Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 20 | Wetlands - live from the Farm Progress Show
Transcript
- Episode 20 | Wetlands - live from the Farm Progress Show 00:00:06:11 - 00:00:30:01 Todd Gleason This is the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy podcast. Episode number 20: Wetlands. I’m University of Illinois extension’s Todd Gleason. Our panelists today include Jill Kostel. She's the senior environmental engineer at the Wetlands Initiative and Kurt Hansen. He is an environmental resource specialist at Christopher B Burke Engineering. Both are out of Chicago. Thanks for being with us. Jill, let's start with you. 00:00:30:02 - 00:00:33:02 Todd Gleason Can you tell me just a little bit about yourself? 00:00:33:05 - 00:00:42:16 Jill Kostel Yes. I'm the senior environmental engineer at the Wetlands Initiative, have been there for about 15 years working on wetland design and now working with farmers on constructed wetlands. 00:00:42:18 - 00:00:44:06 Todd Gleason And Kurt? 00:00:44:06 - 00:00:57:12 Kurt Hansen So I am an environmental resource specialist or a field scientist with Christopher Burke Engineering. We're based out of Chicago, as you said, but we work all throughout the Midwest, working both with, everything from really urban areas to really rural, rural areas. 00:00:57:14 - 00:01:02:13 Kurt Hansen And, I do wetland delineation, tree planting, animal surveys and everything in between. 00:01:02:20 - 00:01:10:10 Todd Gleason What does your day look like? Actually, both of you, I want to know what you do for a living day in and day out. What? What happens in your life? 00:01:10:13 - 00:01:18:07 Jill Kostel Well, usually we're looking at sites. It could be for constructed wetland or a restored wetland, but doing a lot of, offsite and onsite assessments. 00:01:18:07 - 00:01:38:24 Jill Kostel So we walk the land similar to what Kurt does here, but we usually start with an off site assessment looking at using GIS data, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, trying to assess where is the best place to put a wetland, and what are the kind of the hydrology and looking at things like that. So unfortunately, unlike Kurt, I spend a lot more time in the office than I care to. 00:01:38:27 - 00:01:42:06 Jill Kostel But then we have the opportunity to go out and do the onsite assessments. 00:01:42:08 - 00:01:56:11 Kurt Hansen And I'm the lucky one because one of our clients is the Wetlands Initiative, and we get to go out and I wake up every morning and I check the rain gauges from Springfield all the way up to the tippy top of Illinois right before we hit Wisconsin. 00:01:56:14 - 00:02:05:11 Kurt Hansen And I decide where I have to go to the day based on how much rain came down, and then what our clients want us to go check out. So I hop in my truck, put on my pair of muck boots, and get to work. 00:02:05:14 - 00:02:07:28 Todd Gleason So what, you're checking gauges for what? 00:02:07:28 - 00:02:28:28 Kurt Hansen Rainfall. So a lot. Checking a lot of where our job kicks in is we're dealing with, what happens after it rains, whether it's, we're dealing with, where a farmer might be worried about runoff from their farm and what's actually in that water to if you're dealing with construction, if you have, what's called an NPDS permit and you have any sediment 00:02:28:28 - 00:02:31:04 Kurt Hansen leaving your site, we have to go and track that to. 00:02:31:07 - 00:02:34:08 Todd Gleason Can you tell me what a smart wetland is? 00:02:34:10 - 00:02:57:13 Jill Kostel Yeah, that's just a program within the Wetlands Initiative. The Wetlands initiative restores the wetlands of the Midwest for its benefits, water quality improvement, increased wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and increased flood storage. But within that, we have the Smart Wetlands program, and that is specifically geared towards agriculture and working with farmers for these small, precisely designed, constructed wetlands. 00:02:57:13 - 00:03:18:18 Jill Kostel So we kind of play a play on the typical acronym of SMART: specific, measurable, aligned, relevant. Except we don't do Time bound. We're timeless in a way in terms of a wetland works, but also because of the technology that we're using not only to help us design the wetlands, but also how we're monitoring these wetlands for their water quality improvement. 