TY - JOUR T1 - The living snowfence JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 23 LP - 24 VL - 38 IS - 1 AU - Leon A. Koehlmoos Y1 - 1983/01/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/38/1/23.abstract N2 - WINDBREAKS have long been used to reduce wind erosion; protect homes, crops, and livestock; provide wildlife habitat; and store snow. Using shelterbelts to protect roads from snow drifts, however, has never been as successful, mainly because of initial establishment costs and landowner resistance to setting aside land. Slatted snowfence is a much more common method of trapping snow along roadsides, but that practice too has a number of disadvantages. Slatted snowfences must be put up and taken down each year, which requires equipment, fuel, and manpower. Moreover, the fencing materials are relatively short-lived and thus costly. Rising road maintenance costs were the concern when Emanuel Petska, a Valley County, Nebraska, road superintendant, consulted Richard Beran, general manager of the Lower Loup Natural Resource District, and Howard Paulsen, a district conservationist for the Soil Conservation Service, about achieving a more permanent solution to this winter problem. Together, they discovered that by combining funds and expertise they could create an alternative to the slatted snowfence—the living snowfence. The concept of using shelterbelts as living snowfences in Nebraska now involves a variety of governmental agencies, the Game and Parks Commission, natural resources districts, the Department of Roads, and the Soil … ER -