Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 33 | Are These Tools in your Toolbox? Constructed Wetlands
Transcript
- Episode 33 | Are These Tools in your Toolbox? Constructed Wetlands 00:00:05:10 - 00:00:29:00 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast, episode 33. Are these tools in your toolbox: a constructed wetland? I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. We'll begin by discussing constructed wetlands with Jill Kostel. She's the senior environmental engineer at the Wetlands Initiative. I asked her to tell me a little bit about a constructed wetland. 00:00:29:03 - 00:00:39:15 Jill Kostel Well a constructed wetland is a engineered ecosystem designed to optimize, if you would, the specific wetland characteristics and functions that improve water quality. 00:00:39:19 - 00:00:47:28 Jill Kostel And they're usually located on the edge of fields so they can be positioned to intercept the tile main before it outlets into a ditch. 00:00:48:01 - 00:00:54:14 Todd Gleason Can you define the difference between a wetland restoration and a constructed wetland? 00:00:54:17 - 00:01:08:02 Jill Kostel Yeah. Wetland restoration applies to natural wetland sites that had hydric soils that have been disturbed or degraded in some manner, whereas a constructed wetland does not have to be built on former wetland areas. 00:01:08:02 - 00:01:25:02 Jill Kostel They can be, but it's not necessary. And the design goal, as I mentioned, a construct, a wetland is water quality improvement. And I should say all wetlands provide water quality benefit. But with the constructed wetlands, we're really trying to optimize those natural processes that remove nitrogen and phosphorus. 00:01:25:08 - 00:01:29:22 Todd Gleason If a farmer puts in a constructed wetland and then decides to take it out later. 00:01:29:24 - 00:01:31:16 Todd Gleason What are the obstacles to doing that? 00:01:31:18 - 00:01:47:26 Jill Kostel Well, these wetlands will work for a very long time. So while we would like them to remain on the landscape forever, they do not have to be permanent wetlands. And since the wetland hydrology is a function of the design, once the hydrology aspect is removed, it will cease to be a wetland. 00:01:47:26 - 00:02:14:18 Jill Kostel So if we, you know, reroute the tile around the wetland, there will no longer be any water going into that wetland. Therefore, you're kind of losing that hydrology aspect. So therefore they should not be regulated or should not be considered, for compensatory mitigation. I do require and, you know, encourage landowners to get an Army corps nationwide permit 27, which is when you either install wetland on the farm bill program or not. 00:02:14:18 - 00:02:32:01 Jill Kostel It allows reversion at the end of the practice agreement. And it's just a document that states the prior condition and should allow for this reversion, whether it's restore to an answer established on prior converted or uplands. But I think the biggest obstacle is finding the soil to fill in the excavated area. 00:02:32:04 - 00:02:41:23 Todd Gleason But what are the benefits of having a constructed wetland for nitrogen, for phosphorus retention, wildlife habitat, soil health, those sorts of things? 00:02:41:25 - 00:03:15:04 Jill Kostel Yeah. So it's a very, efficient and practical way of removing nitrogen and phosphorus from the tile drainage water, because that's what it's been designed for, and that's what it's going to do. And it's a known technology if you want to put it in that parlance. So we know they're effective and they're going to work. But the nice thing about a wetland is whether it's constructed restore, you're going to bring up wildlife habitat, pollinator habitat, water storage, carbon storage, along with the water quality improvement. 00:03:15:06 - 00:03:29:11 Todd Gleason So all of the challenges that you might face once you have this constructed wetland, and I'm thinking of things like, I don't know, mosquitoes because of water hanging around. Getting the correct plant species, those sorts of things. 00:03:29:13 - 00:03:35:19 Jill Kostel Yeah. I think, you know, in the wetland, you don't have standing water. The water is always flowing, moving forward. 00:03:35:19 - 00:03:54:19 Jill Kostel So mosquitoes are no bigger of a problem than the nearby stream or ditch. But I think one of the biggest challenges, and I don't really think it's a challenge, is more just you have to recognize there’s some management, is that in the first two years to promote the wetland plant community, you're going to have to manage the water levels with the water control structure. 