Johnston Wildlife Refuge’s farm rent to be used for other conservation projects

Unable to truly develop the Johnston Wildlife Refuge any further than what has already been done, Jasper County Conservation on March 24 requested permission from the board of supervisors to use funds that the property has generated through farming a small portion of the land for future projects.

Keri Van Zante, director of Jasper County Conservation, wanted feedback from supervisors on how to proceed with the money the land generates from renting the land for farming. The conservation board, she said, is not interested in any further developments or projects on the property.

“Our board has made a motion that we would like to use the funding that we get for other conservation projects,” Van Zante said.

The property — which is located along Highway S-70 — was entrusted to Jasper County Conservation in a will from Lillian Johnston, who died in September 2006. Conservation and the county board of supervisors accepted the donation about a year later. The will specified it was to be utilized as a wildlife habitat.

“Currently, all of it is seeded down into prairie. There is a pond out there and we planted shrubs there, and the ridge top is farmed,” Van Zante said, noting it is a no-till field for corn and soybeans, and cover crops after harvest. “…It’s kind of like a large food plot on top of the land.”

Conservation would still use funds to maintain the property. Since neither Van Zante nor the conservation board knew Johnston, she said they are trying to do the best they can with what they think she wanted. Van Zante said her department has accomplished that, and now Johnston’s donation can go further.

Additional conservation projects throughout the county could be financed or funded partly by the wildlife refuge fund. Van Zante said when conservation first received the land, the supervisors at the time established an account specifically for the revenue generated by the Johnston Wildlife Refuge.

“We would like to ask for that to be adjusted so that it can be used still for the Lillian Johnston property maintenance, but also for additional conservation projects throughout the county,” Van Zante said, adding that some of the other projects could be new restrooms at parks or playground and park equipment.

If the upcoming nature center was short on funding to complete the classrooms, Van Zante added the land revenues could also be used for that.

“We’ve not talked about specifics; it’s just that we have funding there to do additional conservation projects that we’ve talked about,” she said. “…There could be different things we could do. A lot of the funding we have when we do have donations we try to partner with grants to make it go a little bit further.”

Van Zante said whenever Johnston Wildlife Refuge revenues would be used for a project, conservation could note the donor as Lillian Johnston.

“It just seems like her donation that she was just doing for a wildlife area could become greater,” she said. “It could have a greater impact.”

Supervisors voted 3-0 to allow conservation to use the Lillian Johnston Fund for further development and upkeep of Jasper County parks and property.