Ep. 634 - A Game Changer for Wetland Conservation, Water, and Ducks – H2Ohio

Ten years ago, a harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie forced the city of Toledo to issue a “do not drink” advisory for its water supply. Now, Ohio is home to one of the most transformational wetland restoration programs in America. This program, known as H2Ohio, is using wetland restoration and other practices to reduce nutrient flows into Lake Erie and improving the quality of water for its citizens. In this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher sits down with DU regional biologists, Russ Terry and Corey VanStratt, and Eric Saas of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to discuss DU’s involvement in delivering H2Ohio and how it is producing not only cleaner water, but more habitat for ducks and additional places for hunting.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mike Brasher

DUPodcast Science Host

What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?

Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.

Mike Brasher: Everybody, welcome back. I am your host on this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher. I'm still in Northwestern Ohio at the Winus Point Shooting Club on location. We're recording another episode here about the great work that's happening in this state and some innovative work here around a new program that I think it's kind of fair to say Ohio is one of the leaders of the nation in the way they're thinking about this and the way they're investing. resources for wetland conservation and we're certainly at an exciting time within the Ducks Unlimited organization in how we are growing, how we are attracting additional people and partners to our conservation mission, recognizing that the wetland conservation work and other waterfowl habitat conservation work that we do has long provided benefits well beyond just benefiting waterfowl and other wetland dependent animals. but it also provides a tremendous suite of benefits to broader society, local communities, and probably the highlight of those benefits, and one of those that's most visible and easy for people to understand is its ability to help us improve the quality of the water that surrounds us and that we depend on every day. And so that's what we're going to talk about here on this episode is a program called H2Ohio, which is a fantastic name in itself. And it's a very innovative, very forward-thinking investment of resources to improve the quality of life in a very important area, that being Lake Erie Watershed. Ultimately, I think Lake Erie was kind of a primary point of concern for getting this going. And I'm obviously not going to be the only one talking about this. I have three people sitting across the table from me, and I'm going to let them… I'm going to point to them and let them introduce themselves. So, we're going to go right here first.

Eric Sass: Eric Sass Hello. My name is Eric Sass. I'm the Ohio Department of Natural Resources H2Ohio Wetlands Program Manager. Thank you, Eric.

Corey VanStratt: Corey Van Stratt Hello. My name is Corey Van Stratt. I'm a regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited in Ohio.

Russ Terry: And I'm Russ Terry, Senior Regional Biologist for Ducks Unlimited in Ohio.

Mike Brasher: I appreciate the invitation to be here and have this really exciting conversation. Like I said, I've heard a lot about H2Ohio. having some time to learn more about it and have y'all tell the story I think is pretty cool. So Eric, in your position, just give folks a little bit of an idea of what you do and why you're the person we want to talk to about this.

Eric Sass: Yeah, we are doing a lot of wetland restoration right now in Ohio with partners like Ducks Unlimited, really in a historic way, at a historic scale. So, you know, H2Ohio is bigger than just the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. This is a multi-agency clean water effort in Ohio. In 2019, when Governor DeWine came into office, he got his agency directors together and said, we're working together on clean water. And we're focusing on Northwest Ohio and some of the issues we've had with the algae blooms in the Western Basin of Lake Erie. So it's really, it's a collaborative effort. And it's a, it's all hands on deck, water quality focused initiative. And really ODNR's role on this is bringing in the power of nature, harnessing the power of nature to improve our water quality. Wetlands being the kidneys of the landscape, and we're trying to put those kidneys of the landscape in the right places to deliver water quality benefit.

Mike Brasher: We appreciate you being here and sharing some of this story. Corey, I want to go to you next. Tell folks a little bit about what you do as a regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited. Your office is in Michigan, but your area of work is Ohio. That is interesting. So tell folks, what does a regional biologist do? How do you manage that Ohio-Michigan thing?

Corey VanStratt: Sure. So as a regional biologist, to get to this area for us, it's really, it's not too much of a haul, you know, a little over an hour. They let you across the border regularly, back and forth. Typically, yeah. We don't need passports or anything to get there.

Russ Terry: We do swap out the plate for an Ohio plate when we get to Toledo. Other than that, we're good.

Corey VanStratt: So yeah, we are based out of Dexter, Michigan, but we make it down here and try to, on a weekly basis, and meet with partners, landowners. to essentially deliver the conservation program in Ohio. So we do a lot of our work right here in the Lake Erie Marsh region and in the Lake Erie watershed, Western Lake Erie Basin overall. But we work with partners, landowners, funding agencies to help design and get projects together, find funding for projects, and coordinate with whoever we need to to get restorations on the ground.

Mike Brasher: I have people contact me occasionally and ask, especially if there's a certain job posting and they're asking about it, and it's like, is that a project or a position that allows me to work outside and do things like that? And your position, regional biologist, is probably one, it sounds like, where you spend a fair bit of time outside with the landowners or mainly with landowners, right? And how does that work? How does a project come to you?

Corey VanStratt: Yeah, it is. A lot of times it's through the partnerships. So it's working in the county with the Soil and Water Conservation District, Partners for Fish and Wildlife, private biologists for the state. We make it down here often, but they are here every day and they know, they have their thumb on what's going on in the region. So we talk to them frequently and figure out, especially for… I work closer with private lands projects, and so work with them frequently to figure out where the best projects could be found at any given time.