00:03:54:21 - 00:04:21:09 Jill Kostel But after that, the plant community can really reestablish itself year after year with no water management. You just kind of set your board and forget that, and the plants, like it should be emergent plants, marsh plants that can tolerate high nitrogen levels and withstand varying water levels. Because sometimes, you know, you get a rain event, you may get more water in there, and during the summertime it will lower down, as we get less rain, precipitation and flow coming through those tiles. 00:04:21:09 - 00:04:39:03 Jill Kostel But if you follow the NRCs standard, those are the plants they selected, the ones that can, are most tolerant to those conditions. And other than that, I think because, you know, you built this wetland, wildlife will find it. So you're going to have to work with nature's landscapers and architects and engineers, which are the muskrats and the beavers. 00:04:39:07 - 00:04:43:27 Jill Kostel So you're just going to work with nature and kind of manage their, their presence at the same time? 00:04:44:00 - 00:04:54:15 Todd Gleason Speaking of them, they cost money. I'm wondering what the cost share opportunities might be for farmers who are thinking that they would consider a constructed wetland. 00:04:54:18 - 00:05:02:12 Jill Kostel Yeah. There is financial assistance available through the Conservation Reserve program. It is CP 39, which is under the continuous CRP. 00:05:02:12 - 00:05:28:09 Jill Kostel Sign up so you can enroll at any time. The other available farm bill program is the EQIP. And here is Conservation practice. 656 and in Illinois, constructed wetlands are one of a handful of higher priority equipped practices, which means cost share can be up to 90%. And obviously there's other, private conservation foundations such as the Wetlands Initiative, which are also willing to help with cost share. 00:05:28:13 - 00:05:32:28 Todd Gleason Jill Kostel is a senior environmental engineer at the Wetlands Initiative. 00:05:33:02 - 00:05:44:20 Todd Gleason Now, let's turn our attention to Maria Lemke. She's a director of conservation for the state of Illinois at the Nature Conservancy. I wondered when I began talking with her why it was the TNC. 00:05:44:20 - 00:05:49:27 Todd Gleason The Nature Conservancy was interested in agriculture. 00:05:49:29 - 00:05:57:03 Maria Lemke So a lot of what I do is study the process of restoring floodplain wetlands along the Illinois River. 00:05:57:05 - 00:06:30:25 Maria Lemke But also, a lot of the works over the last 18 years is understanding how small wetlands and other practices, work to, reduce excess nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from drainage tiles from agricultural systems and, the history of the Conservancy's agricultural work really goes back to the early 90s when, you know, the conservancy in Illinois first got into really wanting to better understand freshwater systems, mostly been terrestrial focused before then. 00:06:30:28 - 00:06:50:11 Maria Lemke And, the Mackinaw River watershed is where we've been focusing a lot of our work for the last 20 years or so. And, that was selected by the Conservancy based on its status as a high quality river. It sustains high numbers of fish and mussel species, has a lot of high quality, stream habitat in the river system itself. 00:06:50:11 - 00:07:21:15 Maria Lemke And so early on, you know, the conservancy worked with stakeholders and partners in that watershed. To put together this Mackinaw River watershed management plan with a huge effort, volunteer effort with all these different stakeholders and partners. It was completed in 98. The plan's a huge plan, but, you know, really identified strategies to reduce detrimental impacts to the watershed from both urban and agricultural sources, some 75% or more. 00:07:21:15 - 00:07:35:14 Maria Lemke Even in the tributaries, more like 95% of the land is used for agriculture. That's kind of where the conservancy started focusing on, how to address stresses associated with agricultural land use in the watershed. 00:07:35:16 - 00:07:40:09 Todd Gleason Given that relatively long history are constructed wetlands very efficient? 00:07:40:11 - 00:07:53:19 Maria Lemke Yes they are. We just completed a 12 year data set. On some constructed wetlands that we, installed on some private land near Lexington, Illinois. 