00:03:18:20 - 00:03:21:16 Todd Gleason Do they work very well for nutrient loss reduction? 00:03:21:20 - 00:03:26:21 Jill Kostel Yes. They're one of the best and most cost effective and efficient practices out there for tile drainage. 00:03:26:27 - 00:03:28:07 Todd Gleason How does that happen? 00:03:28:10 - 00:03:36:26 Kurt Hansen So part of what you're seeing is if you're looking at like a bioreactor, a lot of times you're bringing in something to try to trap all those nutrients and keep them from going somewhere else. 00:03:36:26 - 00:03:48:29 Kurt Hansen You have to go in, maintain it, keep on replacing that material. If we're putting in a wetland, we're actually using the plants that are growing in that wetland to help store that material and lock it all up so it's not leaving your site. 00:03:49:01 - 00:03:53:05 Todd Gleason Have you done work on sizing wetlands and what that means? 00:03:53:08 - 00:03:54:26 Jill Kostel Yeah, just for the constructed wetland. 00:03:54:27 - 00:04:14:13 Jill Kostel We're talking about tile drainage treatment. We don't necessarily want the surface water, but when we size it, we use kind of the rule of thumb that you want to be a 1% of your drainage area. And so that's a good indicator of hydraulic resident time or how long the water will be residing in that wetland to allow this natural processing to occur, which is really microbial driven. 00:04:14:15 - 00:04:24:25 Jill Kostel We want those denitrifying bacteria to take the nitrate and convert it into nitrogen gas. And those microbes are already in there. We're just trying to work with them and optimize that process. 00:04:24:26 - 00:04:28:16 Todd Gleason Are you able to dump tiled land right into a wetland? 00:04:28:21 - 00:04:33:03 Jill Kostel Yep. Yes we can. So the idea is we're routing in the tile to the wetland. 00:04:33:06 - 00:04:37:02 Jill Kostel The water will just flow through that wetland and then outlet back to where it was originally. 00:04:37:06 - 00:04:46:26 Todd Gleason On that note, producers are going to want to know, is this thing going to back up my tiles and is it going to keep my farm field wet, and is there a way to avoid that? 00:04:46:28 - 00:04:58:07 Jill Kostel Well, that's why we work with these professional engineers at Christopher Burke Engineering, because we do a lot of modeling to ensure that because we do not want that to happen, this is supposed to be an improvement to the land and asset to their land. 00:04:58:07 - 00:05:00:27 Jill Kostel And we just want to make sure that we do not impact farming. 00:05:01:03 - 00:05:10:07 Todd Gleason Yes. So how do you do that? Do you do that with, mechanically by putting a weir in the wetland or what happens? 00:05:10:09 - 00:05:20:19 Jill Kostel So how do we control the water level in the wetland is through a water control structure, your typical water control structure. But one of the design criteria is what we call our normal water level in the wetland. 00:05:20:19 - 00:05:35:29 Jill Kostel That has to be below the flow line of the tile. You do not want that water being over the tile, it has to be under. So these are really shallow wetlands, you can think of as a shallow pond. We're only having 12 to 18in of water in there. And that's kind of the perfect conditions to remove nitrate. 00:05:36:01 - 00:05:37:21 Todd Gleason Where does a wetland work? 00:05:37:21 - 00:05:41:29 Todd Gleason What conditions should a farmer look for on his fields that make it work? 00:05:42:00 - 00:05:56:23 Kurt Hansen And the really big thing that is brought out multiple times is we're really looking for where we already have a either existing or you're putting in a tile drainage system and you're attaching these to your tile drainage system, and then obviously then you want somewhere at the end for them that water to be able to leave. 