Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Jerad Henson: Hey everybody, welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Jared Henson, and today we've got a great episode for you. We're going to be talking about our Ogallala Aquifer Program, and I think this is really cool because this is one of two new programs that DU has that actually address a societal issue with DU's waterfowl-focused mission and habitat work. And to do that, I've got a couple special guests with me. I've got a guest co-host, Dr. Ellen Herbert, in the podcast studio with me. Dr. Ellen, thank you for being here.

Ellen Herbert: Thanks, Jared. It's a delight to be back on the podcast after a couple of years and I'm looking forward to sharing with you guys a little bit of our perspective on how we accelerate our mission delivery. I work here out of the Memphis office and have been with Ducks Unlimited for almost eight years. I'm our senior scientist and I really focus on the value that Ducks Unlimited works provides to not only waterfowl, but to other wildlife and to people. I'm originally from Arkansas, and I've worked in wetland complexes all over the country. And so DU has been an awesome place to work, to share our message, and to share the work that folks like our other guest, Abe, do out on the landscape.

Jerad Henson: Yes, that's exactly right. And I think one of the things that's really cool about what your team does is you help us be able to portray that more than ducks benefit, right? And that's going to be really cool. And as we start talking about things, that's going to be what we really want to kind of dive into, because that's what this program really highlights. And to talk about that from an on-the-ground location, like actually in it from a local scale, we've got Abe Lawler. He's a Ducks Unlimited biologist in Kansas in the heart of this program. So Abe, thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about how long you've been with DU and what brought you to DU and kind of what you do with DU?

Abe Lollar: Yeah, for sure. And Jared and Ellen, hey, what's up? Good seeing you guys, and thanks for having me on. Yeah, I started with DU back in 2018, or wait, 2019, but I've been out in western Kansas since 2017. I'm a born and raised Kansan. I grew up in south central Kansas, a little suburb south of Wichita. and decided to try a career in conservation in the fisheries realm. But as life goes on, you find yourself in different situations and different paths. My path led me to Western Kansas and fell in love with the area and just so happened to do a lot of wetland work with a previous position with Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Got a lot of things accomplished in that position and had opportunity to try a new chapter with Ducks Unlimited and that's where I'm at now.

Ellen Herbert: Jared, I'll share with you a fun fact that Abe and I did our very first DU employee training, so we've known each other since our very first days on the job here at DU.

Jerad Henson: Well, I'm a newbie here, so… Well, this is gonna be really cool because we've got very different perspectives on this program, right? Ellen's got this awesome perspective from a national level, this headquarters, kind of broader landscape. Abe, you're in the trenches, right? You're there, you're delivering the products, and that's something that we want to talk about today. So the program we're talking about is the Ogallala Aquifer Program, and you can learn more about that if the audience wants to. They can jump onto our website. I'll put a link in it because the actual domain name is super long, and I'm not going to say that on here, but we will drop a link so that you can go find out more information on this. And so to start off, I really want to just kind of talk about what is the Ogallala? What does this landscape look like? And so Abe and Ellen, can y'all kind of help me from that landscape level, talk about that. I am going to throw up a quick slide with just a map of where the Ogallala Aquifer is located, kind of in the southern plains. And those of you that are listening on audio only, you can jump onto YouTube and find these pictures and maps quickly, just to kind of help locate where we're working.

Abe Lollar: Yeah, for sure. So, the Little Oala, it spans throughout the high plains of the United States. It covers six different states. all the way up in Nebraska and all the way south to Texas. Also jumping into Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. And this area is obviously heavy in agricultural setting, being dry land, irrigated, and obviously the dairy and beef industry, very heavy in that.

Ellen Herbert: Yeah, and this for Ducks Unlimited, this spans two regions for Ducks Unlimited that are integrated with two of our most important landscapes for migration. And for those of you who are interested, it's really mostly the Central Flyway that we're talking about here. But this has been a landscape in which Ducks Unlimited has been very active for many decades with partners across the landscape. So very important to us biologically and as Abe said, very important to the agricultural economy of the country.

Jerad Henson: Well, let's talk a little bit about that. You mentioned kind of the agricultural benefits, you mentioned dairy and beef. How important? Can you give us kind of an idea, just roughly?

Abe Lollar: Yeah, so just kind of give you an idea of how important it is to not only the ag industry as a nation, but specifically here in Kansas where I reside and predominantly work in. We're 16th ranked in the nation when it comes to dairy. And a lot of people wouldn't think Kansas is a dairy state. They think of us more of the breadbasket state producing a lot of wheat. But with, you know, agricultural technology increasing over the last several decades with center pivot irrigation, we can produce other grains that can feed beef. And beef, for a lot of those who don't understand, Kansas provides over 36 percent of the beef that's produced in the nation. And with all those heads of beef, they need to be fed a variety of different things. And that mixture of good production ground, having an availability of water and space and good climate to raise these crops, but also have good conditions for beef cattle as well as dairy cattle in this area has been a huge economic growth for this area. Not only in Kansas, but throughout the high plains of the United States.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, so significant portion of a lot of things most of our listeners can go find in a grocery store on a daily basis, right, or come from. So this is a very, you know, impactful area to the nation as a whole. And so we wanted to get that point across really quick was that this area is really important to people for food. It's also one of the other really important aspects of the Ogallala Aquifer here is drinking water, right, for municipalities. And so, not only is it important for agriculture, but we're also getting a lot of these communities within this area are getting their drinking water from this. And so, can you speak a little bit to that?

