“The overall goal is to streamline the entire riparian forest buffer process from start to finish to improve local water quality and wildlife habitat, and to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution flowing from Pennsylvania into the Chesapeake Bay,” DCNR Policy Director Sara Nicholas said in a press release. (Full story at Lancaster Online)
The Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grants Program, awarded $5.8 million in October 2017 to 16 projects in Lancaster and six other central Pennsylvania counties.
Stroud Water Research Center’s Watershed Restoration Group was awarded $750,000 to install best management practices on 24 farms. The Stroud Center will prioritize subwatersheds in Lancaster and Chester counties to improve local and Chesapeake Bay water quality, partnering with major nongovernmental organizations and the private agricultural services sector.
Other grant recipients included Lancaster Farmland Trust, the Conservation Foundation of Lancaster County, and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The grants were announced at a press conference at Future View Farm & Flowers in Willow Street, Pennsylvania, one of the Stroud Center’s cooperating farms.