00:05:56:29 - 00:06:19:13 Jill Kostel And we kind of work with the farmers just to emphasize we don't want their most profitable ground. That's not we were looking at those areas that are maybe low revenue, no revenue lands, not profitable or hard to farm areas. You know, with today's equipment, it's hard to get in those tight corners sometimes or those weird little angles. And we can help kind of straighten out that area so we can kind of we custom design these with the landowner. 00:06:19:15 - 00:06:28:03 Jill Kostel Our job is to kind of make sure it hits the standards to ensure we have this nutrient, removal. But we work with them and every one of them is different. 00:06:28:06 - 00:06:31:11 Todd Gleason What kind of investment does it take? 00:06:31:14 - 00:06:40:15 Jill Kostel It is a capital capital expense to put it in a wetland. But because it's a long life practice that it's a very cost effective practice. 00:06:40:17 - 00:07:05:14 Jill Kostel So thanks to farm bill financial assistance programs, that kind of helps, address some of that, that implementation costs, the wetlands initiative, we provide free technical assistance with the design. We work with our partners at NRCS and soil and water conservation districts with us. And then if they're interested in conservation reserve program or the environmental Quality Incentive program, we will help them through that process and that will help with the cost. 00:07:05:20 - 00:07:29:08 Kurt Hansen And in that process, what you have to think about, too, when you're investing in one of these SMART wetlands, not only are you increasing the capital you have in your nutrient reduction system, but you're also getting some of these additional benefits that come in with the plants, animals, the beautification. And it's like we're talking about your reduction of any of that nutrient that would be leaving your site all kind of bundled into one. 00:07:29:08 - 00:07:34:20 Todd Gleason So I have two questions following up in that. First, is it permanent? 00:07:34:22 - 00:07:36:29 Kurt Hansen It does not have to be permanent. No. 00:07:37:01 - 00:07:44:13 Todd Gleason And the additional benefits, what kind of really nail that down for and what what kinds of things. 00:07:44:13 - 00:07:53:08 Kurt Hansen So some of the benefits that I can speak to personally and that I deal with every day is you're going to deal with you can have a lot more of the pollinator plants, pollinator species hanging out. 00:07:53:08 - 00:08:15:25 Kurt Hansen So if you have children, grandchildren, family members that like spending time in nature, that's something that you're now adding to this portion of your property. It's doing something physically capital wise for your farm, while also being something that is aesthetically pleasing. On top of that, you're getting, more of those pollinators to come through. If you like watching birds, you're going to have a lot more birds that are passing through your site. 00:08:15:28 - 00:08:23:01 Todd Gleason We're talking about you could have, deer that are hanging out in this area. Pheasants, hunting can get involved in that as well. 00:08:23:02 - 00:08:27:09 Todd Gleason Wait, you mean I can choose the kinds of plants that I want in my wetland? 00:08:27:11 - 00:08:36:12 Kurt Hansen Yes, you can. And the nice thing about wetlands, too, is, as you get closer and further away from this wetland, you're dealing with different amounts of water that are in your soil. 00:08:36:14 - 00:08:40:16 Kurt Hansen And, you get you can do a very broad diversity of plants. 00:08:40:18 - 00:08:59:09 Jill Kostel And a lot of our if you do it through, a federal assistance program when the nice thing is, is there's a buffer around it. And every one of our farmers so far have, elected to do pollinator habitat, but they can do grasses. They can do other things to, to kind of protect that wetland, from the farm ground. 00:08:59:09 - 00:09:14:27 Jill Kostel But these are artificial systems, so they're not regulated. So they're not like a typical, say, restored or enhanced wetland. So that's why we say they're not permanent, because after 15 years of the program, if you want to, you can sell it back in. So 00:09:14:29 - 00:09:18:27 Todd Gleason Tell me more about the cost share and what's available. 