BROOKINGS, S.D.(WNAX)- Buffer strips along creeks and rivers have been slow to catch on. Those are grasslands that slow the movement of pollutants into those waterways.

Jay Gilbertson, manager of the East Dakota Water Development District in Brookings, says it takes time for those changes to have an effect.

The legislature has offered property tax breaks for landowners that use buffer strips.

Gilbertson says they have studied areas where buffer strips are being used.

Gilbertson says it’s a slow process to implement.

The state Department of Revenue says forty-eight parcels of land totaling over twelve hundred acres in eight counties were enrolled in the tax incentive program for this fiscal year.