2011, the Pike County Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD) formed a steering committee with Dubois County SWCD, the Alliance of Indiana Rural Water, the towns of Winslow, Huntingburg and Ferdinand water municipals, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Dubois County Health Department and other interested parties to develop a Middle Patoka Watershed Management Plan and submit an application for a federal EPA 319 Implementation Grant. The Alliance of Indiana Rural Water took the lead on the grant as the administrator of it and then asked each SWCD and municipality to support and promote it. In March of 2013, the Alliance informed the steering committee that the grant had been awarded and after all the details were lined out over $300,000 had been secured for the Middle Patoka River Watershed and the project had just under $140,000 for funding on conservation projects through a cost share program.
Shortly after signing the grant contract, the official word was given to start taking applications for conservation projects in August of 2013. By the end of December that same year, the Pike County SWCD had promoted and signed up over $142,000 worth of cost share applications in Pike County alone and had completely depleted the cost share portion of the 319 grant with ALL the money being spent on Pike County producers and on Pike County land! Pike County staff helped allocate the funding at one of the fastest rates ever seen by IDEM. Over 800 acres of cover crops were cost shared on acres that were within the critical area of the grant and six county producers took advantage of the cost share on precision agriculture equipment - a new twist to a 319 cost share program! The precision agriculture portion of the cost share covered a certain percentage of purchases such as GPS units, auto swath, auto steering, grid sampling, automatic shut offs and other equipment that improves and/or reduces the impact that farm machinery has on the land. While the cost share of this equipment took a huge chunk of grant money, the results that the Precision Ag purchases will have on the land will be ten times more beneficial than a one time a year use of cover crops and will be able to be used on more acres than just those in the critical area of the Patoka Watershed which will result in a bigger impact in the future!
While the cost share portion of the EPA 319 Implementation grant on the Middle Patoka Watershed has since been closed out, the steering committe is still conducting water testing at certain sites within the critical area and have several educational events on the books too.