Abe Lollar: Yeah, so the region that we're talking about, I don't know how many people know about this, but this area receives very little precipitation on average. I mean, we're talking anywhere from eight to maybe 24 inches of rain a year, which isn't a lot of water. So in perspective, at least here in Kansas and with the western part of the state, we get about eight inches a year annually. On the eastern part of the state, we get over 40. Yeah. which, depending on that gradient, you get your drinking water from surface runoffs or reservoirs and going through treatment systems. Out west, when you don't have as much rainfall and you don't have that surface water to get your drinking water supply from and treat it, you have to rely on that underground aquifer for your drinking water supply. And with municipalities, industry, and agricultural both using that same resource, our municipalities, they can kind of see the back end of things when it comes to scarcity of that resource. And I mean, it's affected across all three of those parameters. You know, ag is getting hit. Municipalities are getting hit, so are industry. Industry, they are all seeing, you know, hits when it comes to that resource being depleted over time.

Jerad Henson: Right, and that's something that we're going to jump into definitely a little more. I want a little bit more in-depth. Before we do that, a last little thing, kind of the benefits and values of this landscape. I want to talk a little about, obviously, like our core mission, right? This is an important area to Waterfowl. and other wildlife. And especially, we're going to talk kind of a little bit about playa wetlands and their importance in aquifer recharge, but they're also really important in this sea of, I guess, sea of ag, basically, is what you're seeing across this landscape, whether it's grazing country, cattle country, or it's row crop production. There's some small dotted wetlands. Those are the, like I mentioned, playas that are really important for recharge. They're also super important for any kind of migrating birds or any wildlife within that, because it's the only cover, the only native vegetation a lot of times in those systems. So those types of habitats are really important as well. And I did find a statistic that I thought was pretty cool, something like this area can support up to three million birds, depending upon how much water there is on the landscape at that time of year. Lots of other biodiversity, 185 different bird species, over 400 plants, bunch of amphibians, and like almost 40 mammals all depend upon this area. So lots of other animals as well as pollinators, right? I think Ellen mentioned some work with monarchs and important in that region on kind of a call we had earlier.

Ellen Herbert: Yeah. So, you know, in terms of our waterfowl mission, this is part of the Central Flyway. The Ogallala Aquifer spans many of our waterfowl landscape priorities. And, you know, I just can't reinforce for those of you who haven't been to visit this region of the country, how dynamic the water is. You can go from bone dry in 48 hours to, you know, a three foot deep wetland and Abe is smiling right now because he knows that is exactly what happened to me last summer. But that dynamic nature of the system is what's really important for us in our mission to conserve and restore those wetlands. So birds that are migrating through that landscape have that ability to move around the landscape with the water. And those are birds that are coming all the way in some instances from the boreal and prairies of Canada all the way to the Gulf or all the way to Mexico. And so having a place to loaf, to rest, to feed, to have fresh water on that journey is really what this landscape supports. And then as you said, tons of other wildlife in this area of the country. Monarchs are very charismatic species. Maybe Abe can tell us a little bit more on the ground. I know he's had some cool observations of some different species beyond waterfowl that use these systems. But yeah, in terms of our core mission, it's a dry part of the country and every little wetland matters for those migratory birds.

Abe Lollar: Oh yeah, 100% Ellen. Like Jared said, there's hundreds of different species of birds, mammals, amphibians that congregate around these areas. They're biodiversity hotspots in a pretty ag-based system. Jared, I know you said that it's a sea of ag, and these are islands of conservation.

Jerad Henson: Well, I'm an ecologist kind of by training, so I think island biogeography is at play here for sure, and that's a very nerdy comment.

Abe Lollar: Yeah, those species that Ellen's talking about, I mean, we can talk about little bitty mice that use these areas when they're When they go through the wet-dry cycle, non-game species that use these areas, like grasshopper sparrows, various different types of raptor species that use it during their migration, alpine bird species outside of songbirds, like our lesser prairie chickens use these areas when they become restored. That wet-dry cycle that Ellen was talking about, you know, 48 hours, you're bone dry, or one time you're bone dry, 48 hours later, you're three feet of water. That wet-dry cycle is really what drives that production and productivity in these areas. And that really gets that system going and really attracts different wildlife from, like I said, those little bitty mice all the way up to elk and pronghorn, like really large mammal species and obviously migratory birds. And insects alike, yeah.

Jerad Henson: I think, you know, it's a fascinating landscape and just the fact that, you know, such a small, because a lot of these are really small wetlands, but they can have such an impact on that landscape when they add up. I think kind of one of the other things I want to talk about, so we've talked about the importance Let's talk about kind of the challenges now, right? We've got a program around the Ogallala Aquifer, and that's not just because it's cool. We're a conservation organization. We're trying to help out important landscapes for ourselves, but this is also, like I mentioned before, a really unique landscape in a way where our work actually has some really major societal benefits. And so let's talk about the problem. What is that problem with the Ogallala right now?

