The Van Buren Conservation District has been awarded a $413,000 grant to help prevent runoff into waterways. Watershed coordinator Erin Fuller tells WSJM News the funds from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative will be used to reduce nutrient and pathogen runoff in Pine and Mill Creeks, which are both tributaries of the Paw Paw River. The Van Buren Conservation District will work with farmers on methods of reducing the runoff.
“Especially farmers are familiar with cover crops, reduced tillage, things like that,” Fuller said. “But also trying some newer techniques and offering some cost sharing to farmers to help them adopt new practices because sometimes there can be some financial risk to trying new things and we want to be able to offset some of that.”
Pine and Mill Creeks join the Paw Paw River in the city of Hartford and the city of Watervliet, respectively. Fuller says both streams are listed as impaired for partial and total body contact by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, or EGLE, due to high levels of bacteria. The Van Buren Conservation District will use the grant to work on the runoff issue for the next two years.
