 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS, with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. For information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com. Good evening everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents. The most important resource in the world today is not oil. It's fresh water and it's the thing that we probably as Americans and citizens of the world need to really be concerned about how can we preserve the fresh water that we have left because we know a lot of our water is impaired and a lot of it cannot be restored to what it once was. So tonight we're going to be talking about an organization that focuses on land conservation and water preservation sort of, fresh water preservation. And the organization is called the Northern Waters Land Trust. It used to be the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation, brand new name and full disclosure, I am a member of this board. So I want everybody to know that. These are some fellow members of my board. I'd like to introduce Mary Ackerman who is the vice chair of the new organization and to her right is John Sumption who is a land conservation specialist but before we get into what the organization does let's find out who you folks are. Mary, what's your background? What are you doing here? Oh what am I doing here? My husband and I moved up to our lake, Ten Mile Lake in Hackensack about eight years ago and so we've been spending 24-7, the winters, the springs, the fall, the summer. No winter breaks? No winter breaks. Nope, we actually love winter. It's a wonderful time to trump on our lake and so we feel really blessed to be up here having what we call our lake chapter. And before that we were in St. Paul, Minnesota and I worked for several organizations that do good work for young people, youth development and was dean of students at McAllister College for many years and in fact worked at McAllister for 21 years, right? And you are involved in a number of issues with water, not just this particular organization. We are. So you have a real passion for what you're doing. We have a passion for water up here. It's a need to preserve as you mentioned. And John how about you? I know you have an amazing background and I've known you probably for 35, 40 years when I first started working with you but tell our viewing audience what your background is and what you do now. Well, I'm a true local native of the Leech Lake Walker area. I grew up there. I worked for 33 years for Cass County in their Environmental Services Department and at the last seven years I was the director of the department. When I retired in 2009 I went to work for this organization as the land conservation specialist and I worked on, well actually when I was still with the county I did the first lake shore conservation easement in the state and we'll get into talking about what that is here in a few minutes. So I've worked with this organization on easements, on acquisitions which we've either held or conveyed to another organization like the state of Minnesota. But I've always been interested in conservation. It kind of has run in my family. My father was a really ardent conservationist. So it's just something that's I guess come naturally to me all my life. We all attended a short workshop presented by Kent Montgomery from the Central Lakes College a while back and he presented a map showing where we have impaired waters and where the water quality is still very good. And it seems to me that if you cut a line from Fargo down 94, I know it's not straight east and west, it diagonals down to the southeastern part of the state, but most of those waters south of 94 are now impaired, which is really sad. It really is sad. And most of the waters north of 94 are still healthy waters. So organizations like this are doing what we can to preserve that water while we have the opportunity to do that. Mary, this used to be the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation. Why the name change? Well, it's a good question because name changing isn't easy. We're doing rebranding, but we're doing it because water became such an important issue. We are in the last 40% of Minnesota's water that is by the DNR standards called pristine or good water. We know that once water is impaired, it's very hard to get back. So we started looking at our strategic planning process at, okay, how do we connect the land preservation that we do with water? Well, it was a no-brainer because if you protect land, you're preserving water. So we started thinking in a new way about emphasizing water, and then we came to our new name, which is the Northern Waters Land Trust. We know that the four counties, Ray, that we serve, Crow Wing, Cass, Aitken and Hubbard are some of the most and best fishing, hunting, recreational counties in Northern Minnesota. In fact, I think our tourism numbers and the kind of tax revenue and job base that we have is only challenged by the metro area for tourism dollars and for what we bring in both in property taxes and service income. So we're in a place, the Northern Waters Land Trust, in a place where it's very important to protect our four-county service area. And we actually are allowing ourselves to go beyond the four counties, aren't we? We are. We are. Because the Mississippi watershed runs through much of this, the leech-aculary watershed. Well, many, many lakes that moved to the south. Exactly, and our name was Leech Lake Area Watershed, and people thought we protected Leech Lake or the Leech Lake watershed, one or the other. There are four watersheds in the counties that we serve, Ray. Right. So we're going to be involved with all of those. All of those watersheds. John, in addition to the name change, we have moved towards something called accreditation. Could you give us a brief overview of what that means and why it's important? Accreditation for a land trust is the