 Hello, welcome to this week's legislative update. I'm Jim Baumgart. Your host along with Annette Bullabush, a lovely lady from the Elkhart Lake area, and we have a program today that affects most of Shevon County in one way or the other and it's called the Glacial Lakes Conservancy and it's a program that allows people to set aside specialty lands in a variety of ways to preserve them for all times and we happen to be lucky enough to have the president of the Glacial Lakes Conservatory, Drew Morris, with us today. Oh, good morning. Thank you. It is a wonderful thing that you're involved in. You must be retired so that you have all this time available to do these things. Yeah, I think I got roped into this a few years ago. As a non-profit, you know, you double your salary every year and you earn the same thing. Some people, some people don't understand what a conservancy is. Could you explain? In general, if you explain the Glacial Lakes, you'll probably explain a variety of others that are scattered throughout Wisconsin. Oh yes, indeed. It's quite interesting. Glacial Lakes Conservancy is a land trust. It's a not-for-profit private organization. No governmental involvement other than trying to get grant money occasionally. And some of the rules that oversee it. Oh yeah, it's, there was, we have one-and-a-half paid staff who are both wonderful and hard working. And the rest of the organization is volunteers. And there's probably, I don't know, a hundred of us altogether volunteering in various capacities. As a certified land trust, we are one of about 48 in the state of Wisconsin. Our area is a five-county area. We're Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Fond du Lac, Calumet, and Kiwani counties. And we have our properties either under a conservation easement or under preserves. And the difference is, the conservation easement, a landowner makes a decision. He wishes to preserve his property for future generations. And he can put whatever he or she, excuse me, can put whatever restrictions or conditions they want on it. If they wish to ignore potential tax benefits from donating the land or restricting its development, they have to comply with certain federal and state requirements. And for us to take on a property, it has to have some redeeming value that we appreciate. And our basic desire is to confirm, is to acquire and preserve lands that have water resource potential, water conservation, and working farmlands. And we have combinations of that. So along the Sheboygan River, the Manitowoc, the two branches, East and West Branch Rivers, and Fond du Lac, we have some activities out on the escarpment where it drains into Lake Winnebago, and of course the Sheboygan River. People wouldn't think of farmland as being an endangered commodity, but it is. It's being gobbled up by urban development, a variety of other things. And some of the people that own these lands from back in the 1850s just don't want it eaten up, and they want to preserve either part or all of it, I think. Yes, indeed. And it's especially important if that farm, as many of them are associated with a water resource, and sustainable farming requires not having all of this runoff and loss of topsoil and things, which unfortunately, due to our flat terrain, that's pretty hard to control. But basically, if a owner wishes to conserve his property for future generations, he can establish a conservation easement in which the land is never allowed to be developed in accordance with the wishes of the owner. And that devalues the land permanently. And that's where the benefit may come from. But most of the people we've dealt with who are donating either either an easement or their land and fee simple, it's their level of land. They want to see that that preserved for future generations. Now, if if if there's an easement that goes on the will, or on the deed, I should say, and that's then recorded in a permanent record. Yeah, it's quite a complicated process. We were required to be able to defend that easement forever. And so to do that, we have to set aside certain funds, and we have to monitor it every year to make sure it doesn't change. So that if there is an issue in some future years, we're able to document the changes that have occurred, and then seek to have them rectified. To that end, we have our land team and volunteers who go out and monitor the property on a yearly basis, we have to write that up, becomes part of the permanent records, our records are maintained both electronically and paper, they're kept in safe storage, and there's multiple locations and all that. Does it your your some of your yearly reports go to the Secretary of State and it's a permanent record or what? Not sure. That's not so much that I don't think is that that we have the records that in the future, if there's an issue. The the the monitoring process is key. And our ability to be able to defend the property is key in the future to that. And we we have financial reserves that people have donated that are sufficient to help us. We are members of the Land Trust Alliance, which is a national organization that has standards that help ensure that we're going to be around, and also gathering waters, which is the Madison based Association responsible, wonderful group helping all of the other land trusts around the state. So you mentioned you told us earlier before the show started that so far you've saved you you have 48 projects. Is that correct? Oh, no, I'm sorry. There's basically 23 easements at present and three. That's right. 