New Partnership Formed In Chiques Creek Watershed, Lancaster County

On December 15 Matt Royer, Director of Penn State’s Agriculture and Environment Center, kicked off a new collaborative project entitled “Chiques Creek Reenvisioned.”

Penn State was recently awarded a Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to facilitate a watershed partnership in the Chiques Creek watershed.

“Chiques Creek Reenvisioned” partners discuss monitoring activities in the watershed. Drawing from past successes with the “Conewago Creek Initiative,” the AEC team plans to facilitate collaborative work among diverse stakeholders in the watershed.

There are many groups already doing great work in the Chiques Watershed, and the AEC team hopes to bring all stakeholders together to increase successes and share resources.

The project is meant to complement the alternative TMDL approach work that the Department of Environmental Protection and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission have been leading over the last year.

By bringing together public and private entities, the Chiques Creek Reenvisioned partnership hopes to increase outreach and engagement of landowners in the watershed and accelerate the adoption of land management practices to improve water quality, in support of existing and continued efforts in the watershed.

Proposed activities for the project include landscape professional training, homeowner workshops, water quality monitoring, and implementation of both urban and agricultural land management practices.

This project will also help support the continued work of the Greening the Lower Susquehanna Volunteer Corps which has been hard at work for the past three years planting trees, installing rain gardens, performing maintenance activities, and picking up litter in order to improve stream health around the region.

The kickoff meeting provided interested stakeholders with the opportunity to learn more about the project goals and ask questions. Partners include a diverse mixture of landowners, environmental stewardship organizations, academia, government agencies, and local government.

Questions about the project can be directed to AEC project coordinator Kristen Kyler by sending email to: klk343@psu.edu.

(Written By: Kristen Kyler, Project Coordinator, Lower Susquehanna Initiative, Penn State Extension, Middletown, PA 17057, 717-948-6609, and reprinted from the Jan. 19 Watershed Winds newsletter from Penn State Extension. Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)