The Water Table

#139 | Right Place, Right Time; Conservation Hitting The Mark

• Jamie Duininck • Episode 139

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Who can help with funding water quality practices on your land? Guest Host Trey Allis sits down with Rita Weaver, Chief Engineer at the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources (BWSR), to discuss soil health, water management practices, and water-quality programs happening throughout the state. They break down specific projects, funding, and tools helping producers take on water and soil challenges. Learn how opportunities with conservation — adding practices in the right place at the right time  — are making an impact. 

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:33 - Welcome to The Water Table podcast
00:40 - Introducing Rita Weaver
01:57 - Chief Engineer Role at BWSR
03:05 - Agency Impact on Water Quality
03:52 - Major Projects and Funding (Where’s The Money Going) 
05:05 - Opportunities With Improvement Projects  
08:15 - Larger Scale Conservation Practices and Improvements
08:51 - BWSR Water Quality and Storage Program 
09:46 - Funding: Grant Application Process 
10:52 - Future Funding: How Far Will Funding Go
13:35 - Storage Practice End Goal 
14:45 - What Does Soil Health Mean To You
17:02 - The Effect of Too Much Water, Too Little Water
18:00 - Water Quality Issues and Solutions
22:20 - How Flooding Affects High Benefitting Areas 
24:09 - Did You Always Want To Work For BWSR
27:07 - Thank You Rita 
27:30 - How To Contact BWSR
27:50 - Wrap-up

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Rita Weaver (00:00):

If the state is able to come in and pay for one of those storage systems, it can decrease the cost of the overall improvement. I will say, I think the end goal and the final solution is going to be the soil health work that we can do on the farms, and also that drainage water management to have access to that water throughout the year. All of that works together to keeping that water in the soil. But in the interim, since we're not there yet, these storage practices are really going to help.

Trey Allis (00:37):

Welcome back to The Water Table. Today, we're joined by Rita Weaver, the chief engineer for the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.

Rita Weaver (00:47):

Correct.

Trey Allis (00:47):

That's correct? Great. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, Rita.

Rita Weaver (00:49):

Yeah, happy to be here.

Trey Allis (00:50):

First question, again, I always struggle going through Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources, and there's also the Soil & Water Conservation Districts and things like that. What's the right way? What's soil and water versus water and soil? Why is BWSR different, just for the acronym BWSR?

Rita Weaver (01:07):

That's a good question. I don't know why they're different. Yeah, we're obviously the state agency, and then the Soil & Water Conservation Districts are all local agencies, but I don't know if they specifically set that up for a certain reason.

Trey Allis (01:23):

No, that's just something that I always stumble over whenever I talk through some of that stuff, but anyway, sorry. Thanks for coming on The Water Table, and today, get into some of the stuff that is going on at BWSR, some of the programs that you're working with and some of the presentations, some of the education outreach things that are going on and educate some of our audience on some opportunities with soil and water conservation within the state.

(01:51):

First off, you want to introduce ... give a little background on yourself and your role as chief engineer with BWSR.

Rita Weaver (01:58):

Sure. I've been an engineer for over 20 years now, and I started out in consulting, but then felt the call to state service, ooh, probably 11 years ago, 12 years ago. I worked for the DNR for about five years and then found a position with BWSR and took that, and I love it. I grew up on a farm, so being closer to the needs of our producers and farmers just is very close to me, very dear to me.

(02:29):

And my role at BWSR, I am the chief engineer and I'm also the engineering section manager. I manage staff that do wetland restorations. On our perpetual easements that the state takes on, we design the wetlands for those, and then we have staff that oversee the construction of those sites too. We also have a training component. We teach our partners how to design and construct different engineering practices throughout the state too. We have staff that do that.

Trey Allis (02:59):

Sure. I guess maybe take a little step back in BWSR, and what is BWSR's role with within the state and some of the waters and some of the programs that is going on?