Mike Brasher: At the end of the day, it still kind of starts with boots on the ground. You being that person that sees the other people, that talks to the people, you walk into those offices, they know you, you develop those relationships, they have your number, they hear people, has an idea, wants a solution, like, well, Cory may be able to help with that, give him a call, that type stuff.

Corey VanStratt: Yeah, that's right. And we have different regional partnerships that we've put together for funding that we may work together with different partners on. So it's us going out with them, looking at projects and deciding that, yes, this fits the characteristics of what we're looking for in a good project.

Russ Terry: And if I can, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said relationships, because to me, most jobs and certainly the job of a Ducks Unlimited biologist, it boils down to relationships. And so that's why Corey and I make a concerted effort to make sure we're in Ohio, at least on a weekly basis. So we're spending time face to face with our conservation partners, private landowners and our funders. building those relationships because that is the basis for our conservation work in the state.

Mike Brasher: even during that fourth week in November.

Russ Terry: Every week. I might take the run on in the Ohio State-Michigan game. Other than that, you never know. We're on the road a lot. Yeah. And we need to be on the road a lot to get the work done. But to me, it's really spending face time with the people that we rely on to be able to do our work.

Mike Brasher: Corey, how long have you been with DU? Did you say that?

Corey VanStratt: Coming up on two years.

Mike Brasher: Two years, really? Yeah. Okay, man. All right. Where were you before that?

Corey VanStratt: Well, I lived out west actually, born and raised in Michigan, but lived out west in Washington state and worked with a bunch of sea ducks out there and sea birds. But we came back in 2017, we had a young kid and decided to raise him around the family.

Mike Brasher: You piqued my interest when you said sea ducks and seabirds, but I'm not going to go down that path. I'm going to stay dedicated, stay focused. So, Russ, you've been with DU longer than two years, right? Few. Yeah, 26. 26 years. 26 years, yes. Okay. But not the entire time here in… Have you been in the Great Lakes region? Correct. Okay.

Russ Terry: Yep, yep. My first day of work was April 20, 1998. I'll never forget it.

Mike Brasher: All right. Yeah. So, I remember my first day working for DU. It wasn't 1998. It was a few years later than that. I'm getting close to 20 years, though. So, it's a good place to be. So, you've been here the longest. That means you're the best equipped to talk about the Great Black Swamp, right? Fair enough.

Russ Terry: Fair enough.

Mike Brasher: So, I do want to go there. We spoke about this briefly on a recent episode with Fred Zink and John Simpson, sort of the history of waterfowling, waterfowl hunting clubs in northwestern Ohio, southwestern Lake Erie region. And it goes back, in terms of why that area is important to waterfowl, it goes back to that great black swamp era. And so, a lot of folks will not think of Ohio as sort of historically and currently highly important for waterfowl and waterfowl hunting, but that is absolutely the case. And so the Great Black Swamp kind of is an important part of this discussion because what it was, what it became, and then kind of how that has shaped some of the issues and resource concerns that this area is facing. So tell us about Great Black Swamp and why it would have been awesome to go back there and spend a week in the Great Black Swamp.

Russ Terry: Yeah, well, man, I wish I could go back and see what that was like back in the day, but yeah, much of northwest Ohio, pre-settlement, they call it the Great Black Swamp, it's 1,500 square mile forested wetland complex, it extended into Indiana and up into southern Michigan. It was massive and it was impenetrable, but it provided a heck of a lot of habitat. And between the Great Black Swamp and then all of the coastal marshes associated with Lake Erie is why this is an extremely, it's a continentally important area for waterfowl. because of all the habitat that used to exist here and those birds imprinted on it and they're still coming here in really massive numbers despite the fact that we've lost almost all of that habitat. Only a tiny fraction of the Great Black Swamp exists today and we've lost statewide more than 90% of the wetlands that were here pre-settlement and the loss of the coastal marshes along Lake Erie is even greater than that.

Mike Brasher: So there's a couple of main, at least two, maybe three rivers that come through the historical Great Black Swamp. I mean, we're close to what, the Sandusky River that spills into Muddy, is it, does it go into Muddy Creek Bay or does it go?

Eric Sass: And then into Sandusky.

Mike Brasher: And then into Sandusky Bay and then the Portage River, but then where's the Maumee River go in? Right at Toledo. It's at Toledo, okay. Alright, so those are the three big rivers that kind of come through this region?

Russ Terry: Yeah, with the Maumee being the biggest and having the largest watershed, yeah.

Mike Brasher: Well, and so, all that is important because the Great Black Swamp, as you mentioned, is no longer in its historical form. It was converted, like so many other areas, for other uses. One of the primary uses that we now have on the landscape here in this region is agriculture, row crop agriculture. And so, Eric, I want to kind of shift to you and talk about how that, as a backdrop, influences or plays a role in many areas with the quality of our water and whether we're talking nutrients, sediments, things of that nature. We don't want this to come off as though we're pointing a finger at farmers or anything of that nature. We never do whenever we're working, whenever we have these conversations. We have to have productive ag lands for food, fiber, fuel all across this country, and we are proud supporters of farmers, ranchers, private landowners. They are some of our strongest partners. However, I think everyone knows that there are some situations where there's runoff from some of those fields that end up kind of compromising the quality of water, not intentionally, but it did kind of happen sometimes. So give us a little bit more of the background on that issue and then how it helped influence where we are to do today with H2Ohio.

