Happy trails

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By Erin Tiesman | Tuesday, July 1, 2008 8:27 AM CDT | () comments

(Erin Tiesman/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Graduate assistant Ryan Welch cares for some budding prairie species in the University of Northern Iowa Prairie Center greenhouse. Many of the same species are planted in roadside ditches around the state. Buy this Photo

Kirk Henderson’s eyes stray from the pavement and painted lines when he drives Iowa’s country roads. His gaze is naturally drawn to the ditches. It’s his job.

Henderson spends his summer months on Iowa’s quiet two- and four-lane county roads as the Integrated Roadside Vegetation Management, or IRVM, county coordinator out of the University of Northern Iowa, inspecting native tallgrass prairie planted in roadside ditches.

“Iowa needs more places where you just don’t recognize the hand of man at work,” he said. “It’s what we’re missing. We’ll never know what the prairie used to look like.”

The IRVM roadside program was begun two decades ago as an attempt to purify groundwater and preserve Iowa’s disappearing prairie ecosystem. The grasses once covered 80 percent of the state, but due to expanding populations and agriculture, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of prairie remnant — untouched Iowa prairie — remains.

But the prairie is making a minor comeback in the most visible of places. An estimated 750,000 acres of state and county roads cover Iowa, and the IRVM and Department of Transportation, or DOT, have planted nearly 50,000 acres of prairie vegetation on the roadsides. Henderson’s work entails supporting the counties in terms of consistent planting and drawing uninvolved counties into the program.

“I think the reason we have such a strong program is because Iowa has the recognition for having lost so much of our natives,” said Daryl Smith, the director of the UNI Tallgrass Prairie Center. “The roadsides provide us an opportunity to recover some of that lost vegetation.”

In its 20th year, IRVM has enticed almost half of the state’s 99 counties to get involved with roadside planting. (In the Quad-City region, Scott, Clinton, Muscatine, Jackson, Cedar and Louisa all are involved, according to the IRVM Web site.) The Living Roadway Trust Fund, also established in 1988, provides equipment, seeds and safety gear to the roadside managers and pays Henderson’s salary — an annual infusion totaling about $250,000. Other programs provide assistance. Iowa’s Resource Enhancement and Protection program, for instance, which funds protection and enhancement of the state’s land and water, puts 3 percent of its budget into roadside vegetation.

Active counties annually plant between 20 and 40 acres a year, and Henderson hopes to see every county reach that level while continuing to support active counties and roadside mangers.

“By funding native seed, seeding equipment, training workshops and educational materials, the Living Roadway Trust Fund has helped create a small army of prairie restoration experts,” he said.

In Illinois, where tallgrass prairie once covered most of the state other than what was forested, prairie restoration efforts can be seen along numerous highways. Restoration and preservation projects also dot the state’s landscape, including the University of Illinois-Springfield, Silver Springs State Fish and Wildlife Area in Kendall County, Fermilab at Batavia and Gooselake Prairie near Morris, just to name a few.

Budding benefits

Prairie grass is more than just something pretty to look at, said Chris Henze, Johnson County’s roadside manager. “You have a narrow strip of habitat, of vegetation, and it’s getting used for lots of different things,” he said. “People think habitat and they think deer, pheasants and turkey, and it’s a lot more. I guess in my mind that might be my romanticism, providing the last vestige of habitat.”

Prairies offer more habitat and enhancement than people might imagine. Mark Masteller, chief landscape architect for Iowa’s DOT, said prairie’s great benefit to drivers is enhanced safety.

In winter, native prairie grass can stand upright in the snow and prevent snow-blown whiteouts while increased color and wildlife in ditches helps eliminate driver fatigue in other seasons, he explained. “The variety of textures and colors along the roads help keep drivers alert,” he added.

The benefits even extend into people’s homes. The deep root systems that keep prairies alive — stretching as much as 15 feet below the surface — offer a convenient sponge for heavy Midwest rains, delivering cleaner water that runs into rivers and streams and, eventually, kitchen sinks. Henze said our society’s culture of flushing water away, from parking lots to storm sewers, is one habit that can be broken with help from the prairie’s water retention.

“Roadsides are a small but important part of the picture,” he said. “Wildlife habitat, erosion control, there’s a lot of different reasons for that narrow little strip, but it has such an impact and so many different meanings.”

Sprouting doubt

Yet even if promoting prairie planting is a noble cause, saving animal habitats and providing road safety benefits, some Iowans have resisted the process.

At farm shows in the early 1990s, Henderson and his colleagues encountered skepticism and doubt. “The early years of the project were a bruising experience. People said it would never work, that it was a waste of money,” he said. “To them it was too wild and messy.”

Fortunately, for roadside prairie enthusiasts, the skepticism has receded. But even after 20 years, Masteller said he still encounters resistance when planting begins on a new road. Some landowners are hesitant to allow plantings bordering their residential property.

“When we go in and kill existing vegetation in front of someone’s house, we have controversy,” he said. “There is some weed multiplication and, in the meantime, it looks bad and is all browned-out. That’s when we get the negative comments.”

Roadside managers such as Henze are responsible for weed and erosion control on county roadways, but they also must educate landowners, represent county habitat programs and defend the roadside planting process. Usually starting from seeds, blossoms of color can take two or three years.

“Some (residents) are completely for the program and some are completely against it. Some are not patient enough,” he said.

Henze added that much of the opposition comes from landowners who prefer close-cropped lawn grass to the array of plants and species that inhabit a right-of-way planting, yet he argues that tallgrass prairie is still cheaper than maintaining short grass.

“When you figure out how much it costs to mow it, put the fuel in the mower, maintenance and your time, native vegetation is a lot cheaper,” he adds.

Masteller and his team set up town meetings and visit residents door-to-door with pamphlets to explain the process. “We promote the benefits up-front, before we send a contractor out there,” he said. “We’re heavy on the public education component, but if someone really doesn’t like it, we’ll skip that area of land.”

Growing ambitions

Henderson looks to the future and trying to get the uninvolved Iowa counties on board with the program. With help from a trust fund, a sponsored DOT traveling exhibit and educational materials, he hopes to increase roadside manager participation and keep prairies thriving.

But the programs are not just for educating adults. With Fields of Green, Living Roadway Trust Fund coordinator Steve Holland said the DOT is reaching out to children by educating their teachers. Now in its third year, 50-75 teachers statewide participate in the program.

“We’re trying to teach teachers how to promote the prairie in a good, positive light. It doesn’t tell them, ‘This is right.’ We let them think about it to see if it’s the right thing to do,” he added.

The Tallgrass Prairie Center also is working toward the future on various projects, including a possible seed marketing program, outreach to other states’ native planting efforts and seeking a balance between prairies and agriculture.

“We happen to hit at the right time. Everybody’s interested in alternative energy, and I think there is an opportunity here,” Smith said. “I’d like to see prairie be involved but in the right way.”

Contact the city desk at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.