Redhead Wildlife Management Area WMA

Redhead Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Filmore County underwent a restoration in 2025 that expanded upon work completed in 2017 and improved the wetland habitat. In early 2025, RWBJV staff and partners began to work on a project to fill an irrigation re-use pit adjacent to Redhead WMA. Many farms in the RWB were gravity irrigated. Water was conserved with large pits that were dug at the lowest elevation at the end of a field and pumped back up to the top of the field to be reapplied. These pits often were in, or nearby playa wetlands. As farms upgraded to center pivot systems, these pits have become obsolete and a barrier to wetland function, as they capture water within them without letting the water flow to the wetland.

Filling this pit gave partner staff a great opportunity to expand the wetland enhancement into Redhead WMA. Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) staff and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soil scientists collected soil samples to find the depth to the Bt layer of the soil profile in the wetland at Redhead WMA. The Bt layer is the ‘clay pan’ that holds ponded water. Over time, culturally accelerated sedimentation occurs that bury this Bt layer, decreasing the wetlands ability to pond water and host native wetland species. Finding these Bt layer depths across the wetland told a story of how the wetland historically looked and gave NGPC staff and Ducks Unlimited (DU) engineers a good start on the restoration design.

The original wetland restoration on Redhead WMA was designed to provide multiple locations for waterfowl hunters to utilize. The new design further increases hunting spots by adding another leg to the pumping pool. A fence berm between the irrigation re-use pit on the adjacent property and Redhead WMA along with a waterway leading from the berm to the wetland was contoured to slowdown the flow of water runoff to decrease erosion while recreating the natural slope downhill to the wetland.

With quick work from all partners, the restoration was able to be tackled at the same time as the pit fill on the adjacent property, utilizing the same contractor. Bundling this work resulted in a single mobilization cost, lower bids from the increased project acres, and decreased the amount of time it took to implement the project. The project has undergone several stalls due to weather and wet conditions but is mostly complete and will be finished in the first few months in 2026.