Sign-up ends Monday Posted: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 4:00 pm
Owners of land along the Mississippi River in Tennessee may be eligible for financial and technical assistance with increasing bottomland forest acreage and enhancing water quality under the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program (WREP), part of the Wetlands Reserve Program. Eligible lands are called “batture” lands and are in the river’s active floodplain.
Landowners enrolling in the voluntary WREP in Tennessee can receive up to $3,150 per acre for placing an easement on the land.
When fully implemented, the program will reduce sediment and nutrients entering waterways, decrease flooding and improve bird and fish habitat in six states. Mississippi River Trust will manage the program in partnership with the Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, a coalition of state agencies and the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The program will provide $20 million to landowners in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.
Landowners interested in applying for funding should contact local NRCS offices (http://go.usa.gov/m2Y). The sign-up period will end Monday.
“This program will help landowners remove land from agriculture that has seen repeated flooding from the Mississippi River and helps compensate them while restoring land back to bottomland hardwoods,” said James L. Cummins, Mississippi River Trust president. “It will help people, wildlife and water quality.”
Learn more about WREP at http://go.usa.gov/m24. Published in The Messenger 6.12.12 | 
