Roughly a year after Johnson County voters passed the 2024 Johnson County Conservation bond, new projects are underway.
The bond passed with significant support last election season, garnering over 70 percent of the votes in favor of the bill. The bond allocates $30 million of taxpayer dollars for conservation projects across Johnson County for the next 20 years.
Johnson County Conservation Board Director Brad Freidhof attributes the overwhelming support for the new bond to the success of the first conservation bond, which was passed in 2008. The board had $20 million to spend over a 20-year period in 2008 and came up just short, stretching the money out over 16 years.
Johnson County was the first county in Iowa to pass a conservation bond back in 2008, and Freidhof is proud to say he was a part of the historic moment.
“Johnson County was looking at funding mechanisms that would allow us to expand our conservation holdings in Johnson County to do things for the public,” he said. “And so at that time, there hadn’t been a county that had passed a conservation bond.”
University of Iowa WILD, a university experiential learning program, counselor Ava Locher said she loves the county’s commitment to conservation efforts and thinks it’s important for residents to enjoy their natural spaces and learn about the land.
“Conservation efforts and conservation education are important to kids, especially kids in Iowa, because a lot of people, even their parents in our communities, aren’t aware of what habitats are natural to Iowa,” she said. “A lot of people think corn is natural to Iowa, and I talked with a lot of parents at WILD who think that too. But in reality, it’s prairie that’s native to Iowa.”
Fridhof also said recreation and conservation efforts are crucial for the average citizens in Johnson County, and the bond will help improve their day-to-day lives.
“There are a lot of things that we take for granted, right?” he said. “We all expect to get up in the morning and go outside our homes and have fresh air to breathe. We all expect to turn on the tap water and have clean water to drink. And that’s just not a reality across the world anymore.”
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Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan was a strong proponent of both the 2008 bond and the 2024 bond. He said conservation efforts are crucial to maintaining the area’s natural health and beauty.
“I’d say that the importance is many-faceted,” he said. “We need to preserve natural areas before they disappear. Natural areas, in turn, give us a higher quality of life and a better environment in which to live. These efforts reduce flood risks, improve air quality — all of them good for quality of life.”
Some of the projects Freidhof’s team is currently working on include expanding wetlands to prevent flooding, improving infrastructure at parks, and expanding bike trails across the county.
He said they’ve removed the old septic system and showerhouse at Kent Park in Oxford, so it no longer shares a watershed with the Kent Park Lake. Another project involves expanding a bike trail from Tiffin to Kent Park.
Freidhof’s dream project involves a triangular biking trail that would connect Cedar Rapids, the Amana Colonies, the Iowa City metro area, and West Branch.
“Those connections not only provide recreational opportunities, they can provide a lot of economic opportunities for those small communities,” he said. “People may want to live in that large urban center for the resources that provide jobs. They may not have the transportation to commute, but if we can create bike linkages, they can go visit those and spur some economic growth.”
Luke Hoffman, executive director of the Iowa Bike Coalition, said there are 46,000 cyclists in Johnson County, which generates $40 million in taxable revenue for the county. It also brings in 686 jobs per year, mainly sports retail jobs. He said the county, on average, gets back $8 for $1 spent on biking and recreation.
Biking also generates $1.4 billion statewide, and overall recreation brings in $8 billion for the state per year.
“Outdoor recreation is Iowa’s hidden superpower,” Hoffman said. “These counties that are using these bonds, this tool that’s an example of how unifying we can be if we all come together and rally around things like outdoor recreation, because it’s wildly popular, because people are getting tangible benefits out of it. They can point to in their community, like these trails and say, ‘That’s something that we did, that we supported, that I voted for.’”