Open Views: Water

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What do you see when you imagine Lancaster County in 50 years?

Maybe it’s scenic landscapes of green, fertile rows of crops.

Farm animals peeking through fences, roadside produce stands, Lancaster County as it is today.

Our home is changing every day.

Although many farms remain in Lancaster, their numbers are dwindling, replaced by development and blacktop.

At Lancaster Farmland Trust, we have a vision - planning for our future today. We are focused on preserving our heritage, the landscapes, the farmland, the food, the water, farming as a way of life.

Everything that makes Lancaster County this place that we love.

So future generations can explore and appreciate its countryside in perpetuity.

Protected forever.

With each and every additional acre, we protect prime farmland and the ability for farmers to ensure a future for their families and for our community.

Farmland preservation is an essential investment in our economy and overall quality of life.

But preservation is only the beginning of forever...

Watch a video about the Fisher Farm and its connection to water quality by scanning the QR code. www. l an c as t e r f ar m l and t r ust .o r g

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The Connection: Farmland Preservation & Water Quality Work Preserve Farmland LFT has preserved 34,000 acres of Lancaster County’s farmland. Our conservation easements protect agricultural land from development forever.

Support Farmers

A key element of our work is meeting directly with farmers – face-to-face! It might take time, but the results speak for themselves. Over 1,500 farm assessments completed and 300 new conservation plans developed.

Conserve Farmland We work with farmers to put those plans into action, implementing Best Management Practices (BMP) on 40 farms across Lancaster County and counting. When you see a new manure storage facility, new fencing, or new trees being installed on a farm, know that the farmer is working to protect your water!

Clean Our Water

BMP implementation on these 40 farms have kept 58,000 pounds of nutrients and 350 tons of sediment OUT of our waterways. That means healthier soil, more productive farms, and cleaner water here and in the Chesapeake Bay.

Steward Protected Land LFT monitors all 550 of our preserved farms EVERY year.

We make sure that the farms, their soil and their water, are protected forever.

Everyone Benefits When our Waters are Clean There are 1,400 miles of streams in Lancaster County. When farmers commit to conservation on their farms, the benefits flow downstream to the community, like the water. Water connects us all.

Permanently preserving farmland is a cost-effective method to solving today’s environmental challenges.

Preserving Farmland Equals...

An Environmentally Resilient Community Lancaster County is home to more preserved farmland than any other county in the United States. Of the 5,000 plus family farms in Lancaster County, 31% of them are preserved. Protecting a farm means the family enters into a legal agreement with a government entity or private land trust. The family agrees to give up their right to develop their farm in the future. In exchange, the government body or land trust agrees to enforce the agreement forever across all future owners of the land. In short, their farm will always be a farm, even after the family moves or retires. In Lancaster County, farmers have two options to preserve their farms: Lancaster Farmland Trust (LFT), a private non-profit land trust, and the Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board (APB), a county-administered program using state and county funds.

while enhancing the quality of life for all.

For farm owners, preservation provides a more substantial land base to support the agricultural industry and their families as they put healthy, delicious food on our tables. Protecting Lancaster’s productive working lands can sustain food security and a viable local farm economy while supporting jobs and local businesses.

Lancaster County is renowned for its stunning scenery and pastoral lifestyle.

Farmland preservation is imperative to maintaining our rural character.

Preserving farmland: reduces urban sprawl, produces fresh, local food, protects beautiful landscapes that drive tourism and recreation, provides ample space for enjoyment, and protects our historical and cultural resources. LFT helps our community develop wisely

Did you know farms can help our community increase its resiliency and improve local and regional water quality?

Preserved farms and open spaces are essential to keeping our streams and rivers clean. Vegetated lands act as a filter for rainwater runoff, reduce flooding, and prevent soil erosion. These benefits are called ecosystem services, and they help keep our local ecosystems healthy. Assisting farmers in preserving

Protecting Lancaster’s working lands offer numerous environmental benefits.

Lancaster County is home to some of the world’s most productive, non-irrigated soil. Irrigation is when farmers place large hoses across their fields to water their crops due to a lack of rain. This means Lancaster County farmers can grow more food with less groundwater than other areas of the world. But that’s only part of why preserving farmland is essential to our community!

land is the first step in helping protect our ecosystems.