Ellen Herbert: Yeah, well, as Abe mentioned, it's the most consistent source of water for municipalities, for industry, for agriculture. They're really relying on that Ogallala Aquifer, which is, for folks who aren't familiar, it's like a giant underground lake almost. It's all underground. A lot of that water has accumulated over hundreds of years. So it is a resource that is limited. And, you know, as Abe hinted at earlier in the conversation, folks might drill a well that is, you know, a couple tens to hundreds feet deep and that well was drilled decades ago and now it's going dry. The aquifer level is dropping from use and it's dropping because it's not being, basically, less water is entering the aquifer than is exiting the aquifer.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, the net flow of the system, right? And I have a photo here that is water level change in the Ogallala Aquifer. pre-development to 2019, and it's pretty telling. And for those of you who can see it, if you can, there's a lot of red and yellow on here, and red and yellow's not good. Green and blue are good on this one, but red and yellow, not so good. And I think one of the things that's pretty wild, there's some spots within the aquifer where there's been over a 200-foot decline in the water table. So if you want to pump from that, you have to go 200 foot further down. And that gets expensive.

Ellen Herbert: It's expensive to drill a well. It's expensive to pump the deeper you go.

Jerad Henson: That's gravity. Yeah, you're fighting gravity the whole way. I mean, obviously, that's going to be so far down that most likely that's not an economically feasible option anymore. But it just shows how much water is lost in that system, right? And so if we're losing groundwater that much, right? You mentioned, and one of the things I guess I'll mention too is that when people installed that well 50 years ago, they thought that resource was inexhaustible, right? You go down 20 to 50 feet and you probably hit water and had plenty of water. That's not the case anymore, right? And so I think that's something that's really important for us is that we're trying to help producers on the ground find solutions, right?

Ellen Herbert: Yeah, at the end of the day, this really matters for folks. And when you bring up solutions, and I'll tap in Abe here, but when you bring up solutions, that's really what we're looking for. And I will use every chance I get to say, obviously this isn't just Ducks Unlimited, it's a big partnership of different conservation organizations in Eastern Kansas and Nebraska and Texas and other localities. We've learned with those partners that one of the principal ways that we can add water back to the aquifer, so we call that aquifer recharge, is through the restoration of rivers and wetlands. So partners like Kansas Geological Survey and the Playa Lakes Joint Venture and the U.S. Geological Survey have come together to develop some really sound science and reporting demonstrating that these wetlands in eastern Kansas and throughout the aquifer are one of the primary points that water can go back into the aquifer. And so that's really the solution-oriented mindset that we're using here, that these fantastic wildlife and waterfowl habitats also serve this very specific purpose on that landscape to help with aquifer recharge. And maybe I'll ask Abe to talk a little bit about the dynamics of how that happens and what that looks like on the ground.

Jerad Henson: Well, before we do that, I have one more question on kind of some other concerns, because we mentioned a lot of everything we just talked about was water quantity, right? It's water table levels. But Abe brought up a really important point earlier on a conversation from water quality issues that come with this as well. And Abe, can you speak a little bit to kind of how you end up with water quality? You had a pretty good saying in there.

Abe Lollar: It's a little bit of a tongue twister, but when it comes to the water talk, people use this term all the time. The solution to pollution is dilution. Right. And if you've got less water. Less water, that pollution accumulates. And if you don't have that flush to dissolve that out and spread that over, it just keeps getting denser or more concentrated in that closed system. So that is another challenge that we face with this depletion of the aquifer happening, not only in the Ogallala, but other aquifers all across the United States. Seeing, you know, not having as much water to dilute that pollution. It's going to start showing up not only in your drinking water, but at least here in Western Kansas, some of these pollutants that are showing up in our river systems and our groundwater are starting to attach themselves to the feed that we're giving to our feed cattle and our dairy cattle. And you know how that stuff flows through the system. If that does start going into the grain, start going into the cattle and the milk, it's going to eventually get into us. So that's something that our partners are keeping a very close eye on. And that is part of the reason why we're working so hard to find solutions with partners of achieving not only our mission, but also this other greater mission of sustaining the aquifer and not having these issues show up, you know, 50, 100 years down the line.

Ellen Herbert: And those wetlands not only bring more water and help with that dilution that Abe is talking about, but I think the cool thing about wetlands that if listeners don't already know, a lot of the same things that happen in your sort of wastewater treatment plant down the road from your house happen in a wetland. So the wetlands aren't just helping bring water to flush through the system and improve that water quality, they actually have little bacteria that can help remove some of those pollutants and totally take them out of the system. And there's things we're learning every day as we study these systems about how cool wetlands are in terms of how well they clean up water. So they're not just capturing water and putting it back in the aquifer. They're cleaning it up before they do that. So, you know, they're diluting those pollutants, but they're also helping… Also filtering it out.

Jerad Henson: Yeah. It's like a giant sponge.

Ellen Herbert: They're cool little dudes.

Jerad Henson: Alright, well, with that point, I think that's a really good time for us to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to jump into all of the different DU solutions that we're providing that actually help address those concerns we just raised. So stick around. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unloaded podcast. We've been talking about the Ogallala Aquifer program. I've got Dr. Ellen Herbert in here with me and Abe Lawler joining me today to talk about the program again. And we've been talking about the landscape, its importance, right? And one of the things I really want to jump into now is and I mentioned we would, is the solutions. But before we get to that, Abe has this really cool figure. It's a little complicated from this level, but it talks about kind of what the future could look like if we don't interfere and try and take steps to recharge the aquifer. So Abe, can you kind of talk us real high level through this, uh, this figure.

