Miller Tract/IC&E Wetland Restoration

Using funds from the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council (LSOHC) and acquisition dollars from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), this project created wetlands and improved habitat in southern Minnesota.  The restored property, east of Alden, added to over 250 acres of continuous native prairie that included numerous wetland restorations after rerouting county tile and abandoning private tile.

Wetland restorations in southern Minnesota provide some of the most significant habitat benefits of any conservation practice. Because over 90% of the original wetlands in many southern Minnesota counties have been drained or altered for agriculture and development, restoring even relatively small wetlands can have an outsized impact on wildlife, water quality, and ecosystem health.

Compared to northern Minnesota, wetland restoration in southern Minnesota often produces particularly high ecological value because:

• Historic wetland loss exceeded 90% in many watersheds.
• Remaining wetlands are often isolated and fragmented.
• Restorations reconnect habitat across heavily agricultural landscapes.
• Wildlife quickly colonizes restored sites, often within one to three years.

Even relatively small restored wetlands (10–40 acres) can support dozens of bird species, amphibians, pollinators, and mammals, while larger wetland complexes provide landscape-scale habitat that supports breeding populations of waterfowl and other wetland-dependent wildlife.