Environmental Learning Center Officially Opens
Peggy Wright, Mahaska County Conservation Board member cuts the ribbon to open the new environmental learning center.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – It’s been a process for over a decade, to open up a facility to help educate the citizens of Mahaska County about the environment around them.
On May 31st, 2019, that hard work and planning paid off as the ribbon was officially cut to the new Environmental Learning Center located on Highway 92, just east of Oskaloosa.
Peggy Wright, Curt Yeager, and Wilie Van Weelden cut the ribbon on behalf of the Mahaska County Conservation Board.
Van Weelden shared that he was on the Mahaska County Board of Supervisors back in 2008 when the Caldwell family donated the land to the conservation board.
Van Weelden remembers the project as “being a little ambitious,” and the fundraising went slowly at first.
With the sale of the county farm and money from the Local Option Sales Tax [LOST], the money was starting to come together to pay for the new facility.
Van Weelden said that after all the conversations and input, “we have a beautiful building and facility” and is “looking forward to good things.”
Dave Sedivec, Director of Mahaska County Conservation, said that “In some ways, it’s a relief to have the main part over with. There’s still a lot of a challenge.”
“That’s the fun part about a grand opening, it doesn’t mean that your building is complete, or the project’s finished, but we can let the public in to see it, and then we can encourage the public to come back multiple times to watch as we keep putting additions to it.”
At this point, the new environmental learning center features a 1000 gallon aquarium, some of the mammoth bones from the local mammoth site on display. Another display includes some Indian artifacts, collected in Mahaska County by a local resident.
Also on display is some history on the Caldwells, who donated the land that the new center now sits on.
There is also information inside the center that helps explain all of Mahaska County Conservations 21 areas that the public has access to, and what types of recreation each place provides. “This is the jump-off point to explore the rest of Mahaska County,” Sedivec said.
Russell Wildlife will still be an important part of Mahaska County Conservation’s plans going forward. Maintenance will be centered there, but the facility will still host guests for events such as youth outdoor field day, and digging in the fossil pits.
For Sedivec, having the new center where it’s located is something he was looking forward to. One of the things that surprised him about Russell Wildlife was the number of people who wouldn’t drive the mile of gravel road that leads to the facility. “Right now, we’re very visible, right on a paved road. We have a paved parking lot, so we expect to get a lot more people.”
“The thing that really excites me about this area is we do have the Freedom Rock. We do have the rec trail. In the future there will be a disc golf course in the back side of the Caldwell property,” Sedivec explained. “We’re bringing a lot of different groups together.
“This project couldn’t have happened without the cooperation from everybody,” Sedivec added. “I hesitate to thank anybody in person because I’m going to forget somebody. From the corporate donors to the volunteers, the public officials and politicians throughout the years, the volunteer conservation board members, the past and present conservation staff; none of this would have happened without everybody’s combined effort. To me, that’s the crowning achievement of this whole thing. It’s the culmination of 11 years of hundreds of people working together to make this happen.”
The center will be open to the public from 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, same as it was at Russell Wildlife. Sedivec hopes to expand those hours in the future if staffing becomes available.
