Inclusion of all stakeholders in the process is carefully nurtured. Every possible effort is made to work with the landowners based on their needs. A partnering cost share approach is used to maximize benefits. Practices include grassed waterways, animal waste management systems, crop residue management with conservation tillage, small wildlife dams, rotation grazing management, wetlands restoration, riparian protection, buffer strips, lakeshore stabilization, urban and rural chemical use education, and community information programs. The project works closely with the producer to help him increase profits with conservation cost shared practices that benefit the watershed.
Landowners are responsible for twenty-five percent of installation costs.
Some of the landowner match is in the form of in-kind services. Local involvement by community banks, schools and colleges, lake associations, businesses, service clubs, news services, and citizenry fuel continuing efforts to improve the program. Wildlife artist Terry Redlin joins local business sponsors to present one of his famous prints to volunteer cooperators as conservation awards. Local business owners pay for the framing as a way of saying thank you to the landowners. This will be achieved be reducing silt loadings and nutrient loadings by 50 percent over six years.