A grant by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) awarded to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) and matching funds will provide nearly $2 million in investments to plant and maintain 360 acres of new trees and boost efforts in eight Pennsylvania counties toward achieving local plans for cleaner water. The NFWF grants announced recently are made through the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, funded primarily by the Environmental Protection Agency and through the Chesapeake Bay Program.
CBF will administer the three-year NFWF grant of $975,000 and a matching amount of $977,880. In the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, which CBF coordinates, other grant partners include the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, and Chesapeake Conservancy.
NFWF also announced that the Chesapeake Conservancy will receive a grant resulting in full-farm restoration on 25 to 30 farms in Pennsylvania. The CBF noted that the project has the potential to serve as a national model for coordinating on-the-ground implementation with high-resolution mapping to improve the health of streams so that they can be removed from Pennsylvania's impaired streams list. CBF is a partner on the grant to the Conservancy. DCNR's Riparian Forest Buffer Advisory Committee will help coordinate the NFWF grant to CBF.
CBF's proposal for its NFWF grant was spurred by the goal of 85,650 acres of streamside buffers by 2025 that is part of Pennsylvania's Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP). The grant will be used to engage, train, and certify 15 to 20 private sector landscape professionals in buffer installation and maintenance, doubling and potentially tripling the workforce on the ground.
The nearly $2 million in investments resulting from the NFWF grant will provide nine trained technicians to assist priority counties in outreach and education to 2,400 landowners within Adams, Bedford, Centre, Cumberland, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon, and York counties. The grant is designed to boost countywide action plans toward these counties' buffer goals.
Focused efforts through county conservation districts to add buffers in the priority counties will produce the most return on pollution-reduction dollars and accelerate the commonwealth toward achieving the statewide WIP goal for buffers, according to CBF. Investments by the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership will be in the form of technical assistance, trees, supplies, and forward contracting of maintenance activities on the 360 acres.
The Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership is a collaborative effort of 145 groups from national, regional, state, and local agencies; conservation organizations; watershed groups; conservancies; outdoors enthusiasts; businesses; and individuals. Its goal is to plant 10 million trees in Pennsylvania by the end of 2025.
This grant project will also test a new buffer incentive program with simulated property tax relief for each acre of buffer installed. Participating farmers will be surveyed to determine if permanent property tax relief is a meaningful incentive for them to convert crop/pastureland to streamside forested buffers.
Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professionals will create a certification program and a one-day workshop on buffer maintenance for 17 to 20 contractors. CBF will contract with those who go through the training. Eventually, the one-day buffer program could be offered statewide and in Maryland and Virginia.
The NFWF grant to CBF is among 56 restoration and water quality improvement grants made through the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund for 2020, totaling $18 million for projects in the bay region. An anticipated matching amount of about $19 million would lead to a total on-the-ground impact of over $37 million.
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