Kansas Secretary of Transportation Deb Miller has been named Conservationist of the Year by the Kansas Wildlife Federation.

The award was presented to Miller during the Federation’s 2010 Conservation Achievement Program banquet Feb. 26 in Great Bend. Secretary Miller was recognized for her efforts to improve conservation at KDOT and particularly with a new roadside management program.

In 2008, KDOT staff and partners from conservation groups and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks formed an Aesthetics Task Force to develop a better way to manage the more than 150,000 acres of state-owned highway right-of-way.

What emerged was a roadside management policy that not only saves money and fuel, but also enhances roadside beauty. The changes allow for a more naturalistic management of right-of-way along the state’s 10,000-mile highway system, an issue which had been advocated by conservation organizations.

Some of the important changes included limiting the frequency and timing of mowing, spot spraying of herbicides rather than broadly applying chemicals and shifting seed mixtures selected for planting of new or reconstructed right of way in rural areas to only native prairie grasses and wildflowers.