By Rebecca Houg, staff writer

On the southwest side of Pickerel Lake, a washout of the shoreline, caused by the collapse of a tile outlet, was sending about 11 tons of soil into the lake every year.

&8220;You could compare this washout to emptying a dump truck full of dirt into the lake,&8221; Behnke said.

The half cent Albert Lea sales tax passed last year helps fund the repair of pollution sources to area lakes in Freeborn County. Even when the pollution is sediment.

Soil hurts water quality by making the water cloudy, which hurts fish and wildlife habitat. The soil also brings contaminants such as phosphorus, which fuels algae blooms. The sediment also affects the depth of the lake.

&8220;When people think of pollution, they think of a chemical plant dumping illegally into a lake or a business throwing its garbage into a river. They don&8217;t think about sediment &045; soil &045; being a pollutant. They don&8217;t realize that an eroded shoreline is polluting the water. But that&8217;s the problem in our watershed. Erosion is increasing the sediment and phosphorus loads of our lakes,&8221; said District Administrator Brett Behnke.

Repairing the shoreline is expensive, but doesn&8217;t qualify for federal funding because the shoreline is not farmed. Under the federal Farm Bill, agricultural land can qualify for a cost-share program to help pay for conservation practices. Typically, the landowner would pay 25 percent of the cost and the federal government would pay 75 percent.

However, land that has never been farmed is usually ineligible for federal funding. That leaves many

erosion sites and pollution sources out of the funding loop, including the site on Pickerel Lake.

The Shell Rock River Watershed District is closing that funding loop with its own cost-share program, funded by the local sales tax, to repair these sites. The half percent tax passed vote in 2005 and went into effect in April this year.

In the Pickerel Lake case, the District paid $628 of the repair while the landowner paid $209.

&8220;The cost to repair erosion sites and other problems is often prohibitive for land owners, especially because there is usually no direct benefit to the landowner. This program aims to help water quality and the land owner by providing up to 75 percent of the cost,&8221; Behnke said.

The goals of the District cost-share program include:

&169; Meeting federal standards for &8220;swimmable&8221; and &8220;fishable&8221; lakes and streams.

&169; Reducing the bounce in local lake levels during storm events.

&169; Providing incentive to implement rural Best Management Practices that fail to qualify for other government funding.

&169; Supplementing funding for rural BMPs that do qualify for other government funds, in order to increase the incentive for landowners.

The District has identified two other projects in the Pickerel Lake subwatershed, meaning the water eventually drains to Pickerel Lake. One project, already completed, repaired a gully that was directly eroding into a stream. This project costs $1,125 total and corrected 16.5 tons of erosion annually. The second project, estimated to cost $9,500, would repair a gully washout that is sending 55 tons of soil per year into a wetland.

&8220;By correcting these erosion sites, we are resolving the sources of sediment pollution. This benefits water quality in the receiving stream or lake as well as downstream. In the case of Pickerel Lake, it&8217;s very important because it affects Fountain Lake, Albert Lea Lake and the Shell Rock River downstream,&8221; Behnke said.

Several other watershed districts in Minnesota offer cost-share programs, including Prior Lake-Spring Lake and Sauk River. The local watershed district used those programs, along with the Minnesota Soil and Water Conservation program, as models for its cost-share.

If readers are interested in applying for the district cost-share program, please contact Conservation Technician Francis Cunningham at 507-461-3227.