Restoration work is one of first in the state
Oxbow restoration has improved water quality
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Nearly 30 individuals from around Iowa traveled north of Webster City Saturday to study the oxbow restoration work that has been done by Ray Fry, a local farm manager who started the project working with some state and federal agencies.
The property which is now owned by Seldon Spencer, a retired neurologist from Huxley, is still managed by Fry. This is not a natural oxbow, it was a project to create a new oxbow along the White Fox Creek, located just a few miles off of White Fox road.
The event was sponsored by the Practical Farmers of Iowa. The project has been a collaboration of Iowa State University, the Iowa Soybean Association and other conservation agencies. The results have generated a research paper that has been written on the impact and usefulness according to Fry.
Spencer, who purchased the property in 2018 because of connections with his family saw the project as a step to pursue a dream.
"I wanted to be involved with agriculture," he said, "This is an opportunity to improve the environment."
As the field day observers studied the water and the land around it, he said he has plans to plant an area for pollinators in another part of the property. The property is a mix of farmland and woodlands, which draws wildlife to the area in addition to providing a solution to the concerns of chemical use.
The watershed that comes to the oxbow is about 80 acres. Both Fry and Spencer commented that there were some steps to creating the oxbow which helped educate them.
"You don't want more than 50% canopy over the oxbow," said Fry. And when there was flood water, he said they needed a way to slow the flow to keep down erosion.
Fry, who purchased the land in 2006 with his sister, started the work to establish the oxbows in 2011.
"We dug two oxbows that were fed by two tile lines," Fry explained. He said there is no surface water that goes into the oxbow. After the work they began functioning in 2013. The property has since been monitored and water quality measured, and it has significantly diminished the phosphorus and nitrates, he said.
According to Karen Wilke, who is the Associate Director of Freshwater for the Nature Conservancy of Iowa, this was one of the first oxbows created. Now there are over 250 oxbow projects across the state. "We've studied the oxbow, and 62% of the nitrogen was removed by the oxbow," she said. There were other benefits to developing the property this way.
"We've found 81 species of birds and thousands of fish in the oxbow area," she said.
The event was attended by members of the Practical Farmers of Iowa, conservationists with the United State Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Natural Resources.