Abe Lollar: Yeah, for sure. Um, before I get started, I give a big shout out to my buddy, uh, Brownie Wilson, who provided us with this, um, diagram, uh, him and his staff and his crew, uh, work. all year round looking at these wells here in Kansas and seeing how much these fluctuations have happened and help us model out projections of where areas are going to be affected the most. And this is essentially what those models are showing. Over time, the aquifer levels have been dropping and rising in certain areas. And with the model that Brownie has pumped out, here recently, this shows you kind of the time frame and or lifespan of the aquifer in certain regions of the high plains here in Kansas. 10,000 foot level here, the way that Browning Vest describes this is red is bad, blue is good. So if you look at those red areas, those areas are going to be depleted quicker and or won't have enough water in the system that have beneficial use. The areas in blue are doing better and have a little bit longer lifespan. Same with the areas in white. So they will last a little longer and or getting more recharge quicker than what's being taken out. So that's down and dirty of what this diagram is showing. Red is kind of your areas that are going drier quicker. and areas that are blue and yellow and that transition in between is that gradient of good versus bad. Yeah, and I think this is a pretty telling graph, right?

Jerad Henson: It really does help us get a grasp on what the future looks like. It does give us kind of a call to action. We need to do something, right? And it's one of those systems where it works out for us. We're already working in this landscape. These are activities we're already doing. And then you tack on the fact that now we realize we've got the science to show that those activities have benefits to aquifer recharge, right, as well and to help combat this. So to talk about that, I kind of want to go quickly into what are those solutions. So how are we working to address this major topic and how is this program working to address this and what are the conservation actions we're doing? And so the first one and the main one that we talk about, and we've already brought it up a couple times, is playa restoration. So Abe, can you and Ellen kind of talk a little bit about a quick definition of what a playa is, but also the mechanism for how actually a wetland, a playa wetland like this, this puddle in the middle of the field, how can that actually recharge an aquifer.

Abe Lollar: You want me to take us to that, Ellen?

Ellen Herbert: Yeah, we'll let Abe tell us about what this landscape looks like. Because before Abe starts in, I really want to encourage everybody, when you get a chance to go look at this landscape, we'll just blow your socks off how dynamic it is. And how dynamic this landscape is, is just super tied to why these wetlands are so important for the aquifer and I'll let Abe tell us a little bit more detail on that.

Abe Lollar: Yep. Yeah. So a playa lake is a shallow ephemeral wetland that's scattered across the high plains. I mean, they aren't very deep. They range from, you know, half a foot deep when they're full of water all the way up to, you know, three plus feet deep. They are solely dependent on rainfall. They are found at the bottom of a watershed. And for those who live in the area or outside of the area, they think of Kansas as flat as a pancake. which we kind of are. So when we do have those rainfall events, that water's got to go somewhere. So it runs off and typically where that water finds itself is in a ply lake at the bottom of that watershed and solely dependent on rainfall. So no aquifer or no springs coming up, bubbling up through the bottom. It's all that water going down until that clay in the bottom absorbs that water and expands and then forms a seal. And that's when you start seeing ponded water on the landscape. Prior to that, when it's dry, that clay shrinks really, really tight and forms these huge cracks called fissures that are super duper important to that groundwater recharge to our aquifer. That is the direct connection from the ply itself down into the underlying aquifer. And when that water first hits, it's coming into the playa and it's getting, when these playas are restored, that water is getting filtered through the grasses and native flora, getting, you know, filtered out some of those larger contaminants. And then that water is seeping through those large fissures over time and going through that other process of filtering before it hits the Ogallala. And that is the down and dirty of apply a leg of how it forms or forms when it's wet and how it interacts with the aquifer.

Ellen Herbert: And if I can, I'm just going to try to paint a visual picture for you from what Abe said. When you go to these systems and they're dry, it looks like you're almost like a moonscape. That soil is almost hard as concrete. It's all cracked and dry and as Abe said, it's full of these fissures and there is almost nothing growing in it. You get a rain within 48, 72 hours, two or three days. It's like it springs to life. There's all these plants that emerge, that soil just totally changes from hard as a rock to slippery, ooey, gooey mud. All these little critters come out of the works. It's a truly fascinating system, really cool to experience it, and the key to all the benefits that these systems provide. Abe is right, if you're driving through eastern Kansas, on a dry spell, it doesn't look like much. Um, western Kansas. It surely doesn't look like much till it rains and then the landscape just comes alive. So, if you're traveling through Abe's neck of the woods and you say, oh, I don't know how this could possibly be true. It just is one rain and it's a different landscape. It's very cool. It's very cool and something everybody should see in their life.

Jerad Henson: Timing is everything. Yes. And so this is something that really brings up that point, right? You see the mechanism for how playas can really, really impact the aquifer and the landscape just as a whole. And so we prioritize playa restoration as one of our primary tools. right, in that landscape for conservation. Benefits wildlife, benefits people. That's a big win-win, right? We love those situations. And so one of the things we're having to do now is tell that story. And so I think this is really cool. We've heard stories now from farmers and they talked about, because a lot of this is in row crop, as we've mentioned before, and we've heard stories from farmers and not everybody has the same experience, but there's a lot of farmers that are realizing, especially in today's markets, if they can go in and not farm that playa, they're de-risking their operation. It now kind of has economic benefits for them because probably, especially if they're planting beans or something like that, they're probably losing money. in that system. And on top of that, I read some really cool stories that Abe sent over. And there was also this sense of pride, right? This sense that I'm helping out the community, I'm helping out the environment, they're seeing more wildlife. So there's some other benefits, right, to that playa restoration, not just aquifer recharge, but an impact in your community and in the landscape as well. And I thought that was really cool from some of the stories we talked about. One of the other ways, and so y'all have something else to add to that, but one of the other ways I want to talk about, this one's pretty cool, is invasive species removal. And that's kind of a weird thing to think about, but Abe, can you talk about what species we're talking about removing, and maybe you and Ellen can talk about the impacts, like how much impact those invasive species actually have on the system.