Eric Sass: Yeah, I mean, I think you set the stage really nicely there. And, you know, that's kind of, you know, what's unique about H2Ohio is, you know, we're taking a straight-faced approach, a science-based approach to the water quality issues, where they're coming from, how they've come about, and how we can solve them. And that doesn't involve pointing fingers at one particular constituency or another. You know, we can look at the Maumee River watershed and we can see that this is a landscape that nowadays is predominantly agriculture, and we have a large non-point source contribution of nutrients into that watershed that goes into the western end of Lake Erie. And, you know, that over-butrification of the maumee. So, eutrophication, break that down. High input of nutrients. That's right. When you put nutrients on a farm field for a growing crop, that's what we want. We want productive agriculture. And when some of that excess nutrient gets into the nearby ditch, flows into a stream, flows into the river, and slows down in the lake, especially in the warm summer months, then that's not feeding a crop, that's feeding cyanobacteria. And we get harmful algal blooms and cyanotoxins, actually, in the water.

Mike Brasher: A lot of waterfowl hunters, especially retriever owners, will probably be familiar with that because there is a risk for your labs kind of being poisoned by those bacteria.

Eric Sass: Well, and there are human health impacts as well. I mean, we are, unfortunately, we're looking at 10 years ago in August, out in Maumee Bay, there were toxins at a concentration where right next to the city of Toledo water intake, they had to shut down their tap water for a few days. And imagine that. I mean, we're sitting here on the shoreline of one of the greatest, most plentiful sources of freshwater on the face of the earth. Folks had to not use their tap water. That's embarrassing.

Mike Brasher: And that intake, just for total understanding of people listening, that intake is drawing water from, is it coming out of a river or does it extend out into Lake Erie itself?

Eric Sass: It's out in Lake Erie. Yeah, it's some distance offshore, and they pump in from Lake Erie. So, you know, that was a modern-day river-on-fire moment for us in the water quality world, you know. It's like, we got a problem. We got a problem. And unacceptable, really. So, you know, that caused a big reckoning at that moment. It took a little bit of time to put plans in place. Immediately, the response was, let's invest heavily in the water treatment infrastructure so we can make sure that, you know, we can clear these plant toxins. Major investments were made by the state of Ohio and locally in that end of it. But, you know, that's the short-term approach. The longer-term approach is, how can we amend what we're doing on the landscape, up in the watershed, to do a better job of keeping the nutrients where they need to be on the farm field and out of our water bodies. And so that involves both source control and stopping the nutrients as they're running off and making their way toward the lake. So that's the importance of working with the Ohio Department of Agriculture and working with producers to make sure that they're doing the best practices they can, only putting down the nutrients that they need and where they need them, you know, at the right rate. And then actually working outside the box a little bit, looking at subsurface placement of nutrients, drainage water control structures at the edge of field, you know, to manage the water coming off the landscape certain times of year. And this is new stuff for some of the agricultural community. There are producers who have been doing these things for a while, who have been thinking about water quality, thinking about the bottom line in terms of nutrient application. But for those of our producers who, this is a new thing and they need to see how this is gonna benefit them, the High Department of Agriculture is offering incentives, funding, for best management practices to do things differently to benefit water quality. And we've had major engagement from agriculture and producers in the Maumee River watershed and the Western Lake Area Basin. Millions of acres of farmland enrolled in these best management practices. Producers taking soil tests and knowing where they need nutrients and where they don't.

Russ Terry: One thing to add to that, Eric, just in terms of what's also exacerbating the problem in the Western Lake Erie Basin with the harmful algal blooms is that this is a shallow, it's a great lake, but it's a shallow lake. And it warms up really quick. It's like a bathtub out there. And so when you get these inputs of excess nutrients out in the lake, the lake warms up, and you got the perfect storm for these harmful algal blooms. And when they start impacting communities' ability to drink their water, then it's past time to make some changes.

Mike Brasher: This is a stellar example of what we have said and others have said for a long time about the value of wetland restoration, wetland conservation beyond just habitat. Because the science will tell us that wetlands can remove these nutrients, they can help remove the sediment. In this case, we're talking about nutrients that are the issue. What's the… Always make sure… Is it nitrogen that's the primary? Or is it phosphorus in this system? It's phosphorus.

Eric Sass: It's really… Yeah, it's phosphorus that's mostly driving the size of the bloom. But actually, nitrogen plays a role in the toxicity of the bloom. So, it is really both, but what we focus on and what our goals are all centered around is reducing phosphorus loading into Lake Erie.