Rita Weaver (03:09):

Sure. Well, a big part of what we do is we receive money from the legislature, specific appropriations for conservation work. We're a pass-through agency. The majority of the funding that BWSR gets goes out to our local partners so that they can do good work, that they can do conservation projects, that they can do water quality projects, things like that. That's probably the majority of what BWSR does

Trey Allis (03:34):

And the whole approach on clean waters and environmental impacts on all this stuff too, and specifically, does most of that work surrounding drainage or do you get involved with some other maybe more economic practices? What are some of the projects that those dollars go to?

Rita Weaver (03:57):

I would summarize it most as on private property. We do a lot of projects on private property. Again, it's our producers that we're doing projects on. Whether or not it's drainage, some on drainage, some not. We're definitely looking for ways to help drainage systems, improve water quality, implement little conservation practices that aren't going to affect their capacity, but will still just improve how they function a little bit better. But, yeah, we do both drainage and non-drainage areas within the state

Trey Allis (04:34):

Sure. And maybe digging into some of those projects. We've had guests on a handful of times, some engineers that are designing some drainage infrastructure improvements or repairs and things like that. I know there's programs, and again, some of those dollars are available for storage ponds and different water treatment conservation practices on those landscapes. But maybe walk through, what does a typical, say, county main replacement or improvement project look like, or what are some of the opportunities for the programs that BWSR has?

Rita Weaver (05:09):

Sure. Typically, how it would work is there would be an engineer already working with the drainage authority or the folks that live on the drainage system looking for ways to do the improvement. Determining how much they need to increase capacity, whether it's just a repair issue, they would work through that part of it. And then, in addition to that work that's getting done, BWSR has grants that allows the drainage authority to go above and beyond just your typical improvement, just your typical repair. The engineer will typically look for places that maybe storage makes sense, so if we put in storage here, we can reduce the peak flows allowing for more capacity in the drainage system. They'll take a look and try to find those locations for those conservation practices. And then BWSR's grants can then be used to pay for those storage systems, so that way, the producers aren't taking that on because the drainage authority is the one that helps the drainage system function and oversees it, but the folks that live on the drainage system are the ones that have to pay for everything.

(06:17):

If the state is able to come in and pay for one of those storage systems, it can decrease the cost of the overall improvement. It can lead to less repairs further down the road. That's where the state can come in, put in a storage pond, a wetland restoration, a series of WASCOBs. Those are the types of practices that we've been paying for with our Water Quality and Storage Grant that we have been somewhat pushing to put on drainage systems because we know that's where work is already getting done, and it's something, again, that can help further downstream with clean water and, yeah, better capacity on the systems

Trey Allis (06:54):

For sure. And that's something that we're obviously really passionate about here at Prinsco is, hey, we understand that we need to have, I guess, better infrastructure out there. Some of the drainage mains and some of that infrastructure is crumbling. It is essentially a liability that's out there on the landscape and needs to be replaced, and in cases, improved for the needs of production and culture. Now, that obviously can have some drawbacks with downstream flows or water quality and things like that, and that's where these practices are starting to take off and why it makes sense for where they're getting put in place.

(07:32):

And you mentioned that even comes with some cost savings sometimes, where if you are essentially just dig a hole and have a storage pond reduce some of the peak flow that goes downstream, you can get by with either, say, a smaller pipe, since you need less flow further downstream in that project. Or same thing with, say, ditch repairs or other infrastructure improvements from an open ditch standpoint, too, is if we can take a look at where these practices make the most sense further up in the landscape, then have that improvement for everything downstream, but then also have the benefits that we need for some of that production in the acres or in that watershed upstream as well.

(08:11):

Is that essentially the gist of it, of what some of those conservation practices look like on some of those larger scales?

Rita Weaver (08:18):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And even more so than an improvement, I am hoping that we can look at a lot of these systems and say it doesn't even need an improvement, it can get by with a repair, which means less legal issues that the producers have to go through to try to make sure that their project can go through. And then, again, we're getting that storage back on the landscape to help the whole system.