same as a doctor's diploma on the wall in his office. You wouldn't go to a doctor that didn't have credentials and you shouldn't deal with a land trust that isn't accredited. There's a national organization called the National Land Trust Alliance. And this is the group, and they're affiliated land trust accreditation commission that certifies that land trusts, and there are over a thousand members, member land trusts in this organization that certifies that they are acting ethically, and they're doing their business according to the highest national standards which this organization maintains. So there's a set of 12 standards and practices and many, many substandards below that that regulate every part of a land trust operation, from governance to finances to actually the land conservation measures and the way they do work with landowners and other conservation partners. In fact, we think it's important for our viewers to understand what land trusts are. We're going to show you a short little clip of the National Land Trust Alliance, and we will be a part of that and we'll come back after that clip and talk a little bit more about that. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Andrew Bowman, President of the Land Trust Alliance. While you may have heard of the Alliance and you are aware that your land trust is a member, you may not know much about the Alliance. Today I'd like to provide a quick overview of who we are and what we do. The Alliance exists to strengthen land trusts and advance land conservation across the nation. Most of the country's land trusts are members of the Alliance with our most recent member count just shy of 1,000. Our members range from small all-volunteer land trusts to large land trusts with regional and even national service territories. We aim to serve all types of land trusts and to be a voice of the national land trust community. We support land trusts in three primary ways. First, we build the capacity of land trusts to be exceptional non-profit organizations. In coordination with the land trust community, we develop and maintain land trust standards and practices, the technical and ethical guidelines for the operation of a land trust. We offer a variety of education and training programs to help land trusts adhere to those standards. We also offer an accreditation program through the Land Trust Accreditation Commission to independently verify land trust compliance with the standards. We also offer myriad other services that develop land trust staff and boards and otherwise invest in the organizational health of land trusts. The second way we support land trusts is we ensure that they have the resources they need to accomplish their conservation work. We diligently protect federal tax incentives for conservation easement donations by working to end abusive tax shelters and also by making IRS administration of those incentives easier for land trusts and conservation donors. Federal spending on conservation is also a top priority and we advocate on Capitol Hill to ensure a strong farm bill and continued appropriations through the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Finally, we help land trusts understand the potential of state and local ballot measures to raise significant funds for land conservation and to get those measures across the finish line. The third and final way we support land trusts is by protecting them from risk and building their resilience. The best example of our work here is Terraferma, an insurance program created solely for the benefit of land trust members of the Alliance. Terraferma makes sure that land trusts have the resources they need to aggressively defend their conserved lands. We also have an entire department focused on conservation defense which, among other things, monitors court cases and policy making in all jurisdictions to ensure that the interests of the land trust community are heard and considered. And we are focused on emerging threats to land trusts such as climate change. Our Land and Climate Program trains land trusts how to plan with climate change in mind and also how to communicate about the issue itself. Of course, in addition to all these services, the Alliance is perhaps best known for Rally, the National Land Conservation Conference which is held each fall. If you haven't yet attended a rally, I strongly encourage you to do so. There's no better way to understand the strength of our unified land trust community and how the Alliance serves as the voice of that community. Before I sign off, I want to thank you for your commitment to conservation, the extraordinary work you do at the local level and for your partnership with the Alliance. Our organizations complement each other and advance our shared passion for private land conservation in America. We are truly stronger together. Thanks again for joining me today. So there's a good clip showing what the National Alliance is and we are part of that now at the state level. John, let's talk a little bit about what it means that we can hold property. Well, being nationally accredited gives people, gives land owners, gives cooperating agencies and organizations the assurance that we are operating under their standards and that people can feel good about the fact that they can donate land to us. They can interact with us when we have grant programs that allow the purchase of easements or actually the acquisition of property. We do hold both ourselves so that we have an easement that we hold currently and several properties. So it depends on a family's wishes or an organization's wishes, whoever we're dealing with. We're doing things the way that they're supposed to be done. I guess that's the best thing I can say. I know these terms are confusing to people probably if they've never been involved with this sort of thing, but to put it in a nutshell, if a person owns 40 acres on a lake and they want to put this