Recent REAP grants
support projects statewide

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This article first appeared in INHF's Fall 2007 magazine.

Joe McGovern/INHF

With help from a recent REAP grant, the Iowa DNR will be able to purchase from INHF this 26-acre in-holding along the Upper Iowa River. This river-terrace site offers terrific views of the bluffs on the opposite bank.

Once again in Iowa, spring sowing has yielded a fine fall harvest—but this particular crop is conservation.

In spring 2007, Iowa’s state legislature and governor approved a 40 percent funding increase for Resource Enhancement and Protection, generally known as REAP. This unique program provides state funding to protect Iowa’s natural and cultural resources. Though authorized at $20 million, REAP appropriations had been stuck at $11 million or less for the past four years. This year’s appropriation was $15.5 million, which grew to $16.5 million after adding revenue from REAP license plates and interest.

Even if you’ve never heard of REAP, you probably see its results daily. REAP dollars support diverse conservation efforts: park and trail acquisitions, native roadside plantings, conservation education, soil and water conservation efforts on individual farms, historic preservation and more. For example, before REAP existed, only about a dozen Iowa counties had professional naturalists. Because a portion of REAP funding is allocated to each county conservation board, Iowa now has approximately 80 county naturalists—along with all the classroom and field education they provide.

Winners and near-winners

Some REAP funds are distributed through grant programs that help individual counties, cities and private conservation groups like INHF to pay for land and trail projects. These grant applications are ranked, with funding going first to the top-ranked applicant and then down the list until the money runs out—generally well before the applications run out.

Happily, several projects that wouldn’t have received grants at last year’s level were funded this year due to the increase: the Chichaqua Greenbelt addition in Polk County, Big Woods Lake Campground improvements in Cedar Falls, and trail work in Davenport, Perry, Iowa Falls, Eldon, Minburn and Dawson.

However, this success is bittersweet. Other key projects just missed the cut-off but would have been fully funded at the $20 million appropriation: The Nature Conservancy’s Little Sioux River Valley and Fen complex, watershed protection in Tama County, the Raccoon River Valley Greenbelt addition in Dallas County and trails in Fort Dodge, Sioux City, Windsor Heights, Bloomfield, Dyersville, Woodward, Middleton and Lynville.

 “Everyone loves that great river they canoe, trail they bike or park where they camp,” notes Ross Harrison, the Iowa DNR representative for REAP. “But you have to ask how those things come about. If you care about the results, you have to care about the funding behind it, and that’s REAP.”

by Andrea L. Zimmerman, a Drake University student and a Robert R. Buckmaster Intern at INHF, and Cathy Engstrom, INHF's Communications Director.

More information on new Reap grants received by INHF projects.

For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.