Trey Allis (08:39):

Yeah, for sure. And so we mentioned, I guess, some of the conservation drainage practice type things. Are some of the main ones the storage ponds and wetlands, and where are you seeing most of those go as far as within the state? Is it mostly Minnesota River Watershed, is that where a lot of the work's going?

Rita Weaver (08:58):

For the water quality and storage program, right in the appropriation that we got from the legislature, we need to prioritize the Minnesota River Basin and then the Lower Mississippi River Basin in Minnesota. That is where most of the projects are going. Applicants that are in those areas automatically get 10 more points. Typically rise to the top for who's being funded. We have funded projects outside of that area, but of the last two rounds we've had, I believe all of the storage ponds, wetland restorations, have been on a drainage system in the Minnesota River Basin. It's been really successful in that area of the state, and we're really starting to move forward with it, which is exciting.

Trey Allis (09:40):

Sure. And there's application process for all of this stuff too, and in getting those dollars out, what does that look like?

Rita Weaver (09:50):

All of BWSR's grants that are competitive, we put out a request for proposal and then folks can go online and see those. And our board conservationists are talking to most of our partners, so they're up to speed on the different grants that they can go for. And then there's just really an end application date. The Water Quality and Storage Program will be opening, excuse me, on October 30th and will close December 23rd. During that time period, folks just need to go in, answer a series of questions, talk about what their project is going to look like, and then upload that information onto our site. And then we have a scoring team that goes through and then they score, and it's all open and honest, everyone knows how many points are going to which question, and we go through and score the projects, and the higher scoring projects, we fund.

Trey Allis (10:39):

Cool. I assume that there's some [inaudible 00:10:45] that was set aside for a lot of these projects here over the last handful of years. Is that continuously funded for these programs or some of this stuff, or what does that look like here if we're looking future?

Rita Weaver (10:55):

We have gotten $19 million from the legislature so far for that specific program. We have about $9 million left. This application period that's going to be opening up will be for $4.5 million. After that, we'll have one more, that'll be the 4.5 million, and then we don't have future funding, and it's just the state of how things are with funds right now with the state. We're trying to find more funding. Once the federal government opens up their RCPP grant again, we'll apply and hopefully get some matching funds from them. I've looked to LCCMR for funds.

(11:34):

We're trying. We're trying to get more funds to keep this program going, because I really see this as the solution to fixing our water quality issues, our flow issues, but still allowing our producers to have drainage, the drainage that they need. It's really this middle ground and I think we can really get there, and storage is really the way to do that. I'm hoping that we're going to be able to keep this program going and successful.

Trey Allis (12:00):

Yeah, for sure. And that's what I was get into as well, is what do some of these successes look like and what is going to be that balance here moving forward? Just earlier today, for full disclosure to, I guess, the audience, we're recording a couple of these here, these podcasts here, in a day and talking with some folks from Agri Drain to talk about water storage within the soil profile as well.

(12:23):

And that's something that I think is underutilized or underappreciated with being able to store more water. But the systems are essentially doing the same thing, which are the same theory or, I guess, same outcomes for bigger public drainage systems against stormwater, more surface water, versus in the ground, but having that balance of, hey, we can manage what we can do in the field, but then, once it does get into our drainage systems, is hey, then there's another step that we can, agree on, slow that down more, treat it, store that peak flow, leach in and evaporate all the other stuff that's going on there with it too before it goes down, continues to go down the stream, because we know we have some of those issues of water quality and quantity issues of water moving downstream, and there's all these tools in the toolbox for what we can do further upstream.

(13:15):

And it's fun to talk about, again, what we can do, say, on an individual farm level, but then also having some access to some of these programs at more larger scale, more watershed scale, for essentially tackling the same issue on different scales that also could be on the same landscape as well.

