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Reno County couple lauded for conservation work aiding lakeHUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP)--It's the most beautiful view in Reno County, Darrin Unruh says as he parks his pickup atop a knob in his pasture. The Pretty Prairie-area cattle rancher steps out into grassland, browned by winter. He looks across the landscape where cattle will graze this spring and where Red Rock Creek flows into the north fork of the Ninnescah River, seeming to wind endlessly across the valley. "Phenomenal, isn't it?" he said of the scenery, noting he's been working for nearly a decade to keep it that way. He says it nonchalantly, despite the fact county conservation district officials honored him and his wife, Camron, this month for their work to keep the river, which eventually dumps into Cheney Lake, pristine. Unruh waves off the mention as quickly as it surfaces. "I'm just one person," he said. "Everyone along here is working toward a common goal, and I'm no different than anyone else." Unruh's land is part of a 633,449-acre area known as the Cheney Lake Watershed--a nonprofit organization that aids landowners in Reno and surrounding counties in bettering their management practices. Moreover, there's nothing regulatory about it, Unruh said. Instead, an unlikely match--agricultural producers and leaders from Kansas' largest city--have teamed up to save the river and Cheney Lake, the primary drinking-water source for more than 300,000 people. The 10-year-plus effort has brought folks in these parts into the national spotlight, with project coordinator Lisa French giving tours to congressional representatives and government officials from Washington. "This is unique, very unique," French said. "That's because you don't see a lot of cities working with a group of farmers like this--not on a voluntary level." Go back two decades, however, and Pretty Prairie farmer Marion Krehbiel will tell a different story of the river. Krehbiel, whose farm was displaced when the lake was built in 1965, said there wasn't much in place to stop farm pollution from washing off fields and pastures during rainstorms or oozing from the ground. Soon, those nutrients began flowing to Cheney Lake. The main culprits, phosphorus and suspended solids, helped feed algae blooms at the lake, with Wichita residents reporting odor and taste problems with the water coming from Cheney Lake. Krehbiel himself began noticing the erosion of the Ninnescah's banks, and anglers told him they could wade out farther into the lake because of the increased sediment buildup. Krehbiel, who serves on the Reno County Conservation District board, worked with members to take measurements and water quality samplings. They presented their findings to Reno County commissioners and a water basin board. "It seemed every place we went we'd run into a dead wall," the 69-year-old said. "I don't know how many years we were knocking on doors and trying to get people to listen. Then we finally went to Wichita. That's when we started getting some attention." Wichita wanted to protect the drinking-water source, French said. Although the lake sediment was not exceeding predictions made at the time of the reservoir's construction, excess soil loss on fields in the watershed indicated reductions in erosion could extend the life of the lake from an expected 100 years to 200 years. The two groups formed a task force in 1992, French said. By 1995, the watershed began issuing funds to those who implemented conservation in the watershed. Last year alone, the watershed handed out $259,000 in project funding, French said. Some of the money comes from Natural Resource Conservation Service programs, as well as from other state and federal sources. The city of Wichita granted another $42,000. The city also helps pay the watershed office's operating expense, French said. "I'd say a vast majority in the watershed have implemented some type of conservation practice," she said. That could be anything from fencing off streambeds to creating buffers and grass waterways. Others have implemented some type of reduced tillage system, French said, noting that farmers in the past 10 years have converted about 42 percent of the watershed to no-till farming. Meanwhile, Kansas State University researchers are in the middle of a three-year study, funded by the U.S. agriculture department, on how practices have helped water quality. Even without findings from the research, there's improvement in the water quality, said Sig Collins, a Partridge-area rancher who serves on a citizens' committee that oversees the watershed. "Every time a producer does a project, it helps a little bit," said Collins, who has implemented rotational grazing and built alternative water sources for cattle on his own land. "We're not going to cure this in 10 years," he said. "It takes time." Unruh, who farms with his brother, Stacy, calls the family conservation project a work in progress. He implements new conservation efforts each year. The Unruhs planted a field, once tilled for farm production, to grass. He divided pastures into paddocks, using intensive grazing methods and continuously monitoring the grass to decide when to rotate cattle. And instead of having the herd drink from the Ninnescah, previously their only water source, he's created an alternative watering hole by using solar power and storage tanks. The cattle still get to the river, depending on the rotation, but Unruh now can manage how long they stay there. Also, by keeping the nutrients of the cattle's manure on the grass instead of in the water, the grass now has a natural source of fertilizer. There's a perception that farmers and ranchers don't care about the land, about the environment, he said. He hopes he and others are proving that's not true. They want clean air and clean water, he said, adding that the project is a model for the nation of how a voluntary urban/rural partnership can work. "What Cheney Lake Watershed is doing is the right way to do things," he said. "The neat thing is this isn't something we have to do, but it is something we want to do. And what I'm doing here is just a little piece of a big puzzle."
Date: 2/28/08
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