into a conservation easement, that doesn't mean that they can't use it anymore or future family generations can't. Tell us what that means. You're right, Ray. The basic premise of a conservation easement is that all easements preclude development rights. In other words, they prevent the property from being subdivided and certain other activities can't take place in the lot, can't be used for industrial purposes, it can't be used for commercial purposes, things like that. But the family retains a number of rights. In other words, they can continue to use it for recreation, they might have hiking trails on it, they might have the lake access as long as they don't disturb the rest of the Sherlin property. So it isn't like they can't use the property, they just can't develop it. You can also, they can say, okay, well, we might, sometime in the future, we might want to build a cabin on this property. They can reserve those rights when the conservation easement is actually developed and then exercise those rights sometime in the future. Some of the things that are going to be visual as we're talking are some of the projects that we are involved with. Could you just talk about a few of the projects that we've done, for example, the musky spawning preservation on Leech Lake, Five Mile Point? Yeah, there's a couple of projects and both of those, that one and another one I'm thinking of, have been very similar. The one on Five Mile Point, a family decided that they'd like to see a piece of property preserved. And it's, again, the relationship between land and water. This, had this property been developed, it would have impacted a piece of critical musky spawning habitat on Leech. And we have a very similar project down between Emily and Outing on Roosevelt Lake, where 103 acres of property was conveyed through us to the state of Minnesota. In both of those cases, as I said, there would have been dire consequences for that spawning habitat because of upland runoff, because of sediment and nutrients delivered to the lake that would have severely impacted that musky spawning habitat. And so we were able, through negotiations with the families and the state of Minnesota in both of those cases, to secure that property so that it wasn't further developed. And it made a huge impact. If someone develops a conservation easement, can they change your mind and get out of it, or is it permanent? Once, that's why we're very careful when these are initially done, because it's forever when it's done. The only exceptions would be if an organization with, or an agency with the right of eminent domain, say, came in and they were going to build a road through it, or they were going to put in a power line or something, that can alter a conservation easement. If a natural disaster somehow destroyed an easement, destroyed all the things we were trying to preserve, sometimes they can be extinguished. But by and large, they are permanent as permanent. And we know for the most part that water quality is compromised when we have development on the water. And I believe the statistics on Gall Lake here in Brainerd are, there are about 27 homes or cabins every running mile of Lake Shore. And that has a tremendous impact. People mow their lawns right to the edge of the water. They're getting nutrients and chemicals in theirs. So what we're trying to do as a board and as an organization is to get to those areas before they get that developed? Well, and development done properly in the proper location is, it's inevitable. It's going to happen as long as people, we say people want to love the lake's death. And it's just that when we look and when we prioritize critical habitats, places like the musky spawning habitat you mentioned, or places that are really critical to the health of a lake and to a lake system, those are the places that we want to make sure are preserved. Some other areas are better suited for development. Obviously, all development has some impact on the lake. But setbacks and proper vegetation can make a difference. Exactly. What is the minimum amount of property that people need to have to get involved with this organization? Most organizations now, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, we're looking for properties that are about 10 acres in size, Ray. Or larger. That's the minimum size that it's really efficient to manage a conservation easement. And we've had some pretty good sized chunks, 100 and some acres, haven't we, in the past? Yes, we have. We've had parcels that are well over 100 acres. And there's nothing more satisfying than looking at that map and realizing that's going to stay that way for the most part forever. I mean, we've had small lakes where we've preserved almost 300 acres and three miles of shoreline. And now the people that live on the other side of that lake are always going to have the satisfaction of knowing that nothing's ever going to be developed across the lake from them. That's pretty cool. Now, we also have been involved with a project looking at tulips. Could you just talk a little bit about that? One of the main emphases of the grant programs that we're working with now, Ray, deals with what's called tuliby refuge lakes. And those are the deep water cold lakes that are required to maintain populations of tuliby or Cisco. And those are one of the main sources of food for the game fish that you love to catch. I'm talking muskies, walleyes, northern pikes. So, and they are a sentinel for environmental quality. And a DNR study that was done tells us that if 75% of a watershed is maintained and that development is done properly, that vegetation is maintained along the lake, and the nutrients are limited from entering that lake, that that ecosystem will be maintained and it's a buffer against climate change so that those lakes will be preserved. And that's a real sentinel to tell us that this is going to work. Mary has a vice chair of the