Coon Creek Community Watershed Council has funding available for planned, completed conservation projects

Dec. 14, 2025

By Sydney Widell

The non-profit Coon Creek Community Watershed Council (CCCWC) still has funding available to support Coon Creek Watershed residents’ 2025 conservation projects, thanks to grants from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, and The Nature Conservancy. 

The conservation cost share funds practices including planting alternative perennial crops like trees and hedges, cover crops, prairie, and riparian buffers. Practices like these, which establish year round ground cover, are critical to maintaining healthy, productive soils, and enhancing flood resilience. 

The CCCWC will compensate watershed residents and other members for conservation practices they have already adopted in the 2025 season,  and it will also fund purchases for projects to be completed in 2026. These practices include:

• Cover Crops: $25/acre for up to 30 acres. 
• Trees: $10/tree, for up to 200 trees. Note that trees must be planted with tree tubes. 
• Hedges: $3/hedge, for up to 500 hedges. 
• Prairie and Riparian Plantings: $200/acre

Community members who purchase seeds or trees to plant in 2026 are also eligible for this round of cost share. The CCCWC will administer 80 percent of the cost share at the time of purchase, and will award the remaining 20 percent once the project has been completed. 

This cost share is administered on a first-come, first serve basis, and must be requested by Dec. 31, 2025. To request cost share, visit https://cooncreekwatershed.org/cost-share/, and complete the form linked on the webpage. Alternatively, applicants may email the CCCWC at council@cooncreekwatershed.org to make their cost share request. 

In past years, CCCWC members have used this cost share to plant cover crops like winter rye and red clover, to establish hazelnut orchards, to add windbreaks to their landscaping, to improve wildlife habitat, and more. Last season alone, the CCCWC awarded $6,000 in cover crop cost share to nine producers, which funded 304.6 acres of cover crops in the Coon Creek Watershed.

Additional cost share, including the CCCWC’s new Project Maintenance Program, will also be available in 2026.