Abe Lollar: Yeah, for sure. So our enemies here all across the western part of Kansas are our Bad 3, our Russian Olive, Salt Cedar, also goes by Tamarisk or Tamarack, and also Invasive Phragmites. And I'm sure those three are pretty bad species all across the nation, but at least here in my little world of Western Kansas where we don't have a lot of water, those three use up a ton of water that could be put towards beneficial use for wildlife, but also beneficial use from an agricultural setting. So the main invasive species that we're really targeting on our river systems here in western Kansas is tamarisk or that salt cedar. And the way that we're doing that is we're removing it in the riparian areas where it's found. And in our river scars that are found in the riparian areas that are sucking up all this water, changing the soil complexity, just because that's the nature of those plants, turning a fairly decent soil type into a really salty soil type, and not allowing native vegetation to grow underneath the understory, as well as It's a deciduous plant, so it drops its leaves that are high in salt and pretty much makes a bed for itself to become super invasive and almost a monoculture in this riparian area. And what we're doing is removing that and hopefully helping downstream users see more water come downstream. So essentially cutting out that plant or acres or thousands of acres of plants that are using that water, native species would be using and also seeing benefits downstream. So that's the one that we're really targeting right now and hopefully expanding. We've got a pretty good foothold here in Kansas, but expanding it further west, upstream along the Arkansas River. I did say Arkansas River. Sorry, y'all. I'm from Arkansas, too.

Ellen Herbert: I'm sorry, guys.

Abe Lollar: I'm sorry. It's just the Kansas thing. It's how I grew up. I know. That's all I know it as. But up there, the Cimarron River, the, oh gosh, the Smoky Hill River, we're also dealing with it in central part of Kansas along Rattlesnake Creek, which is inflow to a wildlife refuge called Quivira. It's very, super important. for migratory birds here in the Central Flyway. And then the, oh gosh, I'm going blank right now, Republican, the South Fork of Republican, Northwest Kansas. We're doing a lot of effort on salt seed removal and reestablishment of those native species in that riparian area.

Jerad Henson: So just kind of for the audience, how do you actually remove? Like what are the activities? Is it herbicide treatment or mulching?

Abe Lollar: There's several different types of removal systems. So they're like in central Kansas where they get a little bit more rain. They actually pluck the whole plant. And it's super difficult to do because those tap roots on these trees go 16 plus feet down into the ground. And they can germinate off these tap roots, even though you might cut them off like three feet in the ground, they'll pop right back up. So you got to get that whole tap root. So they're doing that in central Kansas, having a lot of success with that. up in northwest Kansas, they're doing cutting and spraying. So they cut at the base and then do the herbicide application so it doesn't re-sprout off that stump. But here along the Ark River and the Cimarron, we are using a dozer method and raking method. So we doze these acres of super dense salt cedars into piles, and then our contractor chips these huge piles of salt cedar into bedding for dairy cattle here in western Kansas. We have a very very special program that we're running out here with our contractor in a dairy that we're removing these invasive species for landowners to create habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife and the beneficial use of water downstream to other users. But taking that invasive product, turning it into something that's beneficial for the dairy, beneficial for the contractor. And then once those chips of the salt cedar have served their life in the bedding areas for these dairy cattle, they take that and use it as a soil amendment versus a synthetic amendment for fertilizer on their row crops. So it's a good full circle use of a bad thing.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, that's an awesome. Yeah, continuing to find something beneficial to do with it. That's awesome. Just in general, it's this whole story there.

Ellen Herbert: Trash into treasure.

Jerad Henson: That's even better. Yeah. It always comes back to, you know, manure in some way, form or fashion. That's how it works. And something that I don't think we really talked about just a second ago either was in-playa restoration. What do the actual activities of a restoration look like?

Abe Lollar: Honestly, Jared, they vary. Every single playa restoration project is unique and is a little bit different depending on what is needed to be done. So when we do these playa restorations, we look at what's wrong. Is it being farmed through? Does it have hydrological restoration needs? So does it have terraces around it preventing water to get into the plant? Does it have a ditch system that changes that water path to go downstream or into a different location? Does it have these pits that people have dug out for previous irrigation methods and or trying to consolidate water in one area? So we look at all that stuff and those restorations based off those landscape features can be fairly cheap or super expensive of either creating those waterways through terraces or plugging ditches or filling in those pits. Those are the more expensive projects that we deal with. The simpler projects, which we have a lot of, but even though they're simpler, doesn't mean that they're, you know, just crank them out. They're super, you know, the same all across the board, but is taking it out of production and planting a native short grass seed buffer around it that has a pretty high density of pollinators. I know Ellen was talking about the monarchs moving through here and pollinators. We've seen over time here the last several decades that our pollinator species have been hit pretty hard in decline of their population. So us providing habitat in these areas that are being taken out of production and also filtering those pollutants for water sources has just been a win-win. And we've seen huge blooms of Maximillia sunflower, butterfly milkweed, various species of coneflower and sunflowers popping up. And even, this is the really cool part about these restorations, the seed bank of some of these wetland plants and upland plants are still in the system and are expressing themselves because they're being taken out of production. They're not getting tilled up every year. They're not getting sprayed every year. They're really expressing themselves. And I've been lucky enough to see that change within a couple of years of, you know, hitting range right, getting that native grass buffer in the ground, having that disturbance of, you know, tilling and or spraying or the agricultural practice, just give it a chance to relax and it just blows up. I mean, I remember taking out some partners of showing these restoration projects. The bottom of the ply itself was pure pink and the upland area that were restored was all yellow. It almost looked like a bullseye. And you know the pink plant, smartweed, those duck hunters out there, they know what smartweed is, but for the pheasant hunters and the birders, the yellow plants were various types of coneflowers, various types of sunflowers, and the amount of bees and butterflies and other pollinators that were in that area. It was so loud from the buzzing and so loud from all the toads and frogs. It was nuts. It was almost deafening. Those who are out in the field who get to experience the toads and frogs, how loud that can be, combine that with bees. I know mosquitoes can be loud too, but with bees and other pollinators, it's quite the experience. And that's what the potential is from a wildlife standpoint, is when you restore these plies. Sorry, I didn't mean to take it under from you.

