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Illinois Soil & Water Conservation Districts announce new funding sources

The executive director of the Association of Illinois Soil & Water Conservation Districts (AISWCD) says four new partnerships are set to bring nearly $17 million in new funding over the next five years. 

Michael Woods says the agreements with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provide programming, staffing, and district fiscal support.

“We’ve been asking for generations for these investments.”  He says, “We can’t sit back and say we’re going to wait and see what happens. We have to step forward, give innovative ideas, invest those dollars if we ever want to continue to see further investments, and make an impact.”

Woods says the funding eases some of the pain dealt to districts when the state’s latest budget cut soil & water funding by four million dollars.

“It doesn’t mitigate it but what it does is it provides, and showcases, that there are individuals that want to continue to invest in the frontlines, boots on the ground, soil and water conservation,” he says.

He tells Brownfield the new programs enhance SWCD’s ability to reach many sectors of the community.

“New opportunities to engage our traditional audience, through cost share technical assistance,” he says, “to also working with new audiences that maybe are looking at how do we expand conservation into our urban areas, our urban/rural areas, and even on the edge of the field.”

Woods says more details about the new programs are forthcoming, and says the association is also continuing its efforts to have the state funding reinstated in the upcoming fall veto session.   

The specific new AISWCD funding partnerships include:

• NRCS Program Support Agreement: With over $6.4 million, the renegotiated one-year extension to the NRCS/AISWCD Agreement for Program Support will raise funding for districts that opted into delivering technical support for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  

• IRA Funding Agreement: Through a new NRCS agreement with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, AISWCD will receive $4 million to advance outreach and technical assistance for climate smart practices, support local districts to advance local working groups, and elevate watershed planning on the land use council level.  Individual districts will be invited to participate in the initiative in which funds will be distributed over a 3-year period. 

• Regional Conservation Partnership Program Funding: The Sands County Foundation has invited AISWCD to join forces with their $13.8 million in Regional Conservation Partnership Program initiative to advance farmer-led water quality improvement across Illinois, of which roughly $5.6 million will come to Illinois.  The award from NRCS will allow an Illinois partnership co-led by AISWCD and American Farmland Trust to initiate farmer-led watershed groups across the state via Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The funding will provide incentives and technical assistance for a variety of farm conservation practices.  

• Working Land Climate Corps Funding: The USDA announced 28 host organizations to train future conservation and climate leaders, as part of President Biden’s American Climate Corps.  AISWCD was named among this elite group of conservation organizations to establish and advance a Working Lands Climate Corps (WLCC).  The AISWCD program named the Conservation Outreach Volunteers Engaging Resiliency (COVER) Corps was awarded over $600,000 to train the next generation of conservation and climate leaders, providing technical training and career pathway opportunities for young people and helping them deliver climate-smart agriculture solutions for farmers and ranchers. 

Brownfield spoke with Woods recently at the Illinois State Fair.

AUDIO: Dr. Michael Woods – AISWCD