00:07:53:19 - 00:08:17:15 Maria Lemke We call it the Research and Demonstration Farm owned by the Franklin family. It's been in their family for generations. And we just completed a 12 year study there. Our main goal was to look at, not only how well, how effective wetlands are, but, really how big the wetlands need to be relative to the tile drained area that's flowing into them to be effective. 00:08:17:16 - 00:08:31:29 Maria Lemke So we're focused on these small constructed wetlands that go, go that are installed at the edge of the fields. But they're really designed specifically to treat tile water, not the surface water runoff. And so that's what we're measuring at the farm. 00:08:32:01 - 00:08:33:12 Todd Gleason And were they effective? 00:08:33:12 - 00:08:48:19 Maria Lemke Yeah, they they are very effective at removing, dissolved forms of nitrogen like nitrate, nitrogen that flow through the tile specifically two we found there, like they removed 50 to 90% of the dissolved phosphorus coming through the tiles, averaged over this 12 year period. 00:08:48:19 - 00:08:56:11 Maria Lemke So, yes, we believe that they're they can be a very effective method to treat nutrients from tile drainage systems. 00:08:56:13 - 00:09:08:28 Todd Gleason Are they very good at working with the larger flushes of rainfall that we're experiencing as the climate has changed and the events have gotten bigger? 00:09:09:00 - 00:09:19:02 Maria Lemke Yeah. During really high rain events, you know, these, of course, the water is going to the retention time in these wetlands is going to be much reduced. 00:09:19:04 - 00:09:42:17 Maria Lemke They're not huge wetland systems, they’re small wetland systems at the edge of fields. So, you know, there are so, yeah, during these big high events, probably not holding a lot of water and giving it enough retention time to reduce a lot of the runoff through the tiles. So this is where, you know, design, wetland design can come in. 00:09:42:19 - 00:10:05:13 Maria Lemke Some of the things we've looked at is, designing these wetlands kind of in a kind of with the, an S kind of design where the water has to travel in a flowing pattern, that takes it through the wetland slower. Or put it in kind of these deeper areas in the wetland, that can hold more water. 00:10:05:13 - 00:10:35:11 Maria Lemke So there's ways to address, you know, the, the future predicted increases in rain events. But secondly, you know, wetlands, as effective as they are, they're, they're, they're are one piece of the at the, at the solution. So there's other you know, combining in fields and edge of field practices, you know, cover crops or different tillage practices, grass waterway things like that, that slow on the water to begin with that come into the wetlands. 00:10:35:13 - 00:10:45:20 Maria Lemke It's really it's really like a package deal. You really need to kind of bundled or stocked practices to really address, you know, the future predicted increases in rainfall. 00:10:45:25 - 00:10:51:23 Todd Gleason If there's going to be warm water standing in these areas, can algae blooms form in the wetlands? 00:10:51:26 - 00:10:56:15 Maria Lemke Oh, yeah. Yeah. Algae blooms certainly, form in their wetlands. 00:10:56:17 - 00:11:18:03 Maria Lemke And you'd expect that because you're, you're slowing down the water. That's coming through the tile that has a lot of nutrients in it. And that's what happens when you slow down, you know, water with high nutrients as you get algal blooms. And that causes problems. If it's a drinking reservoir or, you know, the Gulf of, the Gulf of Mexico, in wetlands, it's it's really in these wetlands. 00:11:18:03 - 00:11:36:05 Maria Lemke We we don't see it as an issue. In fact, that's what we expect to happen. A lot of the issues with high algae blooms is that you end up with the oxygen deficit, right? When the algae starts decomposing, it sucks up the oxygen, could get fish kills, things like that, or taste and odor issues if it's drinking water. 00:11:36:05 - 00:12:06:22 Maria Lemke But this is not the case here. These wetlands aren't permanent. They dry up in the summer. They typically don't sustain, you know, fish populations anyway. And so, you know, we don't it's not a problem. That's what we would expect. And I'll tell you one thing. We have done, is to because of the algae as we've developed, working with University of Illinois, actually developed these, algae guards, we call them, that go around the outlet of the wetlands. 