Hoosier Energy’s efforts to be a partner in conservation by creating healthy pollinator habitats continue to evolve.

Three years after becoming the first generation and transmission cooperative to receive a Certificate of Inclusion for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Nationwide Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) for the monarch butterfly, and one year after that certificate helped secure a permit to use herbicides in the Hoosier National Forest right-of-way, Hoosier Energy is taking the next step.

A grant award of $7,700 from Stantech and the University of Illinois-Chicago will enable Hoosier, in partnership with EPRI, Pheasants Forever, and Quail Forever, to monitor the vegetation along that right-of-way over the next three years. The study will compare the changes that occur due to selective herbicide treatment and brush control with the previous results of over 50 years of mowing.

“By using a low-volume herbicide, we target invasive species and see more of the native habitat develop,” said Hoosier Energy Environmental Team Leader Dave Appel. “We would like to move from vegetation management to habitat management for all acreage in our right-of-way.”

To that end, Appel and Hoosier Energy are working on a grant application through the U.S. Forest Service to provide habitat enhancement for over 500 acres of publicly accessible land in the right-of-way. This would allow for overseeding and more robust treatment.

This fall, another project near Tell City has seen ground restoration along the Perry County Industrial Loop. The entire right-of-way was seeded with approximately 50 native species of grasses and wildflowers as a result of working with Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever.

Seeding was completed in September, and in the coming years, the area will also be the subject of a research project with EPRI.