Ellen Herbert: No, that's awesome. I mean, I just keep reinforcing for folks who've never been there. It's such a cool system. Just such a cool system.

Jerad Henson: It is. And one of the cool things we're talking about here is within those fly restorations and then also the invasive species work, the phreatophyte work where we're trying to reduce water uptake by those plants. All that's helping habitat, right, for waterfowl. And I do want to reiterate, you know, we've talked about this program being really geared at helping with water scarcity across this landscape, but it's providing incredible wildlife benefits. Abe, the picture you just painted is fantastic, right? It's an immersive experience to talk about. I've got a picture thrown up right here that you sent earlier today of a playa just loaded with a bunch of, looks like waterfowl buzzing around. And you can see this, this landscape comes to life given the opportunity, and it supports, as I mentioned before, on a wet year, right, up to 3 million birds, 20 different species of waterfowl. I've got some old numbers here, but I will say on wet years, this area can produce a significant number. It's generally thought of as a wintering waterfowl habitat, right? But it can produce waterfowl in wet years, right? Especially those northern latitudes. And I think that's important to remember as well. What are the most common waterfowl you see across that system, Abe?

Abe Lollar: Well, most common for me, depending on what time of year it is, is your typical big four species, in my opinion, you know, blue-winged teal, mallards, pintails, and green-winged teal. Those, in my opinion, are the most common waterfowl species that we see. And being from eastern Kansas and moving out to western Kansas, I feel like the pintail population out here is a lot higher than it is in the eastern Kansas. or eastern part of Kansas, it blew my mind of how many species, or not species, how many, how many pintails were just scattered across the landscape. It was unreal my first year out here. It's like, oh my gosh, well, I got my two pintails, and this was back in 2017, so bear with me, guys. Having two pintails is like, oh, that's a pintail, that's a pintail, that's a pintail. And working really hard to get those mallards and or those other off ducks. But I mean, we're not just limited to those four species. You already said that there's 20 different species of waterfowl that use this area. What is becoming more and more common out here, which I've seen an increase just in my short time in Western Kansas, is that we're seeing more cinnamon teal up this way. Really? And we're seeing way more black-bellied whistling ducks. Oh yeah.

Jerad Henson: We got them here too.

Abe Lollar: Yeah, in which, I mean, heck, seeing those for the first time like five years ago, I was like, oh my gosh, we have some. And they're just, you know, becoming more and more. And honestly, the more work that we've done here in western Kansas, the more of those migratory species are finding these islands of conservation. And here in the last several years, and I think Ellen, you wanted me to allude to this, We've seen, there's various sightings of whooping cranes on our projects that we have completed. And those who follow the migration, I'm sure are aware of what whooping cranes mean to the United States and our partners to the South and to the North. They're a really cool species. They're an eye catcher and they're not doing the best, and seeing one out of a very small population is super important, and it really hits home when it's like, oh yeah, they're using those projects that we helped out with, and telling those landowners, like, dude, you got a whooping crane on your property, like, oh, that big white bird? Yeah, that one. That ain't super special. And they take pride in it after they figure out the importance of those things. They really do. And they get protective. And I applaud them for that. That pride of, you know, I've done something and it's meaningful, not only to me, but several other people across the United States. It really means something to them and means something to me, too.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, the whooping crane, I mean, that's a flagship for conservation. It really is. I mean, it's a cool story. They're struggling, but they are going in the right direction, right? We're seeing successes because landowners are buying into the system, right? And that's something really cool to talk about. And not just whooping cranes. There's a huge population of sandhill cranes that use that area as well, right?

Abe Lollar: Yep, it's a pretty good corridor. I mean, Kansas is the bottleneck of the Central Flyway, so we got, you know, any and everything that flies north and flies south, it comes through Kansas. So Sandhills is one of those species, and they do find their way through western Kansas, but they also find their way through the central part of the state and the eastern part of the state. And depending, Jared, you alluded to this, you know, there's some times that the central part of the state's dry, and the east and west is wet. So those birds find where the habitat is and some years we have a ton of them and some years they just fly over. I think it was three years ago, we got eight inches for a year and a half. We were dry, dry. And one day I was outside with my son. He had school off that day, and it was one of those typical fall days, north wind, really dark, low clouds, starting to get cold. It was wave after wave after wave of sandal cranes, and they just moved straight to Texas. I'll never forget it because my boy was just like, Dad, time to go hunting. Like, dude, I don't know if they're going to stop. They're probably going to be in Texas tonight.