Mike Brasher: So, here we are, Ducts Unlimited Wetland Conservation Organization, dedicated to filling the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow, forever. We do that through our habitat conservation, and here we have a situation where there is a non-waterfowl-related kind of issue, water quality, that we know and science tells us that wetlands can help with. Wetland restoration on private land in Ohio actually has a sort of personal connection to me because I conducted my PhD work back in the early 2000s at The Ohio State University. Russ is shaking his head. I get to do that on two episodes in a row now. And my research was involved in measuring the waterfowl benefits of those restored wetlands on private land. Many of those I think were funded through, I think we talked about it earlier, the CREP, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. It's money that comes through various NRCS. practices and programs. And I was out there sampling waterfowl foods and then counting ducks and geese during fall and spring and during the day and night and quantifying the benefits of wetland restoration in this geography for ducks, for the centerpiece of our mission. But now here we are with an opportunity and a need to quantify and demonstrate the benefits to something that is important to so many more people, and that's water. That is drinking water and every other aspect of our environment that depends on water. And so I also have to tell this little story and the fact that, you know, now Ohio is a is emerging as an incredible leader in wetland restoration for this purpose through this program. Been restoring wetlands for decades, but now there's this newfound impetus for it. And so, me, 20 years ago, on campus at Ohio State, walking through, I think it's the Ag Engineering Building, I come across this big display case paying homage to the Wetland Drainage Hall of Fame, which I was… When I first saw that, I was like, holy smokes, that's interesting. And so I studied a little bit more and it was like, okay, well, that makes sense because those folks are interested in trying to increase the productive ability of ag lands and that's the nature of that. I will also say though that now you look at a lot of the recent recipients of the Drainage Hall of Fame. in that particular situation, and I'm sure it always has done this, but certainly I think maybe now more than before, it's paying tribute to those that are making significant contributions to a conservation aspect of this as well. So that's pretty cool. Have you ever seen that on campus there?

Eric Sass: Am I getting it right? I don't want to misrepresent. Yeah, I think it's the Drainage Hall of Fame. And look, these things don't have to work at opposite purposes. I think that's an area where we can work with a landowner and say, hey, look, this area over here, Benefits from subsurface drainage. As we're talking tile. And it's going to get you tile. Yeah. Yeah, subsurface tile. And how about, you know, instead of running that tile right out to the nearby ditch, let's put a wetland in between. And, you know, take some of that marginal area that maybe floods every year, restore that to habitat, run your tile into that, and then between the wetland and the nearby ditch, we have cleaner water making its way downstream. We do a lot of projects like that, actually.

Mike Brasher: So the notion of wetland restoration for all of those purposes is not necessarily new. What is new is a significant source of funds to scale that effort dramatically in a geography where it's really, really needed, the Lake Erie watershed. We're going to take a break, and we're going to come back, and we're going to dig into what is H2Ohio. I can tell you it's Ohio's plan for clean water. We have a number of questions about the program itself. Then we're going to talk to Corey and Russ a little bit more about Ducks Unlimited's role in delivering H2Ohio and how it has helped us deliver our mission, how it's just sort of a hand-in-glove type of partnership. So stay with us, folks. We'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody. I am your host, Dr. Mike Brasher. I'm sitting here with Eric Soss, Corey Van Strat, and Russ Terry. I kind of paused there on purpose to make him think I was going to get his name backwards. Some people call him Terry Russ, but Russ Terry. We are going to resume our conversation about H2Ohio, and so I'm going to put the question to Eric. What is H2Ohio? How did it come about? Who are the pivotal figures in its creation?

Eric Sass: Yeah, H2Ohio is Governor DeWine's water quality initiative and really has gotten a lot of support from the Ohio legislature in several budget cycles since the DeWine administration started. It's a multi-agency effort, Ohio Department of Agriculture, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Ohio EPA, and the Ohio Lake Erie Commission. all working together on a coordinated water quality mission, approaching it from different ways. We talked about a little bit earlier the producers who are doing best management practices on the farm fields. And at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, we look at how can we bring natural infrastructure to play. And when we say natural infrastructure, it's using the services that restored wetlands, created wetlands, stream buffers do for us in terms of improved water quality. So we've leaned into wetland restoration in a major way at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources through our H2Ohio program. Since 2019, we have funded 195 and growing wetland restoration projects or similar types of natural infrastructure projects. In addition to that, we have our Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program partnership for wetland restoration and floodplain wetland restoration, reforesting stream buffers. another 240 projects that are part of that funding partnership, where we put in some H2Ohio funds to make those farm bill practices even more attractive to the landowner. So all told, we're looking at somewhere near 17,000 acres of restored wetland and associated habitat through that to date. And we haven't stopped, we haven't even slowed down a little bit since then. We've got 111 completed projects on the grant-funded projects. And I think over half of our private lands projects are in place right now and delivering that water quality benefit, that habitat benefit. And we're looking to keep this effort rolling.

Mike Brasher: Why was this such a priority for Governor DeWine? Because Governor DeWine has individual decisions to make, right? And so there's personal motivations and I should say inspirations through his life and through the things that have affected him. Why was this so important to Governor DeWine?

Eric Sass: Well, clean water is fundamental, and all the things that are related to having abundant clean water. You know, it's not just a moral imperative for Ohioans, but also really helps us take advantage of our strategic advantage in Ohio. You know, we have abundant freshwater resources. you know, corporations are seeing that and investing heavily in Ohio when we have other parts of the country that struggle with that. So it positions us nicely to have that abundant resource to take care of that resource and make sure we're managing it wisely.

Mike Brasher: So his personal inspiration was caring for the people of Ohio and making sure that we had a future that was as bright as possible is what it sounds like.