00:12:06:24 - 00:12:31:00 Maria Lemke You know, the outlets have these animal gardens, and high algae can clog those up. And then the water starts filling up in the wetland and maybe overflows the spillway. So these algae gardens kind of filter that keep the algae from, from clogging that up. And they've been really effective. So that's one thing, you know, that we would recommend, putting in these small wetlands is, is, is installing that kind of algae garden as well. 00:12:31:02 - 00:12:35:15 Todd Gleason You mentioned that the wetlands can dry out, what happens during drought? 00:12:35:19 - 00:13:05:00 Maria Lemke Well, that's a really good question. And over the 12 years that we studied, those farm wetlands we had with the 2012 drought was a big one and a couple of other smaller droughts. Really, it doesn't really exist without their overall effectiveness at all. In fact, you know, any water that flows into the wetlands, they just retain the wetlands, retain that water, and it either evaporates or it's taken up by plants or slowly seeps, you know, through the the sediments into the, into the groundwater system. 00:13:05:02 - 00:13:35:04 Maria Lemke And these constructed wetlands, being at their tile fed, again, they're usually dry in the summer anyway, when most of these droughts would occur, and we found that the highest, they tend to have the highest efficiencies for nutrient removal in the spring. You know, March, April, May, June, when the tiles are flowing and they're really high in nutrients and, typically even in a drought, you're going to have flow happening, some flow during that spring. 00:13:35:04 - 00:13:42:06 Maria Lemke So droughts are not an issue at all. I wouldn't say with these wetlands, they they work really well when they're needed. And that's when the times. Absolutely. 00:13:42:13 - 00:13:52:28 Todd Gleason What have you and the farmers who have helped put these in place learned about adopting practices, to get the best experience out of a constructed wetland. 00:13:53:01 - 00:14:01:00 Maria Lemke So we have over the years constructed over 20 different wetlands in, in and around the Mackinaw River watershed. 00:14:01:02 - 00:14:27:12 Maria Lemke And we've got a lot of different experiences. I would say I think it's critical to work with, you know, your county, Soil and Water Conservation District and your NRCS in the county, to, to install these wetlands. They're, they're they have engineers that, you know, come out and design the wetlands. They can, inspect the soil. 00:14:27:12 - 00:14:48:22 Maria Lemke You know, the soils have to be a certain quality for wetlands. They have to have enough clay content, things like that, to even install wetlands in the first place. So they, they, they're, you know, they know how to do all this stuff. That's what they do. I would not try to do it on your own, but they, they can really guide you through that. 00:14:48:24 - 00:15:10:13 Maria Lemke And also there's the, you know, there's different conservation programs for the farm bill that can help with the costs of installing the wetlands. We've really used the conservation reserve program, a wetlands programs that reimburse the landowner for a lot of the construction costs and, and, and things like that. So that's key, I think is working on stormwater in NRCS. 00:15:10:13 - 00:15:12:08 Todd Gleason Again, that was Maria Lemke. 00:15:12:08 - 00:15:34:10 Todd Gleason She's the Illinois director of conservation science at the Nature Conservancy. During our interview, she mentioned Farmer John Franklin from the Lexington area. I caught up with him by phone as well and asked him to explain a little bit about his involvement with the Nature Conservancy and what he has been doing on his farm. 00:15:34:13 - 00:15:36:08 John Franklin Kind of got into farming a little bit later in life. 00:15:36:08 - 00:16:00:23 John Franklin So, actually in the electronics business as well. And, and, my dad had farmed and before him and for him. So it's, the farm goes back to about 1850. And my dad had gotten out of farming, and then we had several people farming for us. And kind of we had this odd situation where two of them passed away within about nine months of each other, and I've got a twin brother. 