MARSHALL COUNTY
SOIL & WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT
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ABOUT US
Our Mission is to provide the community with conservation leadership and quality service dedicated to improving and sustaining our natural resources.
Conserve
Collaborate
Educate
The major purpose of the district is to analyze needs and develop and carry out both short and long range programs aimed at solving resource problems, primarily dealing with soil and water resources. The ultimate district objective is to cause soil and water conservation practices and systems to be implemented upon the land. We do this by speaking at schools, sponsoring workshops, providing information and partnering with other agencies to help you be a good steward of the earth.
Photo Courtesy of NRCS
WHY WERE CONSERVATION DISTRICTS FORMED?
In the early 1930s, along with the greatest depression this nation ever experienced, came an equally unparalleled ecological disaster known as the Dust Bowl. Following a severe and sustained drought in the Great Plains, the region's soil began to erode and blow away, creating huge black dust storms that blotted out the sun and swallowed the countryside.
Thousands of “dust refugees” left the black fog to seek better lives. But the storms stretched across the nation. They reached south to Texas and east to New York. Dust even sifted into the White House and onto the desk of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On Capitol Hill, while testifying about the erosion problem, soil scientist Hugh Hammond Bennett threw back the curtains to reveal a sky blackened by dust. Congress unanimously passed legislation declaring soil and water conservation a national policy and priority.
Because nearly three-fourths of the continental United States is privately owned, Congress realized that only active, voluntary support from landowners would guarantee the success of conservation work on private land. In 1937, President Roosevelt wrote the governors of all the states recommending legislation that would allow local landowners to form soil conservation districts.
Brown Creek Soil & Water Conservation District in North Carolina was the first district established. The movement caught on across the country with district-enabling legislation passed in every state. Today, the country is blanketed with nearly 3,000 conservation districts.
For more information please visit Indiana Soil and Water Districts
Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas, April 1935. Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
....... a legal subdivision of state government responsible for the conservation of soil and water resources within its boundaries. It is an independent body formed under and subject only to the Indiana Soil and Water Conservation District Law.
....... organized by landowners of Green, Polk, Union, Walnut, and West Townships in May of 1955. In December of 1961 Bourbon, Center, German, North, and Tippecanoe Townships were added to the District.
....... controlled by a board of five local supervisors - three elected by the landowners in the district and two appointed by the State Soil and Water Conservation Board. The supervisors meet 12 to 15 times a year to conduct the district's business and attend other meetings in and out of the county. They serve their community without pay. The supervisors are responsible for providing leadership in the conservation and development of soil, water and related resources within the district's boundaries.