Russ Terry: Truly. But he's also an outdoorsman. and a conservationist and for the inspiration and the background, I listening to him talk about this multiple times. That is my perception is that he, this is, he is really into this. This is a big deal to him. It means a lot to him. You know, he's seeing it as his legacy, I think. And he is making a difference.

Mike Brasher: And so we've got a nice strong partnership with Governor DeWine then through Ducks Unlimited. We do. Good. Very good. I think what I want to talk about now is Ducks Unlimited's role in this partnership. How has H2Ohio made a difference for us and how have we helped make a difference for it? Corey, you want to take a first stab at that? Because you're down here every day. Well, every week. That's right. Well, I guess maybe it might be easier for me to give this to Russ first, because you were here before you had H2Ohio. You've been here two years. That's right. I'll come back to you in a second. So, what's the change been like for you? Because you've got Because we are limited in what we can do by the availability of resources to deliver, right? So how big of a difference has this been for Ducks Unlimited?

Russ Terry: Huge. A game changer. That's a term I continue to use when I talk about H2Ohio. It's been a game changer for the state of Ohio, in my view. for habitat on the ground in Ohio, for water quality, for recreation, and all those suites of benefits you talked about wetlands providing. It's been a game changer for all that, but it's been a game changer for Ducks Unlimited and the scope of our conservation footprint in the state of Ohio. And so, you know, we're typically funding our work through traditional funding sources that are there to provide money to put wetlands on the ground for wildlife. That's how we fund our mission historically. This is an opportunity to secure state money to restore wetlands, not for ducks, but for water quality. But we still get the duck benefit. So, you know, squarely in Ducks Unlimited's wheelhouse. And so, you know, we've been aggressively pursuing H2Ohio funding to support our mission and do the good work that the DNR is relying on partners to implement. You know, DNR cannot do this on their own. Not even a little bit of it. Not even a little bit of it. It's massive. And so they are leaning on partners and In my view, there is no better partner, better position to restore and protect wetlands for water quality in Ohio than Ducks Unlimited. It is what we do.

Mike Brasher: We are as close to a turnkey operation for that as you can get, I would say. Because we have the biologists, we have the engineers, and those folks are the ones that create those relationships that you're talking about. You don't do any of this if you don't have the connections, you don't have the relationships with the people that you need to be working with in order to do that. And most important in that regard, the landowners or the, whether it be private landowners or state and federal landowners and managers as well. And so we have all of that. The only thing that we don't do is the work itself, right? We contract that out. At least I know we do in all the places where I've worked. We don't do any of the, we contract out the work. The construction work. Yeah. So, so let's go there, Corey. Let's talk about the type of projects that we're doing with H2Ohio. Are they Are there examples where some are a little bit different than what we do through other sources of funding? Give people an idea of what this means sort of on a daily basis for the type of projects that you're helping engineer, design, and implement.

Corey VanStratt: Yeah, I think I'll start with sort of going over some private lands projects and some of the work we do on private lands. One of the, again, the big focus is water quality if you're going through an H2O funding source. So working with private landowners,

Mike Brasher: So when you say that, the number one priority is water quality, how does that affect your decision on what to do and where you do it? I'm thinking it probably means you need to make sure that you've got an opportunity for water to go into that wetland, drain from the ag fields or drainage. That's right.

Corey VanStratt: So often we'll work with partners at the county level, state level. So we're right here in Ottawa County right now, so we'll work with, say, Ottawa Soil and Water Conservation District, and they might already have a traditional crepe wetland that's planned, but we could take a look at that and be like, boy, this could really be improved by adding some water management capabilities for waterfowl would be a great property for ducks. At the same time, if we're able to move water in there to manage that water level and then eventually filter that back through and out, at the same time, that'll be providing that water quality benefit.

Mike Brasher: So, what would be the thing that you would do differently to get water in there?

Corey VanStratt: What are the different ways of doing it? So, in that case, a lot of times it might be near an ag field or we have projects where, say, you have a 70-acre field and there might be seven marginal acres. And so, work with the landowner to identify that boundary. And we said, right here, this could be where the restored boundary or restored wetland would go. And you would dike it around and put it in a pump basin. and the pump and redirect and retile that water to the wetland basin, and that's where it would filter and then you could put it back into the waterway.

Mike Brasher: So it's still somewhat of an engineered solution, I guess you would say, but it's working with… It's allowing nature to do the work for us, right?

Corey VanStratt: That's right, yeah. So it is, yeah, certainly… There's still a lot of engineering involved and some dirt moving, but it really is a win-win. In these cases with private landowners, it's a win-win for everybody involved because we see the water quality benefit. We see the new restored acres for duck habitat. that can be managed. And on top of that, the surrounding ag land that the farmer can still work is now improved, has much better drainage. And so really, in my opinion, I don't see a loss, a negative to the situation.

Russ Terry: Yeah, I think H2Ohio has made us look at our potential wetland projects through a different lens. Sure. We didn't always look at every opportunity. Well, wait, we can put a wetland here, but there's an ag ditch right next door. We may have ignored that ag ditch in the past. Didn't necessarily need it for any reason. It didn't have to be a component of a successful project. But now we're saying, hey, there's an opportunity to divert that agricultural runoff into this wetland. just happen to know of a source of money that will pay for that. And so we're looking at every project now through the H2Ohio lens. And if it smells like a water quality project, we're picking up the phone and calling Eric and seeing if it is. And if it's not, then we have our other traditional funding sources that we can still get that project done.

