Nearly 500 acres of Woodbury County’s most scenic Loess Hills will stay that way.

Three local families recently finalized conservation easements that will permanently protect their lands’ natural and agricultural resources.

“In Woodbury County, we don’t have a lot of the top-quality sections of Loess Hills,” said Rick Schneider, director of the Woodbury County Conservation Board. “This land is some of the best in our county that we have an opportunity to preserve.”

The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group, worked with each family to establish the easements through the federal Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP).

All of the land is located in the Luton Special Landscape Area, one of the 12 Loess Hills regions identified by the National Park Service as particularly worthy of protection. The area is about 20 miles southeast of Sioux City and is along the Loess Hills Scenic Byway, also known as County Highway D-25.

Leo Lidgett of Bronson protected 230 acres of his property, which contains remnant prairie, woodlands and improved pastureland. Lidgett said he sought permanent land protection to keep his property in its natural state.

“About every year, we’d get a half-dozen people who would want to buy five acres or 50 acres to build a house. In the last 25 years, there’s been almost 20 homes put up in the area,” Lidgett said. “If we don’t do something, we’re going to lose this natural property — it’s all going to be houses.”

Lidgett has been removing invasive trees and shrubs from his land and plans to do a controlled burn on the prairie. Lidgett is encouraging his neighbors to consider similar conservation easements.

“The biggest reason that I think anybody should be looking at this is to preserve this fantastic natural resource,” Lidgett said. “It needs to stay the way it is and not be spoiled by development.”

Gene and Linda Kollbaum of Bronson protected 67 acres of their property, which also contains remnant prairie and pastureland.

“It’s pretty country,” Kollbaum said, noting the rolling hills, diverse prairie grasses and wildlife.

“I would like to see the whole area in an easement,” he added.

A third Woodbury County family protected 160 acres of their Loess Hills property. Each of the three sites contains prairie remnants, pastures and abundant grassland habitat.

While each family donated a significant part of the easement’s value, they received financial compensation from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Additional funding came from the Loess Hills Alliance, the Young Family Foundation of Waterloo, Iowa, and INHF’s Loess Hills endowment. The Iowa Department of Transportation contributed transportation enhancement dollars, since the sites are visible from the Loess Hills Scenic Byway.

The conservation easements allow these families to maintain their private ownership rights. However, the easements permanently prohibit activities that would diminish the land’s natural and agricultural resources, such as construction, development, overgrazing, clear-cutting and more.

INHF currently holds the conservation easements. They will soon be transferred to the Woodbury County Conservation Board, which will monitor the easements.

“By permanently protecting the scenic, open-space, wildlife and agricultural values of these properties, these landowners have made a significant and lasting contribution to the citizens of Woodbury County and Iowa,” said Brian Fankhauser, land stewardship specialist for INHF.

INHF is a nonprofit, conservation group that works with private landowners and other partners to protect Iowa’s land, water and wildlife. Since its founding in 1979, INHF has helped protect more than 95,000 acres of Iowa’s wild places.

Past INHF projects in Woodbury County include the Owego Wetland Complex, the Stone State Park addition and the Table Marsh Wildlife Management Area.

For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.