Lancaster County stream improvements

I suspect that there are not many comments because one has to jump through hoops to read the article. What is the main message that the article is conveying and which streams are involved?
 
I remember around 1970 or so, stream buffer work was beginning in Lancaster County.

That was fifty years ago. They should be just about done by now, right?



 
The Amish have only recently had receptiveness to accepting gov funds for these kinds of projects. Still many find it abhorrent, especially older Amish.
I saw a comment of this project that i happen to agree with, which is be careful what you wish for. Many Amish are leaving Lancaster and selling farms because of their way of life dwindling. Forcing their hand in projects could certainly lead to them selling their farms to developers.

I want clean water but i also like food and eating on a semi regular basis.
Tough spot to be in.
 
Susquehanna wrote:
The Amish have only recently had receptiveness to accepting gov funds for these kinds of projects. Still many find it abhorrent, especially older Amish.
I saw a comment of this project that i happen to agree with, which is be careful what you wish for. Many Amish are leaving Lancaster and selling farms because of their way of life dwindling. Forcing their hand in projects could certainly lead to them selling their farms to developers.

I want clean water but i also like food and eating on a semi regular basis.
Tough spot to be in.
Click to expand...

Riparian buffers are voluntary, aren't they?

I don't think there is a law requiring riparian buffers in PA.

So is there really any "forcing their hand" going on?
 
Much more complicated than your trout management post in PA. It goes way beyond riparian buffers.


https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/10/10/10greenwire-amish-farmers-in-chesapeake-bay-watershed-find-94229.html?pagewanted=all

Short answer.
Most certainly.

I dont know how much interaction you have with Amish but I have a fair amount.
The general feeling is they know times are changing. People want the environment clean up, as do I but it is impossible for them to afford fixing these issues themselves. Only in accepting these Gov grants will they ever be able to possibly do the work. In doing so they will be effectively be shunned or chastised by the community. As laws and pressures grow, it will become easier for them to maintain their community by selling the farm.
Or accept the money, try to keep it hush and hope for the best.

It is an age old battle of people who want to be left alone and those that cant leave them alone.

Not saying the Amish shouldnt clean up the farms but this is a very complicated subject. I hope it all works out for everyone.
 
Susquehanna, as with many things Amish, it depends on the district. The Pequea-Mill Creek project was one of the original stream bank fencing, cattle crossing, solar electric fencing projects in Lancaster Co, largely run by NRCS, occurring just after the Muddy Run project (trib to Mill Ck, which is a trib to Conestoga R), which was a USFWS project. These projects were about as deep into Amish country as one can get in Lancaster Co, yet once they got started and the Amish neighbors saw the progress it was much easier to sign them up for similar work in their segments of the streams. Not everyone got involved, but based on the appearance of the streams today in the stretches where work proceeded, there don’t seem to be many gaps. As I said, it is probably district and bishop dependent.

Just as you said though, work continued on Mill Ck by the Mill Ck Preservation Association, a primarily Amish organization. The article in the link below suggests that government agency help would have been unlikely to have been accepted. They do accept private donations based on my experience, however. So, as I said, the situation varies, but I think for the most part you are right.

https://www.bayjournal.com/news/people/neighborly-approach-to-stream-buffers-has-ripple-effect-among-amish/article_58e6ad14-3171-58a2-afd5-caed3dfa52d0.html


 
Certainly is but the point of most still stands.
Younger Amish have more receptiveness but not the older Amish.

Things may change in time on their thoughts of government handouts, or not, but the one thing they do know is, things are changing.
Some of the Amish i have known through the years have left for other states for various reasons. Those reasons include too much development, government intervention on farm practices and even farming becoming harder to make a living.

Either way, their way of life is dying.
Pretty sad if you ask me.
 
You can do riparian buffers without government money.

It doesn't have to cost much. If there is a crop field right up to a stream, all you really need to do is quit farming a strip next to the stream.

You don't have to plant trees. If you just let that land alone, it will go through succession, and end up in shrubs and trees. Without any maintenance, you will probably get lots of invasive brush, but even that will be much better for the stream than farming right up to it.

The great majority of trees that exist in PA were not planted.

In the case of pastures, it requires fencing, which does cost money and labor. But anyone with grazing animals has fences. It doesn't have to be a high end fence.

And forested areas along streams are not unproductive. Trees can be used for lumber, sometimes at high prices, and also produce firewood.
 
It is amazing how quickly streams can heal themselves if livestock are fenced out and a riparian buffer is allowed to establish. Combine this with some minimalistic bank stabilization and live stake willow and dogwood plantings and you will see marked improvements in water quality.
 
The 3-5 ft vertical banks don’t heal over very well. The grasses and multiflora rose at the top just hang down over the sides. They do need some treatment as Lyco describes.

As for Troutbert’s comment about the fences....And so you would think, but fences have to be maintained and when the creeks get high they become a tangled up mess with debris. There are landowners who don’t want the extra work. In addition, they sometimes say they need to mow around the posts and under the fence. I don’t know if high grass, etc breaks up the electrical field or what. They say that the cattle push on the fences. Any farmers out there to explain this?