organization. Now we have a new name, a new logo, getting that out to people, a new strategic plan. What's the general direction the organization is trying to do? You know, one of the things that we are wishing we could do more of is the education that you mentioned about lakeshore, keeping your lakeshore property buffered around the lake, vegetation, septic tanks are always an issue, Ray. What should I put on my lawn to make it green? Those kinds of things, we need to do more education and that's one of the things the strategic plan is is trying to pull up and emphasize for us so that we can begin working even with schools with more volunteers. We've never been able to really manage a volunteer program. Our strategic plan has us looking out a few years, hoping that we can get to have a team of volunteers that can do education, that can help people think about property transportation, those kinds of things, and it's a tiny organization. We're about to get a new executive director, we're in the middle of a search, but we are a very small organization looking to do big things. And we have a board very dedicated with a lot of expertise on that board. We do. Where are the offices located? The offices are now in Walker, right across from Reed's family outfitters, in what looks like a little cabin. And again, part of our goal is to maybe spiff up that little cabin a bit so that it will be more of a welcome center for people coming up to our area. We used to be in Hackensack and this should give us, the move to Walker should give us more foot traffic and more visibility for the public. John, I'm a guy that has 120 acres along Ponto Lake. What do I do when I want to put that in a conservation easement? What's the first thing I need to do to do that? Get in touch with us, really, or really we have a number of conservation partners that are involved in various programs. And we can, through a network of technical assistance, help you figure out what's the best fit for what it is you want to do. And one of the things we do regularly is go out and meet with landowners. And I'd say, Ray, what is your family, I mean, what's your long term plan for this property? You tell me, we've got family that want to continue to use it, that we're interested in preserving the habitat along the shoreline. We've got some woodland, we don't really know what to do with that. I can direct you to people that can help you with a forest management plan. I can help you get together with the county. Maybe you need some erosion control done along the shoreline. Just pull all those resources together so that you get the best information that you can possibly have to make a decision. You might also tell me, well, we don't really have any kids that are interested, but we want to see this property preserved. Maybe the best thing is to arrange an acquisition by a conservation organization or say state DNR to make sure that the property is preserved. So it's just a question, a really a give and take with the family to figure out what works best. Do you have any idea how many acres have been impacted by the organization since you've been with it? We're, boy, we're running into the thousands of acres. And the last time I checked, we had preserved over 32 miles of shoreline. Wow. Isn't that incredible? That's that it really is incredible for a tiny organization. And for people who don't understand it, so much of that could be sunfish habitat, bass habitat. I mean, those are the lake shore is where it all happens in the spring when everything is spawning. And so it's so important to have that and to preserve it, not to mention, of course, that we are the source water for the for the whole metro area that that the preservation of this clean water is what gives people further downstream something to something to drink. I think the DNR has also said that we have 18 different wildlife species that are important and critical to maintain and keep. So that's another part of it. And some of the land that you've had and through conservation and easements have actually been turned over to like the Federal Forest Service, has it not? We've worked with other partners. Easements and acquisitions. We go out and look for people, where's the best fit? Who should manage this property long term? We also have worked very, very closely with what's called the Minnesota Land Trust. Another land trust, in fact, is the only other accredited land trust in the state that holds somewhere close to 600 easements currently. So we have worked with them in the past with these state grant programs like the LaSarde Sands Outdoor Heritage Council using legacy funds. And they've held a lot of easements that we've helped negotiate. So again, it's just finding where's the best fit. And when do you expect to have a new executive director on board? This will probably be airing sometime, I'm guessing, in December or January. I would guess we'll be in pretty good shape by then. We're hoping to have someone before Thanksgiving if we can make it work. And how does our organization get most of its money? How do we operate? An awful lot of our money is actually grant funded, which means we're doing projects for those dollars. And then we raise money however we can. We've got memberships, we've done raffles, we've done all kinds of things to raise money. But the majority of the money really does come from our conservation work and big grants that we're doing like the Tulabee Project and others. Well, thank you for jumping on board with us. It's, I think, a program that does really good work and it's going to continue to grow and get bigger and better. It's getting exciting. And if you're interested in becoming involved with conservation land easements, look us up on our new website, Northern Waters Land Trust, and you can probably still find us under the Leech Lake Area Watershed Foundation. I'm Ray Gildow. Thanks for watching. We'll see you the next time.