Middle Cedar (Bridal Cedar) WMA details grants, nitrate monitoring and a $500,000 local project
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Summary
The watershed authority updated the council on monitoring and recent grant wins, including a $1.3 million EPA farmer-to-farmer grant and $500,000 for converting a Coneflower/Green Hill detention basin to a stormwater wetland; the WMA will hire a watershed coordinator and continue nitrate-focused monitoring.
Mary Beth Stevenson, chair of the Middle Cedar (Bridal Cedar) Watershed Management Authority, briefed the Committee of the Whole on the WMA’s work to protect water quality and reduce flood risk across the watershed.
Stevenson said the WMA formed after the 2008 floods and participates in intergovernmental projects such as the Iowa Watershed Approach. The group has used federal and state funding to develop a watershed management plan, prioritize high-impact areas and support on-the-ground projects.
"We've been doing watershed monitoring since 2017," Stevenson said, noting that average nitrate concentrations were unusually elevated in 2024 and 2025 and that the WMA uses load-mapping to prioritize interventions where they will have the greatest benefit.
Alyssa Comer of the East Central Iowa Council of Governments (ECOG), which administers the WMA, and Maria Perez, the WMA treasurer, described recent grant successes. Comer said the WMA received a $1.3 million EPA farmer-to-farmer grant to fund demonstrations of natural infrastructure and research on practices to improve water quality. Perez announced the WMA also secured $500,000 to convert the detention basin at Coneflower and Green Hill into an urban stormwater wetland; funding will support design, implementation and accompanying education and outreach.
Stevenson and Comer said the WMA plans to hire a watershed coordinator to manage projects, write grants and act as a local point of contact. The WMA also contributes about $10,000 annually to support a Black Hawk County Soil and Water Conservation District coordinator and maintains a modest $50,000 annual fundraising target to leverage state and federal grants.
Council members asked how the WMA’s monitoring and modeling inform local siting decisions, and Stevenson said the tools help the city identify infiltration-priority areas, protect aquifer recharge zones and choose appropriate land uses (for example preserving high-infiltration areas rather than paving them).
Next steps: the WMA will proceed with project planning and hiring, and the city will maintain its ongoing support and consider how to incorporate monitoring outputs into land-use and siting decisions.