Also, you get into some sociology with stream bank fencing. In two plain sect cases I have seen the cattle left to graze inside the fence between the fence and the stream. When one owner was asked why he said that the wife thought the weeds looked sloppy. The temporary solution was to explain that if the sloppy looking weeds grew high enough they would become wild flowers. Also, bird houses were added to that fenced off area, which also it more acceptable. The point? What inexperienced anglers and environmentalists often think is a simple solution to bank erosion turns out to be more complex in the real world.
 
Hey Mike got the PM.
Thank you for that article by the way!
 
Mike wrote:

As for Troutbert’s comment about the fences....And so you would think, but fences have to be maintained and when the creeks get high they become a tangled up mess with debris. There are landowners who don’t want the extra work. In addition, they sometimes say they need to mow around the posts and under the fence. I don’t know if high grass, etc breaks up the electrical field or what. They say that the cattle push on the fences. Any farmers out there to explain this?
Click to expand...

On the pasture side of the fence, the cattle will keep the vegetation down.

But on the buffer side of the fence, yes, the farmer must keep the vegetation down. People with wide buffers often run a brush hog along that side once a year or so. So the first strip of the buffer is thick grass, which actually is good at intercepting flow, spreading out the flow, holding the soil etc. Then have trees and shrubs between that grass strip and the stream. In some cases, a grass strip on the outside of the buffer is done by design, for that reason.

Farmers also commonly use trimmers to maintain along the fence. And Amish do use gas-powered trimmers.

The reasons for keeping the vegetation trimmed along the fence are that the vegetation can short out electrical fences. And all fences require repair and maintenance over time, so you don't want brush, vines, trees etc. all over the fence, because it would make fence repair a nightmare.

As I said though, all farmers with grazing animals have fences, and the maintenance that goes with that. That goes with the territory of having grazing animals. That goes way back before riparian buffers existed.

And having a good fence along the stream can help with rotational grazing systems, which are becoming very popular.
 
While farmers with animals do have fences to maintain, those that need streamside fencing the most often add significant linear distance to their fence networks which increases time, effort, and money put into maintenance. As mentioned somewhere in the past few posts, having the ability to mow a grass strip on the outside of the fence can help reduce the need for significant maintenance.
 
Yep. About 50 yrs ago. And how did those improvements work out?
Please pardon my scepticism. 300 plus years of heavy agriculture plus rampant development are hard to overcome with a few short sections of in stream log or rock devices placed randomly. I've actually seen more damage done by the poorly planned so called improvements.
 
When I think about the successes of the Lancaster County projects, my mind immediately goes to stream bank fencing, protective fencing around wetlands, riparian plantings, cattle crossings, and various agricultural best management practices. Then it goes to regrading vertical embankments and dam removals, both of which can involve instream approaches. It is only after that when I think about what most would think of as traditional instream work in Lancaster Co. because the predominant types have dealt with ag BMP’s , stream bank fencing, riparian plantings, etc. It’s hard NOT to find such efforts as you drive around the county.

That’s not taking anything away from the substantial efforts of those who have done instream work and techniques have improved over the decades. For example, when is the last time that a jack dam was built? Those projects are just less visible for the most part unless you know where to look. The fencing projects and riparian tree plantings, especially with all of the protective tubing, often white, are hard to miss.

Lark, what specific projects are you speaking about in your last sentence? Stream names/locations please.
 
Where riparian vegetation has been improved, it's been very beneficial. More of that is needed.

Also, the pollution has been greatly reduced on Mill Creek, which is a major trib to the Conestoga.

In the early 1970s, Mill Creek would go anoxic in the summer, and the stench would drive people away from their homes. There were newspaper articles about this, so people good at dredging up historical documents could find this info.

There was pollution from a chicken plant, a cheese plant, sewage plant, and treatment was minimal.



 
We surveyed Mill Ck from near the headwaters to the mouth across a number of sampling sites in the early 2000’s. It was much improved in comparison to historical accounts. There were even stretches that were pretty good for smallmouths, and that was prior to much of the habitat and riparian work done over the years.

There are wild ST in the headwaters.
 
Mike, A few that in my opinion are total failures and caused more harm than good.... Improvements on Fishing Creek in Drumore Park....Hammer Creek in various places. Peters Creek is a real fiasco. All the work and money spent on Donegal, which I helped with. Much of the work on Octorato seemed to cause areas to silt in that used to hold nice wild fish. I can probably think of others.
Speaking of course of habitat and trout. Now I realize the improvements have other purposes as well.
 
Many instream habitat structures don't work out well.

But you shouldn't paint with a broad brush.

Some do work out well, and create habitat where there aren't natural features available to create habitat, and that type of "real restoration" isn't possible because the stream has been straightened, the floodplain is developed, covered with fill, etc.
 
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