Steve Pahs On AM Minnesota Today

Steve Pahs, the Rice County NRCS-CD, gave me a call the other day and asked of he could come on AM Minnesota today to discuss all the things going on at the local NRCS office. The Rice County NRCS office is celebrating their 75th anniversary this year and have scheduled a number of events throughout the year. The Rice County SWCD now has a new Facebook page. Other topics we will cover include a new Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) signup, some new Cover Crop incentives are now available and finally we will discuss what's new on the Buffer Law.

With the Legislative session over, we should at least know a little bit more about the Minnesota Buffer Law and how it will be implemented. The deadline for installing buffer strips on public waterways is this November. It appears that an eight-month grace period was agreed to in one of the budget bills. If landowners have contacted their local SWCD and are working on a plant to install buffer strips, enforcement action will not be taken until next July. We will get the latest details on today's AM Minnesota at 9:30 this morning.