
With projects to improve water quality going on at Lake Panorama, there are different kinds that can be helpful.
Lake Panorama Association (LPA) and Lake Panorama Rural Improvement Zone (RIZ) Project Manager Lane Rumelhart says that one of the types of projects they are engaged in is a cover crop program, which they started a few years ago. He explains that the LPA and RIZ work together to pay a reimbursement of $15 per acre of cover crop planted to farmers, with 3,100 acres planted in the lake’s watershed this last year. Rumelhart shares that the cover crops keep sediment from washing away in the spring rains, and drain nutrients from the soil as well. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio of another project they use, and hope to expand on.
“We have some wetlands immediate to the lake, within a mile or so. We have three currently built with two more planned and hopefully getting built in the next couple years. Those are more directed at sediment retention as well as stopping high flow events taking that sediment out but also what the wetlands are great at are, the less nutrients that are coming into our lake, the less blue green algae issues we should have.”
Rumelhart mentions that for the new wetlands that are planned, the LPA and RIZ will work with Shive Hattery Engineering and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to get those planned out and developed, then built once they have locations identified and negotiated with landowners. He adds that they aren’t just looking at locations in Guthrie County either, as Lake Panorama’s watershed extends up into Greene and Carroll Counties.