Once land is preserved, we can implement conservation initiatives like stream buffers, cover crops, and rotational grazing on protected land that can’t be paved over. To learn more about how we can reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and restore the Bay, continue on to the following articles!

More in upcoming pages

Helping Farmers Access Conservation Resources

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Preserving farmland is just the first step to building relationships with farmers and helping them improve their farm’s impact on the environment.” Jeff Swinehart, President & CEO at Lancaster Farmland Trust

Every two months, Mr. Beiler found himself back in his family’s fields to spread another layer of “farmer’s gold” –manure from his dairy cows. Cow manure is a nutrient-rich fertilizer for growing crops, but it’s only effective when appropriately spread. Inadequate manure storage on the farm meant Mr. Beiler had to pump manure out of his tank and spread it on his fields, even when the ground didn’t need or couldn’t use the added nutrients. Mr. Beiler needed a better manure management plan. After inheriting the 72-acre East Lampeter Township farm from his father, he decided it was a good time to reevaluate the longstanding agricultural and management practices used on the farm. Mr. Beiler turned to Lancaster Farmland Trust (LFT) for help navigating the conservation process.

LFT secured grants from several funders* to assist farmers in East Lampeter Township – including Mr. Beiler – in receiving the technical help and financial support they needed to improve their farm’s environmental impact. This project was the third installment in a series of grants LFT received to help farmers in East Lampeter Township. The first two rounds of grants in this series – awarded in 2015 and 2017 – allowed LFT staff to assess farms in the township, then have professional conservation plans written for the farms. The most recent grants – awarded in 2019 – helped www. l an c as t e r f ar m l and t r ust .o r g

complete the project by providing funding to install the practices called for in each farm’s conservation plan.

LFT worked with farmers in East Lampeter Township to apply for these grant funds and secure TeamAg, Inc. to design and oversee the installation of the practices needed on their farms. Like on Mr. Beiler’s farm, these practices include new manure storage units, concrete, barnyard upgrades such as curbs around the barnyard to contain manure and dirt, and new roofing and spouting to collect and divert rainwater. They also include field practices: riparian buffers to capture excess nutrients and sediment before they enter the stream, streambank fencing, animal crossings, and animal walkways to limit animal access to the stream and reduce their impact on aquatic life.

The results of this multi-tiered project are an additional 20+ conservation practices implemented, creating annual nitrogen and phosphorus reductions of 11,000 and 4,500 pounds, respectively, and a yearly sediment reduction of 9,600 pounds.

MAKING SENSE OF THE NUMBERS Lancaster County’s Chesapeake Bay Reduction Goals: • BMPs in place for 7.14 million pounds of nitrogen reduced by 2025 • BMPs in place for 540,000 pounds of phosphorus reduced by 2025 • BMPs in place for 222.7 million pounds of sediment reduced by 2025

*Funders for this project included the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Commonwealth Financing Authority, the Lancaster County Community Foundation, the Lancaster County Conservation District, and the Lancaster Clean Water Partners. wate r - 2021

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A Watershed is an area of land where all of the water that is under it, or drains off of it collects into the same place (e.g. the river).

Almost all of the watersheds in Lancaster County are part of the Susquehanna River Basin Watershed, which drains into the Chesapeake Bay! Image Credit. A. Vicente, U.S. Forest Service.

A Closer Look...

WEST COCALICO

EAST COCALICO

WARWICK

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EAST EARL

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UPPER LEACOCK

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EAST LAMPETER

^PARADISE ^^

WEST LAMPETER

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STRASBURG

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BMP Implementation Projects Municipal Conservation Outreach

^ ^ Scan the QR code to check out some of conservation projects on LFT farms around the county!

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How Farmland Saves Water The connection between farmland preservation and water quality...

Here at Lancaster Farmland Trust, we talk a lot about the benefits of farmland preservation like fresh food, jobs, scenic views, and rural character. But did you know that well-managed, preserved farms can help save water too?

This may sound crazy, especially since agriculture is considered the largest consumer of water. However, that’s only true when talking about irrigated agriculture.

Irrigated agriculture is when a farm needs to use hoses or divert streams to water their crops. Luckily for us in Lancaster County, we have the most productive non-irrigated soil in the U.S. So, farmers are entirely dependent on rainfall, which is naturally more sustainable. This also means they especially rely on the water cycle for their livelihoods.

