Houlton Conservation Area

 Today I attended a zoom meeting of the Saint Paul Audubon Club about the William H. Houlton Conservation Area in Elk River.  I wasn't exactly sure where it was. As it turns out I have driven by that spot many times driving or cycling through Elk River on Main Street and taking a left to curve over the dam and take the back roads to Big Lake. This area was a working 160 acre corn and soybean farm in 2016. The row crops were converted to prairie starting in 2016. As an experiment, they sowed 80 acres with a broadcast spreader and the other 80 acres with seedling plugs. The experiment is still going on so they don't know which way works better yet. The farm is bordered by the Elk River on one side (just past the dam) and the Mississippi River on another side adding up to 7 miles of shore land. The DNR owns the islands in the river near the property. The woods on the property were thick with buckthorn. Using large equipment, most of the buckthorn has been removed.  Managing the return of the buckthorn will be a large project for years to come. The farm was surveyed with the assistance of a biology teacher and the students of the Elk River High School. Already they are seeing more frogs, snakes, butterflies, bees and birds.  This fascinating project was funded in part by LCCMR. The Friends of the Mississippi River are in charge of the prairie restoration. The Friends of the Mississippi River are the ones who gave the talk tonight. I think the residents of Elk River are lucky to have such a wonderful prairie right in the town allowing them access to two rivers.