LCRA helps local landowners manage, conserve natural resources

​The Lower Colorado River Authority is offering cost-sharing incentives of up to $20,000 to private landowners who implement conservation practices that reduce soil erosion, improve water quality or incorporate other land management practices that help protect the region’s water resources.

LCRA’s Creekside Conservation Program offers assistance to landowners in Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Colorado, Fayette, Lampasas, Llano, Matagorda, San Saba, Travis and Wharton counties.

“Landowners who implement these conservation practices help our entire region,” said Marshall Trigg, conservation coordinator for LCRA. “By adopting good practices on their property, landowners enhance water quality by reducing sedimentation and pollution into our basin’s streams and rivers. We’re honored to be able to assist and encourage conservation practices through our program.”

Rick Castello, owner of the Vacek Family Farm in Fayette County, used a Creekside Conservation cost-share incentive to install cross-fencing and water troughs.

“The addition of the fencing and troughs has allowed us to rotationally graze our cattle, dramatically improving our grazing conditions,” Castello said. “This has helped prevent overgrazing and soil erosion, which helps protect water quality.”

Shelby Sultemeier, a ranch operator at the Hollingsworth Ranch in Travis County, said the program helped him manage more than 240 acres.

“The removal of these cedar trees improved rangeland and grazing conditions on our property by increasing the forage quantities for our cattle,” Sultemeier said.

The cost-share incentives provide money to landowners who incorporate practices such as cross-fencing, brush management, native range planting, alternative water source development and other conservation practices.

The Creekside Conservation Program cost-sharing assistance is funded through a three-year, $472,900 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Water Act. The EPA grant continues an almost 30-year partnership among LCRA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board and local soil and water conservation districts to fund conservation projects in the lower Colorado River basin.

For more information regarding eligibility and participation, visit

lcra.org/creeksideconservationprogram
or contact Marshall Trigg at 830-596-7239 or

Marshall.Trigg@LCRA.org
.


Source: LCRA Business News

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