What is the water cycle? Like a bustling farm during peak season, water never stops moving. It is constantly being recycled in our ecosystem through living things, like crops, and non-living things, like rivers. This movement of water is known as the hydrologic cycle, or more simply, the water cycle. The water cycle is an extremely important process where water naturally recharges itself.

Without it, we would run out of clean water. Non-irrigated and even well-managed irrigated farms use this cycle to conserve and replenish water.

The water cycle has no beginning or end point – it is an endless process involving land, atmosphere, and bodies of water above and below earth’s surface. Following its phases from ocean to land, water would evaporate from the ocean or another body of water into the atmosphere.

Water can also transfer into the atmosphere through living things – like crops! Plants soak up water through their roots, moving it up the plant, eventually evaporating moisture from its leaves. This is called transpiration.

Once in the atmosphere, clouds collect and store water vapors as they rise. When the clouds cool, they create condensation, which turns gas back into liquid.

Condensation then creates precipitation - rain, snow, hail, and sleet. This is how water returns to Earth’s surface.

On land, precipitation is absorbed into the ground and collects as groundwater. It may flow back to the surface through springs, or is stored in aquifers – porous, underground rocks that hold water. Ideally, farmers and communities want water to be soaked into the ground rapidly and release slowly. This is good for soil and water quality. But, precipitation does not always seep into the ground. It also collects on the surface as runoff (literally water “running off” land surface).

Runoff collects in streams and rivers, and then eventually flows back into oceans, where it evaporates and the cycle starts again.

Runoff is an important part of the water cycle. However, too much runoff can lead to flooding and increased pollution. As more development occurs, more natural land is replaced by impervious surfaces, like roads, buildings, and parking lots. This reduces saturation of water into the ground, while increasing runoff into streams and ditches.

This is how farmland saves water! Many Lancaster County farmers are good stewards of the water cycle, as their vegetated land helps soak up and filter rainwater and plants increase transpiration.

According to the Lancaster County Agricultural Council, the average 78-acre family farm with 65 cows can collect 38 million gallons of groundwater from rain per year. With the cows and family only using up to about 1 million gallons, 37 million gallons of groundwater is recycled by farmland. In contrast, developed land with the same acreage would contribute zero gallons of recycled groundwater. Every droplet of water is used for a purpose!

The Zook family farm in Salisbury Township, was in the middle of an environmental renovation in 2020 while in process of preserving their farm. The family was working towards a cleaner farm by building a new heifer barn with an underground storage for manure. You can learn more about this project by watching the full video on LFT’s YouTube page by scanning the QR code! www. l an c as t e r f ar m l and t r ust .o r g

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Down By the Bay

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Did you know?

The Bay supports 3,600 types of plant and animal life, including more than 348 fish species, 173 species of shellfish, and 2,700 kinds of plants.”

Did you know? In Lancaster County, we all live upstream to the Bay! And while some folks may go their entire lives without setting their eyes on the Chesapeake Bay, we all must do our part to ensure the health of its ecosystems. The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary – a body of water where fresh and saltwater mix. It is the largest estuary in the United States and the third-largest globally, stretching 200 miles from Maryland to Virginia. Aside from its great size, the Chesapeake provides many ecological benefits. About 284,000 acres of tidal wetlands grow in the region, which provides habitat for fish, birds, and much other wildlife. The Bay supports 3,600 types of plant and animal life, including more than 348 fish species, 173 species of shellfish, and 2,700 kinds of plants. It is also home to various waterfowl and is a resting area for migratory birds. Like Lancaster County farmland, the Bay also provides food security, as 500 million pounds of seafood is harvested from the Bay every year. Chances are, if you’ve eaten some delicious blue crab around here, it was from the Chesapeake!

