Lancaster Conservation District Manager Chris Thompson said water quality “is our local issue,” noting half of the county’s 1,400 miles of streams have their water quality impaired by agricultural runoff.
“Everyone benefits from clean water, and everyone has a role to play in cleaning it up,” Thompson added.
The draft plan is a product of a writing committee made up of a variety of stakeholders in the county, including agriculture, municipalities, the conservation district and the City and county of Lancaster and many others.
The meeting Wednesday was the first opportunity the public had to review the plan, although the writing committee held 3 previous public meetings and met with groups all over the county with an interest in the plan to gather input for the draft.
The committee started its work in June and has had meetings about every two weeks to put together the draft Strategy for public discussion.
Plan Recommendations
The draft Strategy makes a series of recommendations in 6 areas-- Data Management, Agriculture, Stormwater, Stream Buffers, Stream Restoration and Land Use and Preservation.
Thompson noted the Strategy represents an opportunity to make suggestions to the Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for how to change programs and regulations to better address achieving nutrient and sediment reductions in the real world.
Among the recommendations in the Strategy are--
-- Data Management
-- Gather data related to water quality improvements in one place and make sure all current conservation and pollution reduction practices are documented.
-- Establish more in-stream monitoring to define a baseline condition and develop new tools to measure progress
-- Agriculture
-- The presentation at the meeting noted the agricultural sector needs to account for about 80 percent of the 11 million pounds of pollution reductions. They also noted Lancaster County has more farms than all the other Chesapeake Bay Watershed states combined. As a result of this “heavy lift,” the strategy recommends a 5 to 8 year implementation period for several of their recommendations. Among the recommendations made were--
-- Reduce overall manure application by 25 percent
-- End winter spreading of manure and identify, promote alternative practices in priority locations
-- Build new manure storage and implement barnyard management in priority areas
-- Establish a recording system for manure transport in/out of the county
-- Increase the number of farms who do livestock stream access management by 50 percent
-- Support state efforts to ensure all farms meet baseline requirements, including developing 2,400 new farm conservation plans in the county
-- Increase cover crops by 40 percent
-- Increase no-till and/or conservation tillage
-- Increase buffers and stream restorations (see specific recommendations in Strategy)
-- Increase Plain sect outreach and engagement
-- Education and outreach has to be integrated throughout the Strategy focused on flood control, public health benefits, herd health, building legacy options for families, economics and achieving compliance to ensure sustainability and avoid new regulations.
-- Stormwater
-- Identify alternative sources for projects that could incorporate stormwater BMPS and result in reduction credit, including: hazard mitigation (flooding), municipal capital improvement plans, local, county, state infrastructure improvements and watershed plans
-- Develop and encourage adoption of local land use ordinances to address stormwater and water quality more efficiently: Smart/Green corridor concept, green infrastructure, conservation overlay (County has a model ordinance), riparian corridors, floodplains, stormwater BMPs, flooding and extreme weather events, rezone for higher densities to allow large scale stream restoration.
-- Implement state-level changes to permitting and design and enabling legislation in these areas--
-- Multi-municipal watershed level stormwater permits
-- Public/private partnerships outside limited use in transportation projects
-- Offsets and credit program to promote market-driven solutions, for example providing credit for projects toward MS4 stormwater obligations from outside the MS4 areas
-- Education and outreach has to be integrated throughout the Strategy focused on flood control, public health benefits, herd health, building legacy options for families, economics and achieving compliance to ensure sustainability and avoid new regulations.
-- Stream Buffers
-- Outreach to private landowners to install 5,000 to 7,500 acres of new stream buffers (the county does about 580 acres per year now), priorities are on agriculture lands and headwaters streams
-- Examine how municipalities could be encouraged by model ordinances and other methods to require stream buffers with all new development
-- Outreach to all public and nonprofit groups to install stream buffers on their school, park, preserve, protected or other lands under their management
-- Create a Lancaster County Buffer Program to complement CREP to provide incentives for the installation of buffers and, importantly, to provide maintenance services
-- Establish a system to measure progress
-- Education and outreach (like previous recommendations)
-- Stream Restoration
-- Accomplish 50 new stream restoration projects, including floodplain (legacy sediment), wetland and in-stream restoration projects in priority watersheds
-- Work with developers to incorporate Best Management Practices into their projects like has been done by Rock Lititz and in Lime Spring. [See: Triple Benefits of Green Infrastructure]
-- Improve notification process for dam removals to better coordinate restoration activities on a stream
-- Land Use & Preservation
-- Work with municipalities to consider water resources as a key component of all planning and decision making
-- Better growth management through the County’s Places2040, Blueprints Integrated Water Resources Plan and Lancaster Greenscape initiatives
-- Preserve large, contiguous areas of natural lands, restore ecological connections
-- Increase parks, greenways and trails
-- Increase the county’s tree canopy in rural and urban areas
Click Here for a copy of the draft Strategy.
Next Step
Allyson Gibson, Coordinator of Lancaster Clean Water Partners, invited the public to submit comments and recommendations on the Strategy over the next few weeks to the Partners through an online comment form.
She also said the plan writing committee will be meeting October 23 and November 6 to go over comments on the Strategy and invited the public to attend the meetings to offer suggestions.
Gibson also offered to attend meetings of local groups to discuss the Strategy.
She noted the Strategy is due to be submitted to DEP the end of November.
Updates on the progress of the Strategy have been posted on the Lancaster Clean Water Partners Facebook page. Questions should be directed to Allyson Gibson by sending email to: agibson@lancastercleanwaterpartners.com.
About The Partners
Lancaster Clean Water Partners is a program of the Conservation Foundation of Lancaster County whose mission is to promote, support, and sustain the stewardship, education and conservation activities undertaken by the Lancaster County Conservation District and other local partners.
The Foundation shares staff and office space with Lancaster County Conservation District and relies on the Conservation District for all administrative and backbone support.
LCWP’s mission is to coordinate efforts and expand the impact of our partners working to improve the health and viability of our local streams. Their vision is to make Lancaster County’s streams clean and clear within our generation.
1 Of 4 Pilots
Lancaster is one of four counties that are piloting DEP’s County Clean Water Toolbox-- a county-based planning process for identifying clean water issues and tools they could use to address these problems and meet Chesapeake Bay nutrient and sediment reduction targets.
The other counties are Adams, Franklin and York. Click Here for more.
Lancaster County alone is responsible for making 21 percent of the pollution reductions needed to meet Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals, primarily because of its significant concentration of agricultural operations.
The 39 other counties in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed will also have the opportunity to develop water pollution reduction plans like Lancaster County.
The 39 other counties in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed will also have the opportunity to develop water pollution reduction plans like Lancaster County.
NewsClips:
Crable: Lancaster County Presents Bold New Plan To Reduce Water Pollution, Asks More Of All Sectors
DEP Tours Wyoming County Farms
DEP Tours Wyoming County Farms
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