Des Moines Business Record
10-01-06
2006 Central Iowa Activist Awards: Environmental Stewardship
By Jason Hancock
jasonhancock@bpcdm.com
When Stephen Garst died in 2004, his wife and five daughters knew they wanted
the land he loved to be his legacy for generations to come.
"It's our most precious asset, and we wanted to make sure it stayed in act," said
Liz Garst, one of Stephen's daughters. "We were afraid that years from now, our
heirs would lose their connection with the land and only see it as a way to make
money."
So the Garst family, once made famous by hosting Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev at their family farm in 1959, donated that farm and some surrounding
lands to create the Whiterock Conservancy, a land conservation area that will
eventually total more than 5,000 acres near Coon Rapids.
The farm was originally a dairy farm in the 1920s, but was converted to swine
production in the 1940s. Since the 1950s, the farm has been the center of a
large-scale cow-calf operation.
When completed, this will be one of the largest land donations ever made in the
Midwest, but the project's vision, ranging from prairie restoration and sustainable
agriculture to ecotourism and new forms of public-private partnership, is also
extensive.
"So much of Iowa is in private hands," Garst said. "We hope to show how the
land can sustain its economic value without detriment to the environment."
Whiterock's mission, Garst said, is to protect and restore the area's diverse
habitats, as well as its special geological features and dark night skies. It will also
engage in research and modeling of ecologically and economically sustainable
methods of land management, such as ecotourism, alternative pasturing
methods, paid hunting and conservation-friendly farming practices. Finally, it will
provide for low-impact public recreation and environmental education.
"Our family has a long history of innovation in agriculture," Garst said.
Roswell Garst, the family patriarch, began farming the land in 1916 with his
brother Jonathan. Except for a few years in the late 1920s, Roswell and his wife,
Elizabeth, lived on the land until their deaths in 1977 and 1996, respectively.
Roswell Garst's son Stephen continued the promotion of high-input, high-yield
agriculture, but was also an active outdoorsman. He was an early supporter of
erosion-control measures such as waterways and no-till farming, and was a
leading force behind a local conservation board and bike trail. He also dedicated
himself to purchasing numerous tracts of timber and pasture land in the Middle
Raccoon River valley where he hunted deer and wild turkey, and built and
stocked dozens of fishing ponds.
When Stephen died in 2004, his heirs unanimously decided to donate the land,
extending eight miles along the Middle Raccoon River and worth $6 million, to
ensure its long-term protection.
"We all happily agreed that this was a good idea," Liz Garst said.
Donating the land will take time, however.
"The IRS limits what you can give according to your income," Garst said. "So as
of right now, a little over 1,800 acres has already been donated. Within 10 years,
we will have given it all away."
Liz, her mother, Mary, and her sister Rachel still live on the land, and the areas
where they reside will not be given away until after their deaths.
The land has officially been given to a new non-profit organization made up of
the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Leopold Center for Sustainable
Agriculture of Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Natural
Resources. Each group is represented by a seat on the seven-person Whiterock
board.
In October 2005, Gov. Tom Vilsack designated the Coon Rapids-Whiterock area
as one of the first three Iowa Great Places out of a field of 146 applicants.
This designation led to Coon Rapids receiving a $1 million Great Place
appropriation from the Iowa Legislature. Disbursement details are still being
worked out with the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, but the local Great
Places group is requesting that a quarter of this amount be allocated to help fund
Whiterock access infrastructure, including a visitor center on Iowa Highway 141,
signs and improvements to the Whiterock astronomy field.
An additional $250,000 will go toward a 4-mile paved trail linking Whiterock to
downtown Coon Rapids.
Once fully opened, Whiterock is expected to attract some 50,000 people a year,
thus giving an economic boost to this struggling corner of rural Iowa. U.S.
Department of Agriculture Rural Development recently announced a grant to
support an economic impact analysis of these projected rural tourism
investments.
"We hope people will connect with the natural environment in a spiritual way,"
Garst said. "There won't be a golf course or swimming pools. But the land is
beautiful and we are really happy that we can preserve it."