This week the winners of the annual Conservation Awards by the PA Association of Conservation Districts were announced.

Scott and Herb Kreider & Sons of Quarryville, Ben and Dean Jackson of Columbia Cross Roads, and David and Terry Rice of Williamsburg, have been selected to receive the 2005 Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Farm Award.

To further acknowledge their accomplishments, the landowners will receive a certificate and large “Clean Water Farm Award” sign to put up on their property.

The Clean Water Farm Award, initiated in 1986, recognizes farmers within Pennsylvania’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, who manage their daily farm operation while keeping a watchful eye on water quality. The farms’ conservation plans address issues that help control potential pollutants such as eroded soil, pesticides, and fertilizers from entering streams or groundwater supplies.

Award winners Scott and Herb Kreider & Sons manage 400 head of dairy cows, 380 heifers, and 520 acres of cropland in Lancaster County. The Kreiders implement numerous Best Management Practices, a combination of practices determined to be the most effective, practical means of reducing pollution. Their conservation work adds up to 8.5 miles, including terraces, a series of ridges and channels created across a slope to prevent rainfall from causing serious erosion, and grassed waterways, which trap soil to help prevent erosion.

Recipients Ben and Dean Jackson operate Mt. Glen Farm, a 358 acre farm in Bradford County that includes a dairy herd of 90 cows, 60 heifers, 50 calves and 12 bulls. To control excess nutrients, the Jacksons use contour strip-cropping in which land is plowed across a slope instead of up and down it to reduce soil erosion and to protect water quality.

The Jacksons have also constructed a manure storage structure that eliminates the need for spreading manure on farm fields in the winter time when the fields are frozen and nutrients can’t be integrated into the soil. This could lead to nutrients washing off the fields and polluting waterways in the spring.

David and Terry Rice own Ojala Farm, a 120 head dairy and poultry farm in Blair County. To protect water quality, the Rices use rotational grazing in which grass-fed livestock is periodically moved from one area to another to allow the pasture time to re-grow the grasses that will prevent soil erosion. Stream bank fencing is also used to prevent their livestock from entering the stream and eroding the stream bank.

Recipients of the annual Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Farm Award are nominated by county conservation district staff. This annual award program is coordinated by the Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Education Office administered by PACD.

The awards are sponsored jointly by the Department of Environmental Protection’s Chesapeake Bay Program and the Department of Agriculture to recognize farmers who implement Best Management Practices.

The Pennsylvania Chesapeake Bay Education Office conducts numerous activities promoting the theme, “We All Live Downstream.”

For more information, visit the Conservation District webpage.

4/8/2005