Mike Brasher: And the reason that's important, if I'm understanding things correctly, is because you have an additional source of funding, and we're going to talk about the incentives here in a minute, it may make those projects more attractive to potential landowners. And that's important because, again, we can't do our work without people wanting to do the wetland restoration because all of this is voluntary. That's the thing that we haven't mentioned yet. These are voluntary. They're incentive-based programs. Landowner, you're not forcing the landowner to do anything. You're not forcing the state or federal agency to do anything on their property. It's all voluntary, incentive-based. I'm right on that? I was 99.9% there. But I want to… I have a number of questions here. So voluntary, incentive-based, and kind of to that same notion is that if it's on private land, these things can be hunted, right? Many of them are hunted. We've heard from other folks about… I heard from Fred Zink previously about how H2Ohio is working with a lot of duck clubs and other private landowners that are managing wetlands for their interests, which are waterfowl hunting in some cases. And H2Ohio is providing some funds to do that work. Some state and federal areas also, I believe, have been improved. You have used some of the money to do some improvements and some of those areas are huntable. Is that right?

Russ Terry: I mean, they're almost all on it. You got a list there. Okay.

Mike Brasher: All right. We'll come to this a little bit later. That'll be one of the things that I think it'd be useful to kind of close out on, sort of tie all this together, is to point out, again, the multi-use nature of the projects that this is helping create. Water quality, waterfowl habitat, hunt opportunities. Stimulating economy. Yeah, absolutely. The funding available for this… I think I read or heard that like during year one, was it 178 million? Did you say that early on? And I've had so many conversations, I can't pinpoint when it was said and who said it.

Eric Sass: We are across the multiple agencies. We're beyond $600 million has been invested in H2Ohio.

Mike Brasher: Have you had $600 million of outlay yet? Or this is, these are the commitments that we've made?

Eric Sass: That's the monetary outlay so far. Wow. You know, if we're looking at just the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and our lane of H2Ohio, we've invested approximately $150 million into wetland restoration, similar types of natural infrastructure work since 2019.

Mike Brasher: Where's the money come from and is it costing, are you getting pushback from anyone in Ohio because, oh, that money should have gone somewhere else?

Eric Sass: You know, Ohio's economy has been doing very well in recent years. We've had good levels of general revenue and, you know, the executive branch and the legislature have decided to make an investment in water quality through H2Ohio. So, you know, we're fortunate that we've had the, you know, tax income that we've needed to keep this program going. And we also, you know, for every dollar of H2Ohio invested, we try to leverage that with external funding sources that have a similar mission. You know, we work very closely with the Great Lakes National Program Office's Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. You know, this is coming from the U.S. EPA funding wetland restoration projects and ag best management practices. And so we try to make sure that that state funding is stretched with those federal investments as well. Another good example is the H2Ohio investment into the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. That's a farm bill program. And through the combination of federal dollars and state dollars, we can get more work done.

Russ Terry: I'm really glad you went there, Eric, with the, with the, the leveraging of H2Ohio. So we're $600 million invested of H2Ohio funds. These are state level funds, Mike. So, you know, that, that means they're available to match the federal programs that are out there. And so we're striving to do more and more of that. in using these H2Ohio monies spent on wetland conservation to bring in more federal dollars through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, whatever it might be, and just to continue to expand the pace of conservation that's happening here in the state of Ohio. And we've done a really good job at that. Corey and I both wrote $3 million standard NACA grants last year. He wrote one for Northeast Ohio. I wrote one for Northwest Ohio. A lot of H2Ohio money was the match for both of those proposals. They were both funded. And so the H2Ohio match helped leverage $6 million more that's going directly into habitat conservation and the Lake Erie watershed. So that's a big deal.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, it is. You described this as Corey, Eric, I looked at Corey's name. So Eric, you described this as an investment in Ohio's future. And I love that because the one thing you can go back to that event 10 years ago of the harmful algal bloom that caused a shutdown in the source of water for a major metropolitan area. If you don't do something about the issue, you're going to have contraction of the economy, right? So you're going to make it a less desirable place to live. So it's like you have to come up with a solution. And so this has to be. investment in the future of Ohio and its people.

Eric Sass: Even if we just look at the Lake Erie tourism economy alone, and obviously there's a lot more to this regional economy than just tourism, but we're talking tens of millions of dollars of people coming to Lake Erie for the resource and the wildlife that's

Mike Brasher: We're going to start wrapping this up, but before I do, I want to talk about some of the notable projects that I guess we have contributed to that have been funded through H2Ohio, some that we're particularly excited about. You have a list. Do you have some in your mind you want to talk about, Corey? Do you want to steal his list?

