$17.4 Million to Improve Local Water Quality for Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Governor Tom Wolf announced $17.4 million in grant funding for projects in 33 counties across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, highlighting their path-breaking work to improve the health of local streams, rivers, and lakes by reducing nutrient and sediment pollution.

Nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) pollution and eroded sediment enter streams, rivers, and lakes from widely dispersed human activities on the land, such as using too much fertilizer, plowing and tilling farm fields, stripping away trees and vegetation, and expanding concrete and paved surfaces. Pennsylvania’s share of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed spans half the state and includes over 12,000 miles of polluted streams and rivers.

The funding announced today includes $15 million from the Pennsylvania Environmental Stewardship Fund, primarily the Growing Greener Program, and $2.4 million from EPA. Grants support coordination of Countywide Action Plans, implementation of pollution-reducing best management practices (BMPs), and verification to ensure that BMP projects maintain their pollutant reduction goals.

The 2021 grant funding is geared toward enabling county teams and partners to build on the record progress Pennsylvania is making in the watershed.

Nitrogen runoff pollution was reduced by more than 4 million pounds in 2020, with half the reduction coming from agriculture and half from the wastewater treatment sector.

More than a half million acres of cropland were in compliance for nutrient and manure management practices last year.

Farmers used enhanced nutrient management on more than 305,500 acres of cropland in 2020. Going above and beyond standard nutrient management, this approach applies fertilizer in a 4R approach: right time, right source, right place, and right rate.

In addition, last year more than 17 miles of stream were fully restored, and tens of thousands of trees were planted, many through programs by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Along with multiple state and sector initiatives, Countywide Action Plans are a key component of Pennsylvania’s Chesapeake Bay Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan to improve water quality to benefit Pennsylvanians, while meeting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements for the bay.

This year 22 counties completed individual Countywide Action Plans, and four (Blair, Cambria, Fulton, and Huntingdon) collaborated on one plan. They join Lancaster, York, Franklin, and Adams counties, which completed their plans in 2019, and Bedford, Centre, Cumberland, and Lebanon counties, which completed plans last year. Teams in all counties have begun carrying out planned projects or are transitioning to implementation.

Supporting County-Level Action for Healthy Waters

DEP leaders announced grant awards to county teams during visits today to three sites in the watershed: Brilyn Acres, small cattle grazing farm in Ephrata; the Lycoming County Conservation District in Montoursville; and the Lackawanna County Conservation District in Scott Township.

Seventeen counties received funding to coordinate and implement Countywide Action Plan projects and verify BMPs, including Bedford County Conservation District, which received $637,047

Eleven counties received funding to implement Countywide Action Plan projects including Blair County Conservation District, which received $166,470.

“Achieving Lancaster County’s nitrogen and phosphorus reduction goals requires sustainable funding and unique support. Thanks to this kind of flexible grant from DEP, we’re closer to clean and clear water. Our farms, streams, climate, and built environment will all benefit from the inspirational projects these dollars make possible,” said Allyson Gibson, Strategic Partnership and Program Director of Lancaster Clean Water Partners.

Pennsylvania takes a Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities approach to improving the health of the watershed, inviting county teams to take control of local water quality improvement, with state and other partners providing as much data, technical assistance, funding, and other support as possible. It encourages and equips counties to develop strategies and determine project sites and types that will benefit their communities and farmers, municipalities, businesses, and other landowners, while restoring the environment.