Kirk Hanlin calls soil, "dirt where you want it."
Hanlin, assistant chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), grew up on the banks of the Mississippi River in Hamilton, Illinois, and now has a second home in Nauvoo.
Hanlin said he's seen the river fill up over the years with silt, or soil where you don't want it, like at the bottom of the Mississippi.
NRCS is a voluntary program, as opposed to a regulatory agency like the EPA. Farmers, ranchers, and other private landowners can receive technical and financial assistance from NRCS to implement conservation practices on their land.
Hanlin said for farmers in western Illinois, that means taking better care of the topsoil. He said topsoil is one of Illinois' most important natural resources but without a strong root system to hold it in place, heavy rains can wash it into creeks and streams and eventually into the Mississippi River.
Topsoil seeping into Illinois' waterways has consequences downstream. More dirt at the bottom of the river means less room for water, which can lead to flooding or a hefty bill for dredging.
It can also cause water pollution and dead zones, which are areas where fish and wildlife don't survive because there's not enough oxygen.
This happens when nutrient rich soil, like the kind farmers create when they spray their fields with fertilizers that contain nitrogen and phosphorous, ends up in the water.
Hanlin said NRCS has been pushing farmers to plant cover crops to help hold their soil down and curb water pollution. He said planting radishes, oats, and rye grass over the winter, when many row crop farmers leave their fields bare, establishes root systems that help prevent erosion.
Cover crops also raise the amount of organic material, such as decomposed roots, in the soil.
Hanlin said increasing the soil's organic material by one percent per acre can allow it to hold up to 27,000 gallons of additional water.
"Which can increase your productivity greatly," Hanlin said, "It also means that you're not having run-off. Those chemicals you paid for stay right there."