Jerad Henson: Yeah. Well, I think, and to reiterate that variable nature of this landscape, right? And this is something that Mike did a great job, again, talking about when we did a previous episode on the playas. Our senior waterfowl scientist, Dr. Mike Brasher, he talked about that redundancy in habitat, right? And wintering habitat. Because there has been times, especially recently when we've seen this with some band return data, as well as some of the GPS data, because people had talked about migration shifts and things like that. All the ducks are going to Oklahoma, right? You've heard that. Or Kansas. They're all going. Well, if you follow the data, the ducks are following water, right? If it's super dry in the Mississippi alluvial valley, and it's super wet in Kansas, guess where ducks are going? They're going somewhere where there's more habitat and less shotguns ringing. It's just the nature of what a duck does, right? They're good at not getting shot, especially after they get to a year or two old. So they're going to follow that habitat. And so having that habitat across the continent is really important on this, right? Because If we have a dryer in one part of the country, hopefully we've got backup on some other parts. And so habitat across the country is really important to maintain continental populations of waterfowl as well, right? We don't do this work in a vacuum. And I think it's really important that we highlight some of our partners as we kind of start to wrap up this conversation a little bit. So we already mentioned the Playa Lakes Joint Venture, and that's a huge partner. And I know Abe, you work with them. Weekly basis.

Abe Lollar: Yeah.

Jerad Henson: Can you tell a little bit about that partnership?

Abe Lollar: Oh, yeah, it's been a fantastic partnership. PLJV is is a huge partner in the work that I do here in western Kansas and and the other states for that matter that they that their area resides in. But I mean, I work with them on a ton of different levels, whether that's, you know, mapping these areas, having communication blast to various landowners and or tenants and working with other partners of figuring out how to connect with these individuals and or entities to achieve each other's common missions and goals and find that happy medium. Sometimes PLJB is a better liaison to get those conversations started and or vice versa. Maybe we're a better way or better liaison to make those connections. So, it's been really great from the aspect, but another side of that is an educational aspect. They can help us out with very educational programs and communicating in a way that maybe not a duck hunter would understand. Maybe a common person would understand the importance of Ogallala recharge and how playas affect that. And importance of playas, just not from the recharge standpoint, but also from a wildlife standpoint. Having that way of communicating through their communication specialist, Miriam Hammond, has been great. But from like a farm bill standpoint and a programmatic standpoint of how to make the in-place programs right now, how do we make them better? Working with Matt Smith here in Kansas of, you know, really dialing in on what these producers are really needing and wanting from programs, and what our conservation organizations want and need from these programs to achieve our missions and goals for sustainable waterfowl populations for not just today, but tomorrow and forever. And working together and finding that common ground of where that area would shine, which if you haven't heard about it, there is a special program specifically for playas that we worked hand in hand with with PLJV. It's been around for several years and it's been one of the highlights in CRP throughout the nation. So having that partnership there to, you know, be able to reach out, communicate with landowners, deliver programs, finding sources of funding to, you know, push those programs into place and having that delivery, financial assistance to the producers to make it happen has been huge, but it's not just them. There's several other partners that we have across the, the whole realm that have assisted with all of those things. But PLJV is, you know, we, we communicate on a weekly basis. They'd probably get tired of me like, Hey guys, what's up? I just called you yesterday, but here's some more, some more stuff we need to talk about.

Jerad Henson: And there's, as you mentioned, there's a host of other partners. I wanted to give them a direct shout out because of that interconnected relationship. I mean, we work hand in hand with the joint ventures all across the country, and it's no different within the Playa Lakes Joint Venture. You mentioned their comms material. They've got a really cool YouTube video called Dust to Ducks.

Abe Lollar: Yeah.

Jerad Henson: And by the way, go check it out if you're listening to this. It's a cool one. It has some really great stories and photos and stuff about producers restoring plies and actually showing some of the benefits of that. What are some of the other partners? Are there any surprising partners that you might have?

Ellen Herbert: Yeah, I mean, I think Abe and… This is not an exhaustive list, so I'm going to say that real quick. And I'll say like Abe and some of his other colleagues in the Southern High Plains have been sort of pioneers at DU. They were some of our first conservation staff to get some of the corporate gifts around water stewardship. So we have corporate partners who are interested in these landscapes they might have. an operation factory, they might have staff, they might be buying, you know, agricultural products from Kansas, but they have a vested interest in the water resources of Kansas, so… Everybody's sharing that same pond, right? Yeah, and like I said, Abe and I started about the same time. I think his little boy had just been born, actually. And not long after that, we had a partner approach us, PepsiCo, which I'm sure everybody's familiar with that beverage. But they were very interested in working in Abe's neck of the woods on projects that would demonstrate their commitment to the stewardship of water resources. So Abe mentioned the phreatophyte removal projects, They helped fund some of that work. And then more recently, another name that the audience might be familiar with is Cargill, which, as you can imagine, sources a lot of their grain and beef and other commodities out of Kansas. This is a callback to Abe's earlier statistics about the importance of this geography to agriculture in the country. Cargill has partnered with us as well to fund some of the playa restoration. some other hydrologic wetland restoration and phreatophyte removal to improve water resources in this geography. So that's a little bit newer to us. The relationship with Ply Lakes Joint Venture has gone way back through time. Working with some of these private companies is a little bit newer for us, but it's a really neat way to partner to advance our conservation mission and also to get our message to a different audience. that this conservation work is important in your food chains, the foods you buy from the grocery store. Way more than ducks, right? For some folks.

