Mission Monday: Regional Conservation Partnership Program

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Our mission at Golden Hills RC&D is to collaboratively develop and lead community, conservation, and cultural initiatives to improve our quality of life in rural western Iowa. Our "official" territory from our original organizational bylaws is an eight-county region in the southwestern portion of Iowa (Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, and Shelby). In 2023, we added four more counties (Audubon, Carroll, Crawford, and Monona). Several projects extend beyond these 12 counties into more than 20 counties (learn more about where we work). ​

Our goals are to develop industries in local communities that utilize local resources; ensure healthy natural resources that meet the needs of agriculture, industry, private use, and recreational facilities; promote and enhance art, culture and historic resources in rural communities; collaborate with local governments and organizations on projects that benefit the environment; and work on projects that fill gaps in community services to benefit people of southwest Iowa.

We accomplish these goals by focusing our work in five program areas: outdoor recreation and tourism, land stewardship, water resources, local foods, and arts and culture. Today's Mission Monday focus is Water Resources.

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Golden Hills received funding from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program for the West Nishnabotna Water Quality and Infrastructure Partnership. This project aims to improve water quality, increase flood resiliency, and protect local infrastructure across a 681,000-acre project area in southwestern Iowa. The project will complement similar activity on private lands in service of making the landscape more resilient in the face of increasing catastrophic flooding events. The partnership will report project outcomes through monitoring and modeling of soil and nutrient loss reductions.

Landowners within the West Nishnabotna watershed (refer to map below to see if your property is within the watershed) are eligible for cost share to implement conservation practices to improve water quality, reduce erosion, and improve flood resiliency. There are several practices available for cost share, including cover crop, terracing, streambank stabilization, and many more.

If you are interested in learning more about the West Nishnabota RCPP project, join a free virtual informational meeting this Thursday at 12:00 PM on Zoom.

If you plan to attend the meeting, please fill out this contact form.

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The HUC-12 watersheds in the map below are included in the West Nishnabota Water Quality and Infrastructure Project. If your land is located within any of these red outlined areas, you may be able to receive cost-share for conservation practices like terracing, cover crop, and more!

Golden Hills will be organizing more informational meetings in the future, as well as field days to learn about the various conservation practices that are available for cost share. Stay tuned to our social media channels for future events about the West Nishnabotna RCPP project to improve water quality and reduce erosion!

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