Rita Weaver (13:33):

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say, I think the end goal and the final solution is going to be the soil health work that we can do on the farms and also that drainage water management. The tough thing with that is we're slowly, very slowly, increasing how much we're doing that in the state. And if I could snap my fingers and make it happen, that, I think, would be the final solution for what we really need. But in the interim, since we're not there yet, these storage practices are really going to help, I don't want to say put a bandaid on it, because either way the storage is going to be a good thing, but yeah, I think that we really need to look at both types of practices, and as much as we can keep pushing that soil health, keep pushing that drainage water management, because the more areas we can put that in this stage is the better off we're going to be in the end.

Trey Allis (14:24):

Yeah. And you mentioned a couple times, with soil health and the relationship with water, and I guess, admittedly, I don't have, I guess, a ton of experience, and I think that's maybe something more in general within, say, your culture is soil health. Well, what is it? It's just healthier soil. But I guess maybe to you, soil health, when we talk about it in terms of water management and sustainability on that side of things, what does that mean to you?

Rita Weaver (14:51):

Well, any time we can keep more water on the landscape. When we have healthier soils and more organics in our soils, it's going to hold onto that water more. It's going to create an environment where we can keep that water in the soil there. And so when we're doing things like putting on cover crops or no-till, any of those practices are good soil health practices. And then you add that to the drainage water management, where we're essentially putting on a gate on the end and then holding water back in our tile and still allowing that soil to have access to that water throughout the year, all of that works together to keeping that water in the soil. That's, yeah, like I said, the magic solution.

Trey Allis (15:34):

Yep, yep. Being able to have some that likes to hang on to water and then, yeah, stopping the excess water that is going to be moving off as well. Yeah. Again, that's maybe not a shift in approach, but different perspective on a lot of things. We've seen a lot more investments in, say, the cover crops than the no-till, and what are the, I guess, easy things as well? It's easy to see. You can see things on the landscape that are doing it. We know it has those benefits for soil health and for everything else that goes along with it. Where some of our projects, and I guess essentially all of our pipe, from Prinsco's perspective is, hey, it's buried in the ground and it's there and we forget about it. Whether it's doing cool things like drainage water management or saturated buffers or things like that, it's underappreciated because you don't see it.

(16:23):

But it is cool to see the wetlands and the storage ponds and things like that on these other infrastructure projects that are, again, all doing the same thing, but you get to be able to show them off a little bit more to see if they're working and how well they're working.

Rita Weaver (16:40):

Yeah, that's true.

Trey Allis (16:42):

Question for you, for some of the issues that we continue to talk about here on The Water Table is water quality issues and water quantity issues. And we can, I guess, talk about that in terms of on the landscape of, hey, what happens in a drought when we don't have enough water and there's not enough for plant growth, but specifically, when we're talking of it in excess, essentially too much water and too high of nutrients, how do some of those issues manifest themselves in Minnesota, I guess, in any river or any watershed?

Rita Weaver (17:13):

Well, I'll argue that there are people way smarter than me trying to figure out what the exact problem is. But we are experiencing more intense events. More intense events is going to really lead to folks wanting to put in more tile. More tile is going to mean more water discharging downstream, and it's just a cycle. Again, there's research papers out there that argue that, I'm not going to say what's right or wrong, but it's a problem that we know a solution to. Putting in storage, doing the soil health things, drainage water management, that's a solution to these excess volumes.

(17:55):

And if you wanted me to talk a little bit about the issues that it causes, so we do have the excess volumes and peak flow rates that are coming through the systems, and our ditch systems aren't designed to handle what's coming through. It can result in erosion. And once you start losing the vegetation, once you start getting that erosion, you're taking a ton of sediment downstream with you. It's just going to continue to be an issue. Whether that's an issue of an under-designed system, it's an issue of just too large of a storm event,, that we're getting these more intense events now it's just going to lead to water quality issues downstream and taking a lot of sediment downstream.

