05 Apr April 2018 Conservation Update
At the March Annual Meeting, Rob Shellhamer our District Chairman was re-appointed as supervisor. Kevin Cordes was re-elected and continues to hold his supervisor position. The board then met to elect the following officer slate: Chairman-Rob Shellhamer, Vice-Chairman-Bobby Hettmansperger, Secretary/Treasurer-Kevin Cordes, Fiscal Officer-Tashina Lahr-Manifold.
In the middle of the March, the district hosted a Conservation Round Table for local producers. The topic was General Cover Crops; The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. These round tables are an opportunity for producers to speak with one another about issues or successes they are having on their farms in an informal setting. The district had twelve producers join our board of supervisors for lunch with beneficial conversation about soil health.
As April begins, the SWCD is interviewing students for summer intern positions at the County Farm. Thus far candidates have been very well prepared. The intern selections will be made by April 14th.
April 3rd will be our annual pick up from Jasper-Pulaski State Tree Nursery. As an SWCD we provide a third party pick up location for landowners who purchased trees from the state nursery. 1,400 seedlings have been ordered and will be planted in our area!
Wabash SWCD has partnered with Clear Elevations to redesign and update our website. Clear Elevations is a local web design company that was able to make our website more user friendly to mobile devices. The new page can be viewed at wabashswcd.org. Now that the new website has launched, Tashina will receive training from them on how to keep it maintained.
April is filled with watershed steering committee meetings. The district tries to be involved in all soil and water improvement projects in the county. We will be meeting with the Lower Salamonie Watershed group on the 9th, the Upper Middle Eel Watershed group on the 16th and the Wabash River Defenders on April 18th.