00:16:00:23 - 00:16:22:06 John Franklin And we said, well, you know, if we ever wanted to, get into farming, this is the time to do it. You're not not telling somebody they have to leave the farm just to weigh the situation. Unfortunately, it worked. We had that window. And so we started farming about 600 acres. And, you know, the farm had been no tilled for a long time and absolutely kept that up. 00:16:22:09 - 00:16:57:03 John Franklin There's a portion of the farm along the Mackinaw River, that is in cooperation with the Nature Conservancy. And I'm sure, you know, you've talked to probably Maria or Krista about that. But, down there, they're doing more experimenting with, experimental wetlands, cover crops and things like that. And so, you know, by 15 years ago or close to it, we put in three sets of, wetlands, and they're all had three wetlands, and they had measuring stations in each, each, each set of three and each of the three groups. 00:16:57:03 - 00:17:23:12 John Franklin And so they were measuring, the effectiveness of each wetland and removing nitrates from a tile water. And as they went through those wetlands, they could kind of see what percentage was being reduced. And, then they've been doing some experiments as well with cover crops and, you know, just how not only the soil stabilization, but, you know, kind of what, what percent of coverage you get if you fly over the seed, over to standing corn crop and things like that. 00:17:23:12 - 00:17:30:02 John Franklin And, if there's any, you know, added nitrogen from some of the, some of the, cover crops that others. 00:17:30:05 - 00:17:35:27 Todd Gleason Why so much interest from you, maybe your twin brother as well, in the conservation side. 00:17:35:29 - 00:17:47:08 John Franklin You know, that's that's a good question. I think, I don't know, maybe, been, growing up in the 60s and 70s when so many of those things had kind of become important. 00:17:47:08 - 00:18:02:18 John Franklin You had clean air and clean water acts. And, you know, as corny as it sounds, you go back to the commercial with the Indian standing by the river with all the garbage in it. And so I don't there's part of it just, maybe grew up that way. And the fact of the farm had been in the family for a long time. 00:18:02:18 - 00:18:27:17 John Franklin Obviously, you want to do what you can to only preserve that. But, maybe even an even better, better condition than it was when you got it. I think one of the questions is, you know, maybe down, down the road there and your list of questions is what benefit do you get? And I'm not sure there's a dollar or a tangible benefit when what you're really doing is protecting the water downstream from you. 00:18:27:19 - 00:18:34:28 John Franklin So is it is it helping you or is it just kind of a belief in that you need to do what you can to help the environment in general? 00:18:34:29 - 00:18:45:13 Todd Gleason That's kind of where I was headed, with you was what your intention was in the process, I suppose, though, it, it does take money to put these in? 00:18:45:13 - 00:18:46:14 John Franklin Absolutely. 00:18:46:14 - 00:18:48:19 Todd Gleason Did you use cost share? 00:18:48:19 - 00:19:10:13 John Franklin We had a lot of help from the FSA, so there's cost sharing in there in the, in the ground that was taken out of production. Excuse me? Those, programs went into a CRP program, and there was, you know, most of that construction was paid for in the constructed wetlands. We had some areas that were bottom ground that had not been farmed. 00:19:10:15 - 00:19:26:17 John Franklin So those were not eligible for any kind of a CRP program. But there was EQIP money to help build those at the time. You know, if somebody said, will you pay for this out of your own pocket and do it? That probably would have been a kind of a hard conversation and a maybe a hard thing to justify. 00:19:26:17 - 00:19:40:15 John Franklin So you certainly, I think, need, the help of the government, particularly in a situation where it's it's, may or may not be a direct benefit to you, but more of a benefit to the environment as a whole. 00:19:40:15 - 00:19:42:22 Todd Gleason Did it change the flora, the fauna and the wildlife? 00:19:42:24 - 00:19:49:02 John Franklin I think it did. You know, I I'm, I'm not a birder, so I didn't have an inventory of every bird that had been down there. 