As part of its Agricultural Incentives program, Sand County Foundation, with assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), restored a wetland on a farm close to the Wisconsin River.

This project was a demonstration and carefully monitored test of how small wetlands can be used on farms to reduce nutrients in stormwater runoff that damages waters downstream. Plus it creates and improves natural wetland habitats for better soil and wildlife.

Using enhanced wetlands for nitrogen removal in an agricultural watershed

• Establish a sound monitoring protocol to regularly measure wetland nutrient management practice.
• Promote this project to help in evaluating the potential of successful replication elsewhere in the Midwest.
• Improve water quality in the Wisconsin River by removing nitrogen and phosphorus from flow in a ditch that drains through the wetland.
• Restore native vegetation to an existing, but damaged wetland.