Corey VanStratt: I will take a look, but I think what I'll say is, you know, I've worked closely with Eric and his team on lining up the private lands projects, and so I won't go ahead and name any of those, but, you know, we've had three completed projects that have, let's see, I will look at the list for that. You have some notes, good. three completed projects for 60 acres that filter 475 acres of drainage, and then five current projects that are in process, and they filter over 1,000 acres of drainage. So that's all water that otherwise would go off the field into a ditch and straight into Lake Erie and add to those harmful algal blooms and other issues we have. So yeah, it's been a great resource for us, and at the same time, those are putting acres on the ground for ducks.

Mike Brasher: You have a full slate of projects out into the future that you're looking at?

Corey VanStratt: Yeah, we've got some that we've been talking to partners recently, and we've got another slate lined up for sure.

Mike Brasher: Russ, you want your list back? Do I point out some of the public areas and public projects where we've done some of this work? We use H2Ohio dollars to help out.

Russ Terry: To me, that's one of the cool things about H2Ohio is it's highly flexible. We can do projects on private land, we can do projects on public land. If the site is right and we need to buy a piece of property so we can do the restoration and divert that run off into the restored wetlands, we can buy land with H2Ohio. And so we've done all of that. We've bought some properties, we've helped expand Maumee State Forest, we've helped expand some wildlife areas by doing some land acquisitions, some facilitative acquisitions.

Mike Brasher: And so that means Ducks Unlimited has a great deal of flexibility to purchase land if we have the resources. And so then we'll will transfer that through some way or another typically to a public entity, right?

Russ Terry: Correct. Yeah. DU's fairly nimble. We can move pretty quickly to buy land and sometimes the state and federal government can't move quite as fast and so they do lean on us at times to step in and buy a piece of property for them and we'll hold it for a very short period of time and then flip the title and let them manage it and maintain it long term. But so great flexibility to do a diversity of types of projects, which I really like. I think it's exciting and it's good for the program. And so we've done, like I said, all of that. We've done a lot of projects on private land. We bought some land and we've also have some, I would say, high profile projects on public wildlife areas up here on the lake. I mean, these are destination waterfowl hunting areas where we are using H2Ohio money to improve the wetlands, but also grab that runoff and get that water quality benefit that H2Ohio is demanding. And so I think Cory might've mentioned a little portage wildlife here a little bit ago, but To me, that is a real showcase project. Little Portage Wildlife Area is located right at the confluence of two rivers, the Portage and the Little Portage River, just a couple miles inland from Lake Erie. And it's about a 450-acre coastal wetland complex that was in pretty rough shape. Used to be a duck hunting club. Duck hunting club sold it to the DNR back in the 50s, and they've been managing it as a wildlife area. But when H2Ohio came about, we looked at this area and we saw a large petition ditch flowing right through the middle of the wildlife area and dumping all that runoff right into the little portage river. And we're like, there's an opportunity. there's an opportunity that we can grab that runoff, we can divert it into the wetlands, and as part of the project, we can enhance those wetlands by rebuilding some of the dikes, replacing failed pumps and failed water control structures, repositioning things where they make more sense, and get a much more productive wetland complex for wildlife, for fish, for hunting, and all that goes along with it, but also get the water quality benefit. And so we just wrapped up more than $4 million project that was a complete renovation of the entire Little Portage Wildlife Area. And it turned out fabulous. I mean, we're super excited about it.

Mike Brasher: People hear $600 million, $4 million. Those are big numbers. People probably are asking, well, haven't we fixed the problem yet? I mean, you got to remember the Great Black Swamp that we talked about was over a million acres. I mean, this is an issue that that requires a large solution. And I think I would probably also say it requires a long solution. This isn't going to be addressed overnight. And so I think that leads me to kind of two questions. What is Governor DeWine and his team of departments and his team thinking about in terms of how are we measuring progress? Because this is a long thing. This is a long-term thing. It's millions of acres within the watershed, a lot of different sources of the nutrient runoffs. What's his view on how do we prove that we're being successful?

Eric Sass: Well, that's key. I mean, when it comes down to it, what we're looking at behind the scenes on every one of these wetland restorations is how many pounds of phosphorus every year are we sequestering? How much nitrate are we pulling out of the water? And as we talk about a wetland restoration for all the myriad benefits, You know, many people see the duck hunting or the bird watching or a better place to kayak. What we see on the back end is how much of that nutrient are we pulling out of the water. And, you know, we can model that, and that's kind of how we prioritize our projects based on computer modeling, what we see as the potential for a project. How much water can we interact with? How frequently will it flood? But we don't ask you to take us on faith. We're working with the academic community through the Lake Erie and Aquatic Research Network, six different universities, researchers who have experience in wetland vegetation and soils and hydrology and chemistry. And we asked them, hey, tell us how we're doing. You know, look at all these different types of projects. There's no blueprint for an H2Ohio project. These are 195 different projects. Put together a protocol for, you know, how are we going to compare these apples to apples? And tell us how we're doing. So they're a few years into that process, and we're getting preliminary results back on some of our first completed projects. And the neat thing is, we're seeing that these projects are doing what we want them to do. We always knew there was going to be a variability to that. And there is. Some are doing better than others. Some designs are better than others. And so we actually have an engineer at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources who's looking at that monitoring data and translating that into, on these designs, what tweaks do we need to make? For projects that are moving forward, if we're at a 30% design phase, let's look at those plans, compare them to what our academic counterparts are telling us, and as we're moving down the road, refining our approach.