00:19:49:02 - 00:20:17:29 John Franklin But, I think, you know, whenever you have wetlands and when we've probably put a total of 20 or. Yeah, 20 acres or so into some different wetland programs on another 50 or 60 acres into, a prairie, pollinator habitat and, there have been some species spotted there. I know there was a big Audubon convention in Springfield, and a bunch of people that were coming down from Chicago stopped at the farm to see a, migrating bird. 00:20:17:29 - 00:20:31:04 John Franklin And and I know drawing a blank which part it was, but it was something that hadn't been seen very frequently. So. And we're also starting to see some bald eagles working their way up the Mackinaw from the Illinois River. And maybe that's helped in that part of that as well. 00:20:31:05 - 00:20:33:12 Todd Gleason Anything else? 00:20:33:12 - 00:20:38:11 John Franklin No. No, we haven't haven't seen any bobcats or anything like that come up or. 00:20:38:13 - 00:20:45:22 John Franklin No, no apex predators. But, you know, there's we have too many deer, ton of deer down there, but, 00:20:45:24 - 00:20:49:09 Todd Gleason and I meant in general, anything else, but not just. 00:20:49:13 - 00:21:07:29 John Franklin Yeah. Anything else to say? No, not really, I think I again, I just think it's, the overall goal was not necessarily to do something that would make us, make money or even improve it more to learn and to help, help everybody downstream. 00:21:08:06 - 00:21:31:25 Todd Gleason John Franklin is a farmer from near Lexington, Illinois. That's along Interstate 55 to the north and west of Bloomington, not very far from him, about 40 45 minutes or so, a little bit further up the road to the north and west, there's Saunemin, and that's the home of Jim Fulton, Farmer. He also has a constructed wetland on his farm. 00:21:31:28 - 00:22:01:07 Jim Fulton We have a 690 acre farm, which is built up over the years. My great grandfather purchased the ground in 1893, and we've had five generations of Fulton's here since. I'm going to be turning 65 here in a couple in, well, next month. I started out, farming with my dad and my brother, and, and my dad had a heart attack and died. 00:22:01:07 - 00:22:28:16 Jim Fulton And, 1983 and then my brother and I took over and, and farming here ever since I. Was an ag teacher for a while and then decided that that I'd rather farm than teach. So I, I went back to farming again and, I've been on the Five Mile Creek watershed, on Vermilion Headwater steering committee. 00:22:28:19 - 00:23:03:17 Jim Fulton The school board here at the local school. I'm a township trustee and church treasurer and stewardship chairman, which I think has a lot to do with stewardship and conservation, I think go together. As far as the practices we use on the farm, we've always had beef cattle, and so we've, we've run, crop rotation with corn, beans, oats, hay and wheat, kind of getting away from the wheat and maybe going more towards and putting that money into cover crops. 00:23:03:20 - 00:23:43:08 Jim Fulton We use grass waterways. I have, two fields that, go up against Five Mile Creek. So we run the filter strips on both of those. I have a wetland restoration and CRP. We build a constructed wetland. I've put in some terraces. We use concrete block structures where the waterways enter the creeks. I've been working with cover crops the last few years, and, we do all our nitrogen application in season, we side dress 32% after we put some on, with the chemicals we do stripped till on corn and no till on beans. 00:23:43:14 - 00:23:48:01 Todd Gleason Can you tell me a bit more about the constructed wetland project on the farm? 00:23:48:03 - 00:24:14:13 Jim Fulton That came about because of being on the five or the Vermilion Headwaters, steering committee, I went to a meeting and, Jill and Jean from the Wetlands Initiative came and put on a presentation and I thought, well, that sounds kind of interesting. So I talked to them after the meeting and, they looked over my, property on the plat book and, and like I said, we have two, two fields that have the creek run by it. 00:24:14:13 - 00:24:26:28 Jim Fulton And so they came out and they looked them over and, and, determined that one of them would be better than the other. And so we just went ahead and and started working on the project. 00:24:27:02 - 00:24:30:07 Todd Gleason How long did it take to build? 00:24:30:07 - 00:24:36:27 Jim Fulton That was kind of amazing, really. They did what they called the construction and Conservation Expo. 00:24:37:00 - 00:24:44:23 Jim Fulton And so it was with the, Illinois LICA Land, the, 00:24:44:25 - 00:24:48:20 Todd Gleason The Land Improvement Contractors Association. Right. 