(18:32):

And the Minnesota River Basin just has very erosive soils, so it's really prone to pulling all that sediment downstream, talk about the sediment issues in Lake Pepin, and then the Lower Minnesota River Watershed District has to continue to do dredging so that folks can get through the river at the outlet of their watershed. It just causes really big issues downstream with excess flows, so whatever the reason that they're there.

Trey Allis (19:00):

Yep. Yeah. And that was something interesting that I guess I learned in some research paper, I'm sure, I don't have the exact numbers with it, but when you're talking about specifically the sediment issues that do come from higher flows when we don't have the essentially proper ditch banks is we have more water going through there. Again, whether it's from excess rain events or more intensity and all this other stuff or all these other contributing factors that are out there is that's where essentially most of the sediment, and again, maybe you have the numbers for percent of sediment comes from what we think of, hey, erosion in your crop field. And yeah, there is some, but I believe the majority, and it might be significant majority, is coming from those ditch banks.

Rita Weaver (19:42):

There was a study done on the Le Sueur River and it showed that it was near bank erosion, which is essentially on those ditch banks that are eroding. Beyond that, I can't really say if it's mostly coming from the fields. Of course, you have open tile and tanks, things like that, you're going to draw sediment down into them. But there have been studies that have shown it's that near bank erosion that's the issue in bringing the most sediment downstream.

Trey Allis (20:06):

Yep. And that's what I heard is, yeah, it might be a little bit one year, might be a little bit one year, but then when you have these events, then things start sloughing off. And I've noticed that in some of the drainage ditches around home and where we farm and stuff like that is, yep, you can definitely tell when it's bad, essentially.

Rita Weaver (20:26):

And I'll add, that's for sure when you can tell it's bad after there's been a big storm event, you can see some of that, but creeks, if you're changing even the sustained flows in them, that can also be an issue. There are ways we can design to help them recover or be able to function better with the flows that they have. That's just something else that we should be looking at that, honestly, BWSR's not taking on yet, so maybe the next step. But, yeah, I don't know if you've heard the term two-stage ditches and things like that. There are other things that we can do, too, to work with the different flows we're getting, but it's not just the high flows. If we're changing that bank flow, or even those base flows, it can also bring sediment downstream and cause damage too.

Trey Allis (21:15):

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, again, different tools in the toolbox for addressing a lot of this stuff, like you said, whether it's from everything that we mentioned so far, but, yeah, even with open ditches, we can look at designing those things a little bit different too. And I know there's programs, maybe not exactly through BWSR and necessarily within Minnesota, but I know that there's been a lot of other projects implementing some of those ditch designs and having a lot of success with that too. Obviously, I think the best way that I had it explained to me is, yep, it's going to take a little bit wider floodplain, a little bit wider ditch, but some of the landowners are saying, "Well, we're losing that much of the ditch anyway if it's not set up to be structurally stable," essentially.

Rita Weaver (21:59):

Exactly. Yep, yep. Yep. And I'll add on to that too. It's a good point. It makes me think about the locations that we're looking for these storage areas too. A lot of times, we'll be looking for these areas that aren't producing really well that are right along the ditch channels and possibly even areas where they're paying a lot because they're really high-benefiting areas, yet they're still flooding a lot. The farmers aren't able to make a lot of money on them, but they're paying really high assessments on them because they're drainage is so-

Trey Allis (22:31):

[inaudible 00:22:31] valuable.

Rita Weaver (22:31):

Yes. And that's one area I'm encouraging our partners, start here, talk to the farmers that have these really high-benefiting areas, but they may not be producing that well. Maybe they'll be willing to put storage on these too. I think that's really a key to finding good locations.

Trey Allis (22:48):

Yeah, And that's, again, where that balance is found a lot. And again, we can get into discussions and arguments, I'm sure, on preserving natural areas and, yep, having things where essentially nature is telling us where they want the wetlands or the storage areas, things like that. Yep, definitely get it. There's also areas where we can have that balance of, yep, we can put in the storage on where it makes most sense from a operation standpoint, from a farming standpoint, as well as from a water standpoint, and be able to engineer them to make them work the way that they're designed to as well.