Mike Brasher: So what is the future of H2Ohio? This is a priority for Governor DeWine. What do we think the future is?

Eric Sass: What are the options? We intend to keep a pace with this good work that we're doing. We have projects lined up for future funding cycles. We're not letting our foot off the gas at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources or any of the other agencies that are working on H-OHIO.

Mike Brasher: Well, it sounds like from what I've heard here, there's a lot of support and a lot of reasons for the people of Ohio to really get excited about what this program is doing. And so I know we in Ducks Unlimited are big fans of it. It's hand in glove, as I said, with what we want to do and the things that we want to be delivering. Russ, I'm sure you would agree with that.

Russ Terry: Absolutely agree with it. You know, I wanted to just reiterate the point that these water quality issues that we have statewide in Ohio, but particularly in the western Lake Erie Basin, as you mentioned, took decades, centuries, to get to the point where we're at. And it's a very complicated situation. There's no silver bullet, and it's gonna take a long time to fix it. But we know from our research that wetlands are part of the solution. And so we are super excited that the DNR has identified what… Wetland restoration is one of the pieces of H2Ohio that we're gonna use to to tackle this issue. And we're monitoring and we're seeing success and we're, and the pace of conservation in Ohio right now is unprecedented. I mean, it's like a rocket ship and it is taken off and it is really, really, really cool. But, um, you know, we're just getting started and we need, we need this program to stick around for a whole lot longer than six years or five years or whatever it's been. And so I think that is the next, in my mind, that's the next piece. I mean, we've established the program. We know how to implement it. We know what's successful. Now, how do we make sure this thing sticks around long term so that we can get the job done?

Mike Brasher: So Russ, I think that's a great point where you said that wetland restoration is part of the solution. It's not the only solution, and I'm sure there's multiple things going on across this landscape to help contribute to a reduction in the nutrients going into the lake and trying to address this water quality issue. We at Ducks Unlimited are absolutely happy to play a part on the things that we're good at, which is restoring conserving wetlands, and so it's going to be super exciting for y'all to sort of be on the cutting edge of one of these really innovative programs for water quality that's also being used to deliver habitat and other values for a whole host of things.

Russ Terry: Absolutely. Absolutely. H2Ohio, again, is a game changer.

Mike Brasher: I've heard a lot. I've heard a ton about it.

Russ Terry: And in many ways, Cory is here because of H2Ohio. I mean, H2Ohio has helped blow up our conservation program in the state of Ohio to the point where I could not handle it by myself. And so we've doubled our biological capacity by hiring Cory, and a large part of that is because of H2Ohio. And we're to the point where we may be adding a third biologist just to be able to handle the workload that's coming down the pipe.

Mike Brasher: I'm sure Cory's happy about that, that it gave him an opportunity to come back here, right?

Corey VanStratt: Cory Johnson Certainly, yeah. It's been incredible to be part of this organization and to work with partners like Department of Natural Resources and Division of Wildlife to implement these projects. some fantastic people and great partnerships, and everybody wants the same thing. They want clean water, and most of them want duck habitat, too.

Mike Brasher: We want more people to want more duck habitat. We'll work on that. This has been a great conversation. Any final comments? Eric, I'll go with you first here.

Eric Sass: Well, I just want to say I appreciate the partnership with Ducks Unlimited. As Russ alluded to earlier, The amount of work that we're trying to get done across the landscape, we can't do it ourselves. So it really, it takes an organization like Ducks Unlimited and our conservation partners to manage these projects, to make sure that they happen seamlessly and quickly. You know, that's the other thing. We put pretty tight timelines on these projects. We want the work done yesterday. We want it done 10 years ago. The rest of the year is that.

Russ Terry: Understandably so, though.

Mike Brasher: Anything from you guys? I don't know if you're going to go out in the woods and try to go hunting this afternoon. They're probably taking that away from you. Yeah, because you'd have to go back to Michigan. Not going to happen tonight, Mike, but it'll probably happen tomorrow. Any final comments? I know it's an exciting thing to work on.

Russ Terry: Yeah, I just wanted to add that H2Ohio has been highly successful and it is a program that has really got the attention of a lot of the other states, particularly in the Great Lakes, who see a need for a program similar to H2Ohio in their states and they're trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Mike Brasher: Well, and so the other, the important point of that is these are connected water systems, right? So it only makes sense that you want to work with a lot of the other states that are, you want those states also contributing to this because it's not just an issue that originates from the watershed of this one location, right?

Eric Sass: Yeah, we share Lake Erie with other states in another country, for that matter.

Mike Brasher: Well, guys, this has been a great conversation. I've learned a lot. I know our listeners will appreciate hearing about this new innovative approach and innovative program that is delivering additional conservation for the things that matter most to Ducts Unlimited, but it's allowing us to work with and strengthen a partnership that we've had for a long time and help address a growing priority. of that other agency, that being the state of Ohio, the entire government of the state of Ohio, because of all the different agencies that you talk about. So, Eric, Corey, Russ, thank you, the three of you, for being here and for adding a lot of information to this discussion. So, thanks, guys. Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. Also, thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the great work that he does editing these episodes, getting them out to you. And to you, the listener, we thank you for your time. We thank you for spending it with us. We thank you for supporting wetlands and waterfowl conservation.