Chairman Dan Klimisch of Yankton announces that the James River Water Development District awarded $256,500 in cost-sharing assistance at their recent annual Board of Directors meeting held in Pierre on Wednesday, Jan. 9.

The District awarded $157,500 for 2019 tree planting efforts within the District; allocating $15,000 to Sanborn Conservation District, Beadle Conservation District, Brown/Marshall Conservation District, South Brown Conservation District, Davison Conservation District, Hanson Conservation District, Hutchinson Conservation District, Marshall Conservation District, Spink Conservation District, Yankton Conservation District and $7,500 to Aurora Conservation District. These funds will encourage producers to plant trees to improve the environment, for example; by protecting the soil, improving water quality and to establish wildlife habitat.

The District awarded $13,500 to the United States Geological Survey South Dakota Water Science Center (USGS) for support of a real-time nitrate monitoring device on the James River near the Yankton gage.  The data collected from the nitrate monitor will allow for uses such as calculation of accurate nitrate loads, examination of trends in water-quality conditions as land-use changes evolve, predictive capabilities for downstream water-quality (downstream river intakes), and calibration of contaminant transport models.  Results will be available on-line during the monitoring period. 

The District committed $50,000 to improve water quality within the James River watershed through the Enhanced CRP Program available now for a number of USDA Continuous CRP practices.  The JRWDD Enhanced CRP program consists of a one-time, up-front, 75 percent incentive payment of the CRP base-rate in addition to the producers regular CRP payment for the following practices; CP8A – Grass Waterways, CP21 – Filter Strips, CP22 – Riparian Buffer, CP29 – Marginal Pastureland Wildlife Habitat Buffer and CP30 – Marginal Pastureland Wetland Buffer. ​

The District committed $35,500 to the South Central Implementation Project which is sponsored by the District.  These funds will allow the South Central Implementation Project to continue to work with private landowners and operators to implement Best Management Practices to improve surface water qualities in South Dakota. 

In other business, the Board appointed Mike Wiese of Aberdeen to serve as the Director for Area 1 (representing Aberdeen voting districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7) until Dec. 31, 2022.  The Board re-elected Dan Klimisch of Yankton to serve as chairman, re-elected Randy Stanley of Groton to serve as vice-chairman and re-elected Robert Braun of Aberdeen to serve as secretary. Frank Amundson of Huron will continue as the District’s treasurer.

For further information, contact the James River Water Development District office in Huron at 352-0600 or visit the website at www.jrwdd.com.