Supervisors meeting includes updates on conservation projects, river visitors

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County supervisors received an update on county conservation activities leading into the summer, approved purchasing a new piece of heavy equipment for the Secondary Roads Department, and spent more time in their role as trustees for three of the dozens of drainage districts in the county.

Conservation Director Adam Sears gave his monthly report on Floyd County Conservation activities at the supervisors’ regular weekly meeting Tuesday morning, May 20.

“Right now we’re in the middle of field trip season, so you can imagine it’s pretty crazy out at Fossil Prairie Park and the Tosanak Recreation Area,” Sears said. “Yesterday we had three different school districts and five buses out there, so a lot of people.”

Sears also talked about some of the department’s other activities, including using prescribed burns to regulate prairie areas.

“We ended up conducting 16 prescribed burns this spring, which is a little lower for us,” he said, “… but it was still more than we ever would have done years and years ago.”

Sears said fire is the “No. 1 management tool” when looking at the number of acres impacted.

“It gets that prairie kind of stimulated again so it’s really vibrant a couple years following it. It puts a lot of nitrogen into the ground, so it’s a good thing,” Sears said.

“And we always do major rotational burning. So if we pick an area, say, at 60 acres, we just take a chunk of 30 to 40 acres so we’re not impacting wildlife species and things like that.”

Sears said his department worked on several projects with the North Iowa Area Community College construction class at the Charles City Career Center, including replacing the deck boards on the north side of the building at the Fossil and Prairie Center.

The decking had been regular wood, which had started to rot and weaken, and was “to a point where it was going to be unsafe within the next year or two,” he said.

The Conservation Department purchased composite decking and the NIACC construction class provided the labor.

“We just paid for material and they did a phenomenal job,” Sears said.

The class also made some informational kiosks to be placed in county parks, such as Mathers Woods where one was placed recently.

Sears also discussed in detail work to make the Cedar River a state-certified water trail, which would improve access points and install mile markers along the river.

The markers are an important emergency management tool to quickly identify locations on the river in case an emergency response is needed for people on the river or other reasons, he said.

Other improvements could include putting in restroom facilities such as pit toilets at locations along the river and upgrading access points.

Sears said this would be a continuation of improvements made by Mitchel County about three years ago, and would provide a stretch of river more than 50 miles long as a certified water trail.

He said this will be an important addition to the area, giving people the option of more safely and conveniently paddling “flat water” as well as using the whitewater course in Charles City.

“A lot of them do both,” he said, adding that the options could make visitors spend more time in the county.

Another important river event this year will be the return of Project AWARE to the area, Sears said.

Iowa Project AWARE (A Watershed Awareness River Expedition) is an annual volunteer river cleanup that moves to a different river and watershed each year, with a couple of hundred volunteers spending a week pulling trash and debris from rivers and sending it to be recycled, along with other activities.

The week-long event was on the Cedar River in 2017 and people pulled four to five tons of junk from the river and its banks, Sears said.

This year the event will be July 13-18 and will be in the Shell Rock and Winnebago River watersheds, and the state estimates 300 to 350 volunteers will participate.

The group will stay in Mason City the first three days, then will spend a couple of days based in the Tosanak Recreation Area, Sears said.

According to the Travel Iowa Project AWARE website, in addition to the river cleanup the event includes “hands-on, real-time opportunities for volunteers to learn more about the river’s water quality, archeology, ecology, geology and cultural history.”

Also at the board meeting this week, the supervisors:

• Approved purchasing a John Deere 190GW wheeled excavator for the Secondary Roads Department to replace a 2012 Volvo excavator for a total of $281,821, including $40,000 trade-in. Bids on two Caterpillar models were for higher prices.
• Approved a contract with Denco Highway Construction Corp. of Mingo for a total of almost $313,000 to perform asphalt pavement maintenance including joint and crack filling and repair, and slurry leveling.

Roads included in the contract are:

– T24 from B30 south to Rockford city limits (6.1 miles).

– Quail Ave/210th St. from Hwy 14 south and east to Ridgeway Ave. (0.3 miles).

– S70/105th St. from northern city limits of Nora Springs north to the county line and 105th St. from S70 west to the county line (5 miles).

– S70 from B847 north to B30 at Nora Springs (7.5 miles).

– T26 and T38/7-Mile Rd intersection from Hwy 18 to 830 through Rudd (0.93 miles).

– T64 north and B33 from B33 south to the city limits of Charles City and B33 from T64 east to T66 (5.6 miles).

– T64 from the southern city limits of Charles City south to the county line (9 miles).

“I’ve been told this is the most we’ve done in the past,” said Adam Miller, who started as Floyd County engineer March 1.

“We need to catch up a little bit, so we’re going to continue to push on this pavement maintenance, to make our pavements last longer and stay in better shape longer,” he said.

• Held more discussion as trustees of county drainage districts, again talking about alleged problems with a drainage ditch renovation project in Drainage District No. 3, approving Secondary Roads making repairs in Drainage District No 7, and talked about getting an engineering firm to estimate repairs needed in Drainage District No. 18.