00:24:48:22 - 00:25:01:05 Jim Fulton And so they, they got dealers to donate machinery. Most of it was new machinery. And then we had people from all over the state came in, and they built this in about five days. 00:25:01:10 - 00:25:02:23 Todd Gleason Do you know what it cost? 00:25:02:25 - 00:25:04:18 Jim Fulton I had to pay, 00:25:04:20 - 00:25:30:15 Jim Fulton I think it was about $50,000, but that was given back to me and a grant from the, wetland initiative. So my actual out of pocket costs probably was maybe 6 or $7000. And, most of that was, dirt work getting rid of the dirt that that was one thing that was kind of a surprise to me. 00:25:30:20 - 00:25:54:14 Jim Fulton How much dirt was left over. And, so that that was, it took two years, basically, to get it all moved around. I used a lot of it on my property. I had some, we put in some terraces and places and ravines that we're starting to develop. And, and so one of my neighbors, helped me do all that. 00:25:54:16 - 00:25:58:00 Jim Fulton So it. Yeah, it took about two years to get rid of the dirt pile. 00:25:58:00 - 00:26:08:08 Todd Gleason So you mentioned the wetlands and initiative and like, anyone else that helped? I mean, engineering building, plant selection in the process, those sorts of things. 00:26:08:09 - 00:26:27:23 Jim Fulton Well, we work with the NRCS University of Illinois crop science, help sponsor the Illinois Soybean Association, American Farmland Trust, Springfield Plastics, Livingston County Soil and Water Conservation District, and NRCs Illinois Sustainable AG Partnership. 00:26:27:25 - 00:26:50:24 Jim Fulton And I think that was all the different people that helped with it. Jill did, and her group did most of the work as far as permits and, and applications and all that stuff. I really didn't do much. They kind of once I gave them the go ahead, they came in and they took over. And they work directly with the NRCs. 00:26:50:27 - 00:26:53:09 Jim Fulton I would just sign saying forms. 00:26:53:11 - 00:26:55:12 Todd Gleason All well and good and easy enough. 00:26:55:13 - 00:26:55:24 Jim Fulton All right. 00:26:55:24 - 00:26:58:08 Todd Gleason Does it work? Are you seeing benefits? 00:26:58:10 - 00:27:13:28 Jim Fulton We're kind of still in the process. The waiting and see. They've got one, box at the inlet of the wetland and one at the outlet so they can measure the nitrate levels when they come in and when they can go out. 00:27:13:28 - 00:27:30:00 Jim Fulton And, a grad student from the University of Illinois is collecting the data, and that we just got that set up right at the end of summer. And so I think that process of where they're going to be able to regularly get the readouts is going to start here in the spring. 00:27:30:00 - 00:27:34:10 Todd Gleason Usually these are on fairly small watershed sizes. 00:27:34:10 - 00:27:41:15 Todd Gleason Do you know how many acres are in the total watershed and how many acres are now in the constructed wetland? 00:27:41:15 - 00:28:05:10 Jim Fulton The drainage areas for 73 acres, the total project size is 4.8 acres. The actual wetland is 1.1 acres. And then there's a buffer area of 2.4 or 5 acres. That's, it's not all planted to pollinator yet, but it will be as soon as I can get out there and get it in the ground. 00:28:05:10 - 00:28:31:12 Jim Fulton I've got. I'm ready to do that now. It's got three water control structures. My neighbor to the north of me had patterned tile, his field, and he had run a 12 inch main down to my creek. And so we put one water control structure in his 12 inch main. And then we put, I've got an eight inch that comes down my waterway and there's a water control structure in it. 00:28:31:14 - 00:28:46:16 Jim Fulton And they both feed that into the, into the wetland. And then there's a third one at the outlet that so we can control how much water is in, in the wetland at any given time by inserting or taking out boards. 00:28:46:18 - 00:28:53:24 Todd Gleason Any advice for producers, farmers, landowners that are interested in, maybe considering a constructed wetland? 00:28:53:27 - 00:29:20:28 Jim Fulton Part of the reason I wanted to do it was the wildlife habitat. Also concerned about all of the nitrogen. That's that's leaving our farmland here in Illinois and heading down to the Gulf and and, I thought maybe it was time that somebody should do something to try to to stop some of that. 00:29:21:01 - 00:29:27:27 Todd Gleason Jim Fulton, as a farmer from near Saunemin, Illinois, and has been telling us a bit about his constructed wetland. 00:29:27:29 - 00:29:46:13 Todd Gleason You've been listening to episode 33 of the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast. Are these tools in your toolbox? A constructed wetland. The program was produced in conjunction with Illinois Extension Watershed Outreach Associates Jennifer Jones and Rachel Curry. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.