Partners Expand Mississippi River Reforestation and Wetlands: Flood prone ‘batture lands’ eligible for conservation funding to improve water quality

Stoneville, MS – A public-private partnership between Mississippi River Trust, Walton Family Foundation, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) offers conservation funding to owners of flood-prone farm land.  The voluntary, four-year program seeks to convert 40,000 acres of frequently-flooded farm land into bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands.  Eligible landowners in six lower Mississippi River states must own cropland within the active floodplain between levees and the Mississippi River–the “batture lands.”

Reforestation of Mississippi River batture lands provides multiple benefits, including improved water quality reaching the Gulf of Mexico, flood reduction, water storage, commercial forestry and jobs, woody biomass for local energy production, reduced federal crop-insurance outlays, and improved fish and wildlife habitat that makes batture land attractive for hunting leases.  Revenue from the conservation easement payments and hunting leases can help substitute for crop income on marginal farm land that is frequently flooded.

In May of 2012, the Mississippi River Trust was awarded a two-year, $15,826,129 NRCS grant.  Eligible landowners may apply for these funds to pay for conservation easement acquisition and reforestation and wetland creation expenses.  Landowners interested in this voluntary program should contact the Mississippi River Trust for more information.

“NRCS and the Mississippi River Trust will make these funds available to landowners in the batture,” said Mississippi River Trust President James L. Cummins.  “We are excited about this initiative.   It will provide lasting benefits for local landowners, as well as provide significant benefits  further downriver and even into the Gulf of Mexico.  This will lead to reducing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico – not too far from where the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred – and will improve recreational and commercial fisheries, thereby benefitting the economies along the Gulf. “

The Walton Family Foundation ($225,000) and the  Endowment ($250,000) each awarded grants of  non-federal matching funds that are required to pay for a portion of the reforestation expenses,  salaries and travel that the Mississippi River Trust will require to conduct the restoration of flood prone farmland to forests and wetlands.  The Walton Family Foundation’s funds will help pay for 6,000 converted acres in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.  The Endowment’s funds will help pay for at least 9,000 acres in Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.

“We are extremely grateful to the NRCS, the Walton family and the Endowment.  Without them, this project wouldn’t exist,” concluded Cummins.

Project proponents anticipate that the restoration of the cropland in the batture to forests and wetlands will result in improved water quality reaching the Gulf of Mexico. This would enable the program to expand using Deepwater Horizon settlement funds to reduce the hypoxic ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico, which is caused in part by agricultural fertilizer run-off.  Funding from Natural Resource Damages Act fines from the spill are eligible for Mississippi River restoration because enhanced wildlife habitat created through batture land reforestation benefits fish and wildlife species such as migratory birds and American eel that were affected by the 2010 disaster.  Funding from North American Wetland Conservation Act fines from the recent Deepwater Horizon criminal settlement are also eligible for Mississippi River batture land restoration.

For more information:

James L. Cummins, President, 662-686-3375; jcummins@wildlifemiss.org The Mississippi River Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to conceptualizing, developing and implementing financial assistance programs that provide needed assistance to private landowners throughout the Lower Mississippi River Valley. The Mississippi River Trust has been extensively involved in conservation of the Lower Mississippi River batture and the areas landward of the Lower Mississippi River mainline levee system. For more information about the Trust visit www.mississippirivertrust.org.

Daphne Davis Moore, Communications Director, 479-915-2763; dmoore@wffmail.com The Walton Family Foundation and its Environmental Initiatives The Walton Family Foundation promotes environmental solutions that make economic sense for communities and their natural resources. The foundation works to achieve change that lasts by creating new and unexpected partnerships and bringing conservation, business and community interests to the same table to build long-term solutions to big problems.

The Walton Family Foundation invested $71.8 million in environmental initiatives in 2010. A majority of the foundation’s grants are made to organizations and programs that pursue lasting conservation solutions for oceans and rivers while also recognizing the role these waters play in the livelihoods of those who live and work nearby. The foundation divides its environmental giving into two initiatives:

• Freshwater Conservation, which works to sustain healthy and resilient communities of both people and wildlife in the Colorado River basin and along the Mississippi River from its headwaters to the delta; and
• Marine Conservation, which supports initiatives that create economic incentives for sustainable resource management in some of the world’s most ecologically rich ocean areas, from Indonesia to Ecuador to the Gulf of Mexico.

Peter Stangel, Senior Vice President, 404-915-2763; Peter@runslikeclock.work The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) is a not-for-profit public charity working collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities – www.usendowment.org

Brad Fisher, Public Affairs Specialist, 202-720-4024 USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) helps America’s farmers and ranchers conserve the Nation’s soil, water, air and other natural resources. All programs are voluntary and offer science-based solutions that benefit both the landowner and the environment. Seventy percent of the land in the contiguous United States is privately owned, making stewardship by private landowners critical to the health of our environment. For more information, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov.