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 Welcome to West
Pottawattamie County, Iowa
West Pottawattamie Resident?
Eligible to vote?
Become a Soil & Water
Conservation District Commissioner!
If
you're a resident who is eligible to vote in a general election, you're an
eligible candidate for the West Pottawattamie Soil and Water Conservation
District (SWCD) board. In Iowa, Conservation Districts are managed by five
commissioners elected on the general ballot to serve four-year terms with
one commissioner per township. With assistance from the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship-Division of Soil Conservation and the USDA
Natural Resources Conservation Service, commissioners address the natural
resource issues that are most critical in their districts.
For more information on how to become
a Conservation District Commissioner click on the following links:
Become a Commissioner
The Paperwork
Badger Ridge at Hitchcock
Nature Center near Crescent, Iowa
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Heads up!
There will be a General CRP Sign-up
August 2 through August 27, 2010.
Fact Sheet
For more complete information visit this CRP website
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Women who own or manage farmland
in Cass, Audubon, Harrison, Pottawattamie and Shelby Counties are invited
to participate in a FREE conservation education program Wednesday, August
25, at the Therkildsen Community Center in Harlan, IA.
The program is called Women Caring for the Land.
Women own or co-own nearly half
the farmland in Iowa, and often express strong conservation values.
However, many are unsure of how to reach their conservation goals. Women
Caring for the Land offers a peer-to-peer, informal discussion format for
women landowners to talk about their individual farm conservation goals and
hear from women conservation experts about resources available to help them
achieve those goals, including USDA cost-share programs.
All interested women are
welcome, from new landowners with no conservation experience to those who
have done extensive conservation programming. Lunch will be provided. In
order for us to get an accurate lunch count, please RSVP by Friday, August 20, by calling the Shelby County SWCD
office, 712.755.2417.
The program begins with
registration and coffee at 8:30 a.m. at Therkildsen Community Center, 706
Victoria St., Harlan, Iowa. The discussion will begin at 9:00 a.m., and
will be guided by the interests of the participants. Possible topics of
conversation can include erosion control, tillage options, management of
pasture and timber lands, prairie and pond restoration, alternative
cropping options, residue removal, using leases to manage conservation with
tenants, and others.
An optional field tour will
follow lunch, so that participants can look at conservation practices in
the area. A transit bus will be provided for this tour.
This session of Women Caring for
the Land is sponsored by Women, Food and Agriculture Network in partnership
with Women Land and Legacy Committee, USDA-NRCS and Golden Hills RC&D,
and funded by Farm Aid and the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.
For more information, call Leigh
Adcock of WFAN at 515.460.2477 or Shirley Frederiksen of Golden Hills
RC&D at 712.482.3029.
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Lake Manawa
Survey Page
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The West Pottawattamie Soil and
Water Conservation District is on Facebook!!
It’s a page to communicate what we have going on
and to answer your questions.
Please take a minute to check out our page and
join us as a friend.
You can find us at “Westpottawattamie
Swcd”
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Lake
Manawa Watershed Council Resources Page
Contractors wishing to add or update their information click
here: ![MPj04331600000[1]](wp_index_files/image012.jpg)
General Information and History
of Pottawattamie County, Iowa
Established - February 24, 1847
Organized
- September 21, 1848
County
Seat - Council Bluffs
Courthouses
- Council Bluffs
and Avoca
Pottawattamie County
was a part of the Pottawattamie Purchase of 1847. The county was originally
named after the Native American tribe that once existed and lived within
the Iowa Territory. Pottawattamie is a
traditional word meaning "Fire” or "Keepers of the Council
Fires".
The rapidly growing county seat
known as Kanesville had a population of about 7,000 in 1851; mainly Mormons
on their way from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah. It was also an important
outfitting town for gold seekers and others on their way to California and the
West. Kanesville was renamed Council Bluffs on
January 19, 1853. Avoca is the
judicial seat of eastern Pottawattamie
County. This town of
1,500 residents was founded in 1869.
The Loess Hills of
Pottawattamie County, Iowa
The Loess (pronounced
"luss") Hills of western Iowa
were deposited in three stages during the last two major glaciations of the
upper Midwest. When continental glaciers
in the upper Midwest began melting, many rivers (including the Missouri) became
conduits for vast quantities of melt-water. This melt-water contained fine
grained sediment of silt, sand, and clay size. Strong winds created by air
pressure gradients around glaciers swept some of this sediment out of the
river floodplains and deposited it downwind creating the loess hills.
Loess in Iowa is separated into stratigraphic
units based on the time that it was deposited. Each unit has been given a name and can
be distinguished by its distinct chemistry and physical composition. The lowest layer of Loess is called the Loveland Loess and was
deposited 160,000 to 120,000 years ago as the glacial epoch known as the
Illinoian was coming to an end.
After the Illinoian glaciers melted, there was a hiatus of glacial
activity for approximately 100,000 years, after which glaciers returned
during a period known as the Wisconsinan.
The middle layer of loess was deposited from 31,000 to 25,000 years
ago during a major retreat of glaciers during the Wisconsinan glacial epoch
and is known as the Pisgah Loess. The topmost layer of loess, called the Peoria Loess, resulted
from major melting at the end of the Wisconsinan glacial epoch and was
deposited between 25,000 and 12,500 years ago. This makes the Loess Hills
some of the youngest natural landforms in Iowa!
The
Loess Hills were once home to many prehistoric species. Mammoths,
mastodons, camels, bison, musk ox, ground sloth, three-toed horses, dire
wolf, stag moose, and stilt-legged deer were among the animal fossils
discovered in the Loess Hills. Today the Loess Hills are home to many
different species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
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