HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced it has awarded approximately $1 million in grants to support 26 counties in the upper half of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed in developing Countywide Action Plans to improve local water quality.
DEP awarded $1 million in grants from the Environmental Stewardship Fund to support local development of planning teams and Countywide Action Plans of best management projects to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution. These pollutants are building up in streams, rivers, and lakes as a result of human activities such as applying fertilizers, plowing and tilling agricultural fields, and stripping away trees and vegetation, increasing streambank erosion.
To make the most of limited funding, the 26 counties formed into groups to develop ten Countywide Action Plans, including Potter, Tioga and Bradford counties.
Each group applied for and was approved for up to $100,000 in grant funding.
Potter County Commissioner Barry Hayman said that Bradford County took it upon themselves to do all of the paperwork for the grant, which was agreed upon by all the commissioners in Tioga, Potter and Bradford counties.
“We had a joint zoom meeting to listen to the particulars,” said Hayman. “We agreed to commission the Larson Group to do the Countywide Action Plan.”
Specifics for each county will be included in the plan, based on the load of sediment and nutrients in the rivers. The two main rivers in Potter County that connect to the Chesapeake Watershed include the Cowanesque River and Pine Creek.
“The Northern Cowanesque River is probably the one that would contribute the most in the way of sediment and nutrients because that’s farm territory,” explained Hayman.
The state plan takes a Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities approach, giving county teams control of local water quality improvement, while 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.
The DEP grants are part of multiyear agreements to support counties’ participation in Pennsylvania’s Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan to meet federal obligations to improve the health of the bay.
The counties joined eight others in the lower half of the watershed who developed Countywide Action Plans in 2019 and 2020. All 34 counties that were asked to create and carry out plans to reduce local nutrient and sediment pollution as part of the state Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan have now signed on.
