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Buffer strips remain a source of questions, concerns

Monday, February 8, 2016

 

By Rep. Paul Anderson

The latest “dust up” regarding the recently passed and controversial buffer legislation is interesting, if not frustrating. It has to do with private drainage ditches, and if they are included in the mandate to have protective grass strips along ditch edges.

Legislative intent was that the bill would affect only public waters and public ditches; however wording in one section of the bill pertaining to “in the benefitted area” had some people thinking that included private ditches. The DNR, given the job of producing the maps showing the ditches that needed buffers, had been including private ditches in their early work. That situation was finally resolved two weeks ago when Gov. Dayton announced he was instructing the DNR to map only public ditches and not to include private ditches.

But, the governor issued a press release chastising Republicans for not including private ditches because they also contribute to water quality. While that may very well be, his statement misses the point. The issue here is following the agreement. That agreement also was passed by the DFL-controlled Senate and signed into law by Gov. Dayton. Legislators from both parties made it clear that the intent of the legislation was to mandate buffers only on public waters and public ditches. The wording in question, “in the benefitted area” is contained in a section of the bill clearly labeled “public waters.”

The way things stand now, it seems as if no one is happy with the legislation. Farmers and others who own agricultural land are concerned about how the mandate will affect the tax rate of land that will be converted from production to perennial grass. There is also the larger issue of compensation. I attended the Minnesota Ag. Expo in Mankato recently and heard a lawyer discussing the issue. We already have laws that restrict our rights, he said, such as local zoning laws. Those laws tell us what we can’t do on our land, while the buffer requirement is somewhat different. It tells us what we MUST do. In total, it’s estimated that approximately 110,000 acres of farm land will be affected.

On the other side of the issue are those who feel the law didn’t go far enough. They point out studies showing a continued degradation of our waters. However, there are also studies that show improvement. Farmers’ practices are changing with more precision application of nutrients, in addition to conservation practices they are implementing on their own.

Another concern registered has to do with monitoring the results of this new legislation. Are baseline contaminant levels established so we can tell in the future if these buffers are making a difference? In short, what are the goals of the legislation, and can those goals be measured?

Good questions, all. It may take until the timelines for implementation are reached to start finding the answers. Public waters must be buffered by November of 2017 and public ditches one year later.

 

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