MONTEVIDEO -- Renewable energy dominated the discussions when three dozen people met with District 20 state legislators Wednesday in Montevideo, but there are many other environmental issues sure to be debated in the state Capitol.
Leading the issues being raised by the Minnesota Environmental Partnership is the Clean Water Legacy, dedicated funding for the outdoors, and state support for cellulosic ethanol, according to John Thuma, governmental relations for the Minnesota Environmental Partnership.
Thuma said the partnership will ask the Legislature to increase funding for the Clean Water Legacy from $25 million to $100 million per year. The law passed in 2006 provides for expanded protection and restoration of waters in the state.
The Minnesota Environmental Partnership will also renew the effort to dedicate a 0.25 percent state sales tax to funding for the outdoors.
Environmental organizations also want the state to support a large-scale project examining the feasibility of using a prairie grass mix as the cellulosic source for ethanol.
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Along with these issues, participants at the session urged the legislators to look at what Montevideo area farmer Dennis Gibson termed "productive conservation.''
He encouraged more innovation in conservation efforts, such as the possibility of allowing landowners to harvest renewable energy crops that also provide wildlife habitat and other environmental benefits. Gibson is part of the Minnesota Agri-Forestry Cooperative, which has promoted the raising of hybrid poplars as a windbreak to reduce erosion and as an energy and fiber crop to harvest.
"Landowners need to be part of the solution, not the problem,'' said Gibson.
Two producers of grass-fed beef cattle urged the legislators to consider the use of grazing to help manage some public grasslands. They also encouraged promoting grazing on "working lands'' for the wildlife habitat benefits that result along with the production of an economic good. Bev Struxness and Audrey Arner pointed out that grass pasture and forage crops offer diversity to the landscape, benefit wildlife and can improve water quality by capturing nutrients and holding soil in place.
Struxness also urged the legislators to develop state incentives to help farmers plant perennial forage crops or develop pasture along water bodies. These practices protect water quality and provide habitat, but farmers face the expense of converting croplands to provide the benefits, she said.
