A $60,000 grant will help pay for a Loess Hills Recreation Plan Study that could be used to develop new recreation activities like biking and hiking trails, boating, golfing and fishing, wetlands and wildlife watching in that area.

The Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) will provide the grant throughout two years toward the study, which is expected to start later this year and be completed by the end of 2009.

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Gary Tucker, Plymouth County economic director, said the study will encompass the entire Loess Hills seven-county corridor from Akron to the Missouri border.

"The first step is to inventory what's here and then from that as to how to grow, and how to take what we already have and make it more effective," Tucker said.

The study is intended to compile recreation information from private, city, federal, county and state lands within the Loess Hills. Those findings will then be integrated into a corridor management plan, which will help improve recreation opportunities there.

"I think we're somewhat fractured as it is today," Tucker said. "We need to have some similar direction all the way up and down the Loess Hills."

Details as to how the study itself will be conducted are still being developed, but those should be forthcoming in the next few weeks, Tucker said.

As to effects for Plymouth County?

"I'm sure it will have some kind of impact," Tucker said. "Just what that is, it is really unknown. It will be determined by the study itself."