Now, you may be wondering how Lancaster farms can affect a body of water 50 miles and a state away. That is because we are in the Chesapeake Bay watershed! A watershed is an area of land that drains into a particular river, lake, or Bay. The Chesapeake Bay watershed is expansive and includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Virginia, West Virginia, and D.C. However, Lancaster and other counties in the Susquehanna River watershed play a vital role in the health of the Bay. The Susquehanna River is its most significant tributary of the Chesapeake Bay - contributing about half of its freshwater. That’s approximately 19 million gallons of water per minute! www. l an c as t e r f ar m l and t r ust .o r g

Basically, what we put on our land here ends up in the Bay! Litter, nutrients, and other pollutants are carried by stormwater and surface runoff into streams and rivers, flowing into the Susquehanna and eventually ending in the Chesapeake Bay. One of the most significant threats to the health of the Bay is excess nitrogen and phosphorous. These two nutrients found in animal waste and fertilizer destroy habitats and cause hypoxia – oxygen depletion in the water. Sediment and nutrients wash from sewage systems, paved surfaces, and farm fields into the Bay. Once in the Bay, they feed algae blooms, blocking sunlight and depleting oxygen from the water. Sediment also clouds water and smothers living things. We need to keep excess nutrients and sediment out of our water here, so it doesn’t end up in the Bay. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has mandated nutrient pollution reduction goals in the states that make up the watershed to prevent this. These goals are met by implementing projects that help capture and filter stormwater and runoff before it re-enters local water bodies. While there has been some success, Pennsylvania remains off track from meeting its 2025 goals, causing increasing pressure on communities like Lancaster.

Most farmers understand their crucial role in “saving the Bay” and are eager to implement conservation practices. It is often a lack of resources and funding that hinders their efforts. This is why our mission goes beyond farmland preservation to include environmental conservation and long-term stewardship of natural resources. LFT staff work with farmers to secure the necessary resources to improve farm management practices and conservation efforts to be good stewards of the Bay! wate r - 2021

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Stewardship: Must Love Dogs What is takes to protect farmland forever...

“How do you feel about dogs?”

A perhaps surprising but necessary question here at LFT for prospective employees and volunteers who monitor our preserved farms. For more often than not, if you monitor for LFT, a farm dog will be accompanying you around the farm as you do this critical work.

What is monitoring?

When LFT staff or volunteers visit a preserved farm to check that the easement is being kept as it was agreed when preserved.

Why do we monitor properties?

When LFT preserves a farm, we do so in perpetuity – forever. Our obligation to farm families and the community only just begins when a family signs a conservation easement.

From that moment on, LFT assumes the responsibility for stewarding that easement throughout the life of the farm – monitoring EVERY one of our 550 easements EVERY year to ensure that the land remains available for agricultural use. Protecting land requires more than just purchasing a property or even removing development rights. It requires a mission-driven commitment and a legal obligation to enforce our

easements and maintain the land as we know it today.

What do we look for?

LFT staff and volunteers (and the farm dogs that come along) monitor ALL of our easements every year! We are most concerned about detecting two types of threats during these annual monitoring visits - violations of our easements and deficiencies in resource management.

Easement violation examples include encroachment or trespass by a neighbor, unapproved subdivisions, unapproved structures, and/or changes to farm operations. Resource management deficiencies could include gullies, flooding, streambank degradation, and/or barnyard issues.

LFT’s template easement requires conservation and manure management plans and designates “High Protection Areas” to afford greater protection to water, woods, and environmentally critical areas on each preserved farm. These are areas where LFT assigns the highest scrutiny while out monitoring farms.

Why is this important?

LFT holds more conservation easements than any other land trust

in Pennsylvania. As exciting as it is to preserve a farm, the real work of protecting the land happens in the years after, as we monitor the land and work with farm families to keep that land in agricultural use. LFT currently has $6.1 million in its Amos Funk Land Stewardship Fund, which is restricted for the long-term monitoring and enforcement of conservation easements entrusted to LFT. In addition, LFT has a conservation easement insurance policy with Terrafirma RRG LLC, a captive insurance program owned by its 545 land trust members.

LFT’s annual visits do more than just serve to monitor the farmland. They also allow staff to nurture the positive and critically important relationships we have with our landowners. During these interactions, farmers ask questions about the maintenance of their stream buffer, seek out resources for succession planning, or discuss new developments in regenerative agriculture. In this way, LFT’s commitment goes beyond protecting the land by protecting what that land provides us all.

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NONPROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID LANCASTER, PA PERMIT #434

125 Lancaster Avenue Strasburg, PA 17579 717-687-8484 www.lancasterfarmlandtrust.org

Water Connects Us All.