00:09:19:00 - 00:09:30:00 Jill Kostel So through the Conservation Reserve program you get your soil rental rate as well as assistance in terms of the implementation cost, the construction cost, the seeding cost, the planting cost. 00:09:30:07 - 00:09:41:15 Jill Kostel And through similar through the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, you'll get, court financial assistance or rate payment for the various practices associated with implementing a constructed wetland. 00:09:41:17 - 00:09:43:24 Todd Gleason What's the construction process like? 00:09:43:27 - 00:09:47:00 Kurt Hansen I'll let you start off with that one. Then I had some tidbits in. 00:09:47:02 - 00:09:51:13 Jill Kostel Yes, we've been outside for quite a few, so essentially building a shallow pond. 00:09:51:13 - 00:10:09:19 Jill Kostel So it is excavation. So that's the predominant cost is about 95%. Is moving the earth, building this shallow pond system, one of the key aspects of a constructed wetland is that we want this clay liner. We want to make sure we're keeping the water in the wetland. And luckily, we have nice clay out there in a lot of our regions. 00:10:09:22 - 00:10:23:28 Jill Kostel And so we're able to use that. And then we the topsoil that we have scraped off is kind of stockpiled out to the side. We dig out the material we don't want pile that, and then we pull that topsoil back in. And that serves as our growth medium for this wetland vegetation. 00:10:24:01 - 00:10:33:29 Kurt Hansen And that's where I wanted to kick back in after you, mentioned the actual phasing in that it really does come down to timing, too, if you're talking about how quickly it takes to get these things online. 00:10:34:02 - 00:10:48:27 Kurt Hansen If it's just like with any other aspect of farming, if you hit a wet spell, if you hit a dry spell, that can all affect your timeline here. So if you look at the last couple of weeks that we've had, we've had a good amount of rain every couple days and then days of dry and lots of sun. 00:10:49:04 - 00:11:01:06 Kurt Hansen It's a great time right now to put one together. We're at the end of the dry season, and you're still getting plenty of sunshine and still good end of the growing season. It's a good time of year to get one of these built and finished up. 00:11:01:09 - 00:11:07:15 Todd Gleason So. So a couple of points of clarification. You prefer this on tile land because we're doing a constructed wetland. 00:11:07:17 - 00:11:18:14 Todd Gleason The tiles dump into the wetland, but it's not really a filtration system in the way that we think of filtering through the soil and the rocks. It is the plant that is 00:11:18:17 - 00:11:19:16 Kurt Hansen And the microbes. 00:11:19:19 - 00:11:21:16 Todd Gleason And the microbes that are doing the filtering. 00:11:21:16 - 00:11:29:25 Jill Kostel Yeah, it's a very key, is a kind of a combination. The microbes are breathing in that nitrate is denitrifying bacteria that are already in there, breathing in that nitrate. 00:11:30:02 - 00:11:45:03 Jill Kostel But they need an energy source and that's carbon. So in a denitrifying bioreactor, we think of woodchips as our carbon source. When a wetland is the plants are providing the carbon. So they're providing the environment for these bacteria to flourish and be successful in transforming. 00:11:45:09 - 00:11:47:23 Todd Gleason So essentially they're using this as fuel. 00:11:47:23 - 00:11:48:11 Jill Kostel Yes. 00:11:48:11 - 00:11:53:09 Todd Gleason And they expend the fuel in the process of creating the plant. 00:11:53:09 - 00:12:03:15 Jill Kostel Right. And the plants temporarily take up the nutrients as well. But unfortunately the plants do die off into the fall, and they're actually putting that carbon layer down for the microbes for the next year. Yeah. 00:12:03:17 - 00:12:07:20 Todd Gleason Thank you both so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. 00:12:07:23 - 00:12:08:14 Kurt Hansen Thanks for having us. 00:12:08:19 - 00:12:15:04 Todd Gleason That's Kurt Hansen, he is an environmental resource specialist at Christopher B Burke Engineering out of Chicago, Illinois. 00:12:15:04 - 00:12:24:23 Todd Gleason And Jill Kostel, she's the senior environmental engineer at the Wetlands Initiative, also in Chicago. I'm U of I extension’s Todd Gleason.