Pennsylvania on Thursday announced the distribution of $12.2 million in grants to 28 county-level organizations to fund the ongoing cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The Lancaster County Conservation District is receiving by far the largest share, $3.07 million, amounting to one-fourth of the total allocation.
The funding will support counties’ implementation of their Countywide Action Plans, or CAPs. Lancaster County is one of 34 counties that have developed a CAP to reduce pollution in the streams and rivers that feed the Chesapeake Bay. A principal objective is reducing or eliminating the runoff of fertilizer from farms, which supercharges algae growth in the bay, creating oxygen-poor dead zones.
“We’re thankful for DEP’s support for the broad grassroots work happening in Lancaster County to improve stream health,” Allyson Gibson of Lancaster Clean Water Partners said in a statement.
The $12.2 million includes $9.3 million from the Pennsylvania’s Environmental Stewardship Fund and $2.9 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The latter amount includes $1.6 million from the Biden administration’s infrastructure law, which is targeted to Lancaster, Franklin and York counties.
Lancaster County is key to Pennsylvania’s bay cleanup goals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is requiring Pennsylvania to reduce its nitrogen pollution in the watershed by 32.5 million pounds and its phosphorus pollution by 850,000 pounds by 2025. Lancaster County alone is responsible for more than a fifth of those reductions.
Clean Water Partners is a consortium encompassing the Conservation District and numerous other partners, including nonprofits, private companies and government entities.
This summer, the county commissioners awarded the Conservation District and Clean Water Partners $3.47 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding for 11 projects countywide. A few weeks later, they approved another $2.84 million in ARPA allocations to the Lancaster Farmland Trust and Lancaster Conservancy for land acquisitions and easements that will protect farmland and natural areas.
Both organizations’ ARPA projects incorporate stream restoration and ongoing management practices to improve and maintain water quality.
