Full speed ahead on the Upper Iowa River Watershed Project

The Upper Iowa River Watershed Project is getting underway.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a $5,652,636 grant to the area to pay for "disaster resilience projects" aimed at reducing the severity of flooding, while improving water quality.

Northeast Iowa RC & D will be supervising the project.  Spokesperson Paul Berland says of the $5.6 million grant, $757,597 will be forwarded to the University of Iowa's Iowa Flood Center, which will be doing predictive modeling of flooding in Winneshiek and Allamakee counties, with a goal of finding the subwatersheds and watershed projects that have the best return on investment for the money spent.

Berland says all projects will be voluntary, requiring landowner approval.  But he's hoping landowners will be attracted by the financial help.  The money will also be spent on creating modeling of the Upper Iowa River Watershed and on buying additional monitors that will be able to record stream flow, soil moisture or rainfall within the watershed.

The goal of the ambitious five-year program is to reduce water flows, so water quality will improve and floods will be less severe.