(23:23):

And that's, yeah, one of the good things about having this podcast and being able to be involved with this is being able to talk to people and have these discussions and have this dialogue on, hey, let's look at things a little bit differently. And that's something that is continuously getting me motivated to be in this industry, having those conversations. And there is a lot of work ahead of us on a lot of management, on a lot of storage, on sustainable impacts, on a lot of this stuff, but there's a lot of opportunity out there for looking at things a little bit differently and continuing to look at and tackle these problems in different ways, creative ways, or maybe the tried-and-true ways sometimes too, just, yep, hey, plug-and-play with what you got, and that might be the solution for that problem.

(24:13):

Rita, chief engineer with BWSE, is that what you always wanted do or what you got into the industry for, or how did it all start for you?

Rita Weaver (24:22):

No. I actually always wanted to be a pilot, and not just any pilot. I wanted to fly C-5s in the Air Force. Every goal was towards I'm going to fly C-5s in the Air Force.

Trey Allis (24:34):

Where did that start?

Rita Weaver (24:36):

I don't know. I wanted to be in the military, I knew, and I just thought being a pilot would be really cool, and I wanted to serve my country. And then I went to an air show and I saw a C-5, and if you're not familiar with C-5s, C-5s are the planes that fly other planes around. These are the massive planes that ... yeah. I was at ROTC my freshman year of college and went home over Christmas break and had an asthma attack washing my dog. I had a really severe allergic reaction, and that was it. I couldn't be a pilot anymore. I fumbled around for a while, wasn't really sure what I should major in, because again, since I was probably in sixth or seventh grade, C-5s for the Air Force.

(25:24):

I finally found out that, if I got a degree in civil engineering, that would be the quickest way I could graduate. I said, "Okay, I'll just do this, because I don't know what else to do." And I have to say, fortunately, I really liked it, I really liked the classes, and I got hired by a consulting firm. I worked for Barr Engineering for a number of years. And it was an amazing experience. I just started to love what I did. I always say water resources is as much of an art as it is a science.

(25:57):

I had opportunities to do a lot of different types of work while in consulting, and then I felt the call to state service. Then I worked for the DNR for a number of years, mostly on floodplain work. And then, when the job opened up at the Board of Water & Soil Resources, it really intrigued me because I knew they worked more with farmers and people around the state, and I grew up on a farm too, so I really felt like I was getting back to my roots, and it was really important to me. And that's one of the reasons I love the work I do so much now, too, is because I really feel like we can help our producers find solutions to be able to do better work and be more effective in what they do.

Trey Allis (26:38):

Yeah, for sure. Well, that's a hell of a pivot from a pilot, Air Force pilot, into civil engineering. But, no, I'm glad that you found a home with that and, yeah, definitely have that ... that's a maybe unconventional path of going down that road, but it seems to be working out for you.

Rita Weaver (26:56):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's why I tell my daughters, it doesn't really matter what you want to do now. You never know what direction you might head in, and it could very well turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Trey Allis (27:07):

Absolutely. Thank you very much for coming on to The Water Table today. This was good overview on, again, some of the tools that are out there for producers, for landowners, and for designers that are out there looking at addressing some of these water issues and taking that approach of adding in the practices where they make sense and where they're going to be the most impactful.

(27:31):

If anybody does have questions, are they able to reach out to you, or how do they get in touch with some of the grants, some of the funding opportunities they have with BWSR?

Rita Weaver (27:38):

Absolutely. You can reach out to me. My information ... all of BWSR's staff are on our website and you could talk to your local SWCD. They're also going to have great information about what grants are available.

Trey Allis (27:50):

Awesome. Well, again, thank you very much for coming on. It was good conversation. Appreciate it.

Rita Weaver (27:55):

Yeah, happy-



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