Conowingo Creek Restoration.
This article is a reproduction of an article written by ELIZABETH DEORNELLAS | Staff Writer for the Lancaster News Paper
A half-mile stream restoration project on the Conowingo Creek earned the 2024 Watershed Project Award this spring from the Lancaster County Conservation District as an exemplar of collaboration and conservation.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Unique Excavating, Donegal Trout Unlimited and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay worked together with landowner Simeon Esh and the conservation district to rehabilitate 3,000 feet of aquatic habitat and plant 4.5 acres of streamside trees. Their efforts were recognized at the conservation district’s spring awards banquet.
“It was in dire need of repair,” said Bob Kutz, a conservation committee member for Donegal Trout Unlimited. After stabilizing the bank and planting trees along the stream, the health of the environment has come 180 degrees from where it started, Kutz said. “Now this turns out to be quite a trout stream,” Kutz said.
Outreach to Amish bishops has been effective in connecting nonprofits like Donegal Trout Unlimited and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to the Plain Sect farming community, Kutz said, adding that Esh contacted Donegal Trout Unlimited after hearing about their previous projects. Esh did not return a request for comment.
Expanding conservation efforts
This particular half-mile stretch of stream restoration helped connect conservation projects that the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay implemented on two farms that are part of the dairy co-op Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association.
“It’s kind of cool to see the two buffers then connect to each other and benefit the watershed, kind of like that snowball effect,” said Brittany Smith, an agricultural project manager for the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
The Conowingo Creek, which starts near the village of Buck in East Drumore Township, runs south into Maryland before connecting to the Susquehanna River near the Conowingo Dam.
Kutz emphasized that the Conowingo Creek project will aid efforts to reduce the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that washes downstream into the Chesapeake Bay, assisting regional efforts to meet federally mandated pollution reduction goals.
“Of course, every pound of dirt that we save from being washed in is another pound that did not get washed down to the Conowingo Dam,” Kutz said.
The stream restoration utilized more than $320,000 in grants and settlement funds and wrapped up last summer.
The largest chunk of funding, $253,530, came from the 319 grant program, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funding source aimed at clean water projects. Another $18,000 came from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant.
The final $48,677 in construction funding came from the Keystone Protein settlement fund. That 2022 settlement totaled $1 million and resolved a legal conflict after a Lebanon County-based poultry rendering facility owned by the Keystone Protein Co. discharged “excessive amounts” of pollution into Little Swatara Creek, a Susquehanna River tributary.