26 simple properties or a total of 1,300 acres. Yep, on 1,350. We just put another almost 50 acres into conservation that the the the windway property by Kohler and along the Pigeon River along the Pigeon River. It's our third property on the Pigeon River. Is it really? And we're hoping that thanks to the generosity of Leslie Kohler will convince some more people along the Pigeon River to to also preserve their property. Well, and that's a valuable stream that we have two major ones going. We have a number of rivers going through the Sheboygan area, but the Pigeon and Sheboygan River are key to a sustainable water flow. Absolutely. We're working with the officials of the city of Sheboygan to also preserve what the former Schuchart property, which is we've we've called the Willow Creek preserve. And the idea is to keep that as it is and gradually restore it to the preclonial conditions. But more importantly, the tributary, the Willow Creek will be restored as a as a prime spawning area for all three introduced Salmonoid species that we have in the lake. It's one of the few streams on our side of the lake that has reproduction of trout and salmon and go to the Michigan side. They've got a lot of big rivers, but we don't on our side. It's a different. Well, we're hoping that project is going to move ahead. We've been working with the city on that for a number of years now. And we think we're getting close to coming to fruition. And we have two other properties that we're in the process of signing one in Mantua County than the other in Fond du Lac County, and one more in Sheboygan County. So we're we're we're busier than busy. So if anybody has some property that they own and they're getting up there in years, and they understand there's some items in that on that property that might be of value that maybe should go into a type of reserve they they can contact you. Absolutely. And we could help guide them along in their in their decision making process. Sure. What I want to bring out because you and I were involved in something a couple of years ago. Yeah, my husband and I have been members for years. Yeah. And you don't have to own property to be members. You just give a little bit of money every year. And I want you to talk about one of the benefits is either each walks. So every several times a year, you host a walk on someone's property or perhaps an easement that's about to be that you've just signed up. And I've gone on several and they're just so terrific. The one we're talking about now was a organic farming operation out near Adele. And their their grass fed cattle actually spend part of their time on one of our easement properties that the Beverly property, which is right down the street. But we had a great day chasing cows around. But now that you mentioned the walks, I just have to give a slight plug on Saturday, September 23. We're going to have a workout at Elkhart Lake, which just had one with a color group a couple of days ago. This is generations for generations event. And that's that young professional group on October 1. We're going to have a drive. It's a road rally, we call it. There's six properties that are public access. Three of them are municipal and three of them are preserves. And it's a chance to go visit three of the six, three or south and three or north. And then there's going to be a little picnic and a rally out at Dale Vogue skills place in Calumet County. And that's on the first and you can get that information or website. And then our next land walk, which is the fall land walk on October 14, is going to be held at Point Creek. And that's a beautiful thing. I think it's one of my favorite. And two of our master naturalists, Wisconsin master naturalist graduates, Andy Raditz and his wife are going to leave it and focus on a bird hike, which is if you've ever done a hike with a Raditz, as you'll learn more about birds than you ever knew existed. So you spend a day in nature, you learn about birds and wildlife and you are helping by helping your organization, you're helping the future. Before we go too far, we're getting down to two minutes and one minute for closing. But people that want to put their land in reserve can be open to the public or not open to the public. There are a variety of options that I understand. Absolutely. And it's the owners in charge. Right. And so setting it up. So in future generations that that would carry on. The other thing is if people would like to find out about your organization and some of the trips you're taking, that website that you mentioned and you're going to mention again, will be one they can tap in on. And they're just more than welcome to show up. Right. Well, we like them to register for you. So we have had, but it's glaciallakes.org. G-L-A-C-I-A-L-L-A-K-E-S. And it's amazing how many people have different names for it. But it's well worth the visit. And we have an e-newsletter you can sign up for every two weeks. Something comes out. We have our two or three times a year we publish a newsletter. And please join us because it's just fun. It's so worth it. Well, now we're running out of time and I have to end the program. I do want to thank Drew Morris, who is the president of the Great Lakes Conservatory. If you want to find out anything, go to the website. There's plenty there. And if you have land that's the value, you may want to discuss it with them because the opportunity is here and it's a great group. So thank you, the net billabush. And until next week, this has been Legislative Update.