Gov. Mark Dayton is coming to Austin for a public meeting to discuss his proposal to establish an additional 125,000 acres of water quality buffer strips across the state.

Dayton will be at the Hormel Nature Center’s Ruby Rupner Auditorium at 1:30 p.m. today to discuss legislation — House File 1534 and Senate File 1537 — that would require 50-foot water quality buffer strips around Minnesota’s lakes, rivers and streams.

Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson and Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr are also scheduled to attend the meeting.

The proposal is attracting much interest. Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, hosted a session on the buffer strips on March 21 that about 80 farmers attended.

In mid-March, Rep. Denny McNamara, R-Hastings, the chairman of the environmental committee considering the bill, said it has “broad support and broad opposition as we try to get it to a point that will work.”

Hunting, fishing and environmental groups support the idea. But the state’s two largest agricultural groups oppose the bill in its current form due to the loss of tillable land and other impacts on farmers.

 

— The Associated Press and Owatonna People’s Press contributed.this story.