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Soil loss ordinances: the different experiences of two counties ill ore unty At first glance, Fillmore County's experience with its soil loss ordinance might seem negative: after all, a judge recently ruled the ordinance unconstitutionally vague. Despite that, the ordinance is still a good thing, said Darrell Brekke, manager of Fillmore Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) When farmers see areas with less erosion than their own farms cited, it encourages them to visit the SWCD to discuss how the problem can be corrected, Brekke said. Then they can gradually install the appropriate prac- tices. The ordinance has its roots in the efforts of then-state Representative Elton Redalen, who still farms in Fillmore County, to pass a state soil loss law in the early 1980s. Although his attempts at the state level were unsuc- cessful, Fillmore County passed its own ordinance in 1982, Brekke said.. The original ordinance was "pretty loose" and was up- dated in 1990 to require landowners to be in compli- ance with. "T'--a tolerable level of soil erosion, or the rate at which topsoil can replace itself. In most of Fillmore County, T is five tons of soil per year. Under the ordi- nance, the SWCD investi- gates complaints to determine if the area in question ex- ceeds that limit. If it does, then the SWCD works with the landowner to develop a plan to address the problem, Brekke said. The district gives the landowner every possible opportunity to cooperate, and virtually all do, Brekke said. If the landowner is not coop- erative, Brekke informs the zoning office, which notifies the county attorney, who writes the farmer a letter explaining the violation. Of the 50 to 55 cases the SWCD has handled, only a few have gone that far, Brekke said. The recent "unconstitutional" ruling started with a complaint filed in June 1993. Although the farmer is installing a number of practices on his land-including waterways, Fillmore con't on p. 3 r uy Although only one formal complaint has been filed since the Mower County soil loss ordinance went into effect January 1, 1994, that doesn't mean there hasn't been activity resulting from the ordinance, said Bev Nordby, manager of Mower Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD). The ordinance, combined with a strong education effort by the SWCD that included direct mailings and newsletters, encouraged a number of farmers to use federal cost- share dollars to install conser- vation practices the summer and fall after it was passed, Nordby said. About 10 prac- tices such as waterways, terraces, etc., were installed in 1994 as a result of the ordinance, Nordby estimated. The Mower County ordinance takes an incremental ap- proach to the problem, regu- lating first the most severely eroding land and then gradu- ally expanding to cover all land in the county. The ordi- nance is enforced on a "by complaint" basis, Nordby said. The one formal complaint. the district received involved a landowner that had cropped a waterway. The landowner received cost-share dollars and restored the waterway this past spring, Nordby said. Partly because of the success of the education effort associ- ated with the ordinance, the Mower con't on p. 3 2