Jerad Henson: I like to emphasize that, especially in this landscape. The work we do has impacts well beyond ducks.

Ellen Herbert: So, yeah, it's been an interesting ride working with some of these new and unique partners. Definitely different. But I think we're always looking for ways. There's always more plies to restore than there is dollars to do it. So looking for ways to get creative, have new partnerships, support producers and production and everyday people. So that's been kind of cool and fun. Abe really was one of our guinea pigs on how we brought those corporate dollars to conservation work.

Jerad Henson: And it's been awesome because I've actually had the luxury of having Cargill on a podcast on the Playa Lakes work they've done. And so if someone wants to go back and listen to kind of that story but from Cargill's side as well and from one of our partners' side. Feel free to jump back into the Ducks Only podcast into our archives and find the Playa Lakes episode with Cargill. You can learn a bit more about those relationships and how we work with those partners to try and find impacts on the ground.

Abe Lollar: Hey, Jared, you're talking about some out-of-the-box partnerships. I don't know how many other DU staff has been working with groundwater management districts across the nation. But for me, working with them, something that's below ground, but the stuff that we're working on above ground, you know, having that, you know, how that all works is just kind of been blossoming into a really good relationship here, at least here in Kansas. I open all across the I-plains that our staff is really getting getting in touch with them and producing a great working relationship. The other partners that we have here in Kansas is Kansas Alliance of Wetlands and Streams. They've been huge when it comes to Playa Lake restoration as well as the phreatophyte removal. projects throughout the state, and then also various departments of Kansas government. So like KDH&E, DOC, Department of Ag has been huge, but those are a little bit more of your typical conservation partners that we've seen across the nation. But groundwater district management units, having a duck guy talk to somebody that works on stuff below ground is a little different.

Jerad Henson: Well, as long as you can deliver solutions, I imagine they'll listen.

Ellen Herbert: Well, and that's a great point, Abe, to kind of bring us back to where we started, which is really building in Kansas and beyond in the Ogallala this broader partnership around water and how our waterfowl-oriented work really supports those goals across the Ogallala, and that there's a big case for more people to get involved, groundwater managers, corporations, municipalities, cities and towns, that that's really what we're trying to emphasize with this sort of None of the work is new to DU. It's work that Abe and his colleagues have been doing for a long time now. It's getting more energy behind that, building more diverse partnerships and scaling the work to address both the biological needs of migratory waterfowl and water needs of communities, businesses. And that is really the story we're trying to tell here is this is work that everybody should appreciate.

Jerad Henson: And that is the point of this program, right, is to take the work that Abe and his crew have already laid the foundation for and help them scale it, right? That's what we're in the business of trying to do is find conservation programs that are scalable. Our missions, as we've talked about in the past and heard the term, audacious is the term I hear thrown around. If you're trying to impact at the continental level, you have to do things that are scalable. So we have to try and work in these ways. And so that is the background behind this particular program and another one we will introduce in the near future as well. But we'll save that for a later date. Before we wrap up here, Ellen or Abe, do y'all have any other stories that you want to share or anything else you want to share about the program, the landscape? Anything you want the audience to hear before we kind of turn the lights off here.

Ellen Herbert: Abe, I got to throw that one to you as our man in Kansas.

Abe Lollar: Well, I do have stories to tell, and I know we don't have enough time to share that. And I know I've left off a lot of people that have helped me grow this program, but I want to give a shout out to my boss, Matt Huff. You know, having the foresight of this being right in line with DEU's mission and helping provide me the resources to achieve that and build what we're building right now and the stuff that we've already done. And also throughout, you know, the Central Flyway, all the partners are, you know, working for this combination. But from a take-home story that is near and dear to my heart is seeing, sorry, grumpy old men, cussed, cuss these things, words you've never even heard of before. Like, oh my gosh, just absolutely hate ply lakes. I'm losing money on this every year, blah, blah, blah. And then you talk to them and you, you get that upfront. No, I'm not doing nothing. Come back to him the next year. Hey, Have you thought about it a little bit more? No. And I'm talking to them right in the middle of the street, looking at the fly on their corn field or wheat field. Everything's drowned out. Next year, all right, I'll try it. Five years down the road, see them, you cross each other's path, see that ply lake with the native grass buffer around it, full of ducks, smart weed, pull over and I say, Abe, I wish I had done that 30 years ago. And just that little thank you of saying, hey, thanks for helping me out. Open my eyes. And then them telling their story of, you know, I hated it. And then them enjoying it. for the recharge aspect, that feeling of I'm helping my community, I'm helping the future generations. But that other instant gratitude of seeing ducks and other wildlife just show up over time and they get to share that with their sons and daughters or their granddaughters and grandsons or the rest of their family and or the rest of the community. So that's the story I like to share is like you get cussed at sometimes or the plies get cussed at. When you find the right program and the right situation, it turns into something really beautiful.

Jerad Henson: And I don't think I can come up with any better closing remarks than that. So Abe, you painted an awesome picture. I'd like to thank Abe Lawler from Ducks Unlimited. in Kansas, and I'd like to thank our co-host over here, Ellen Herbert, senior scientist for Ducks Unlimited, for joining me on this episode today. I got to thank the audience out there for tuning in and listening. Hopefully you all really enjoyed, learned about this new program. And last but not least, got to thank the man behind the curtain over here, Mr. Chris Isaac, who's our podcast producer, for all the hard work he does with the podcast team. So thanks for tuning in.