The Chesapeake Bay Foundation-PA has named Bill Chain as its Pennsylvania Senior Agriculture Program Manager.

“This leadership position provides strategic vision and direction of the CBF Pennsylvania office in agricultural policy and watershed restoration initiatives,” CBF’s Pennsylvania Executive Director Harry Campbell said in announcing Chain’s arrival.

As Senior Agriculture Program Manager, Chain will collaborate with a diverse set of stakeholders including agricultural industry leaders, state and federal agencies, legislators, interest groups, and other stakeholders in order to expand and diversify CBF’s agricultural effort in the Commonwealth.

Agriculture is the largest source of pollution of Commonwealth waters and the Chesapeake Bay.

Pennsylvania is considerably off-track in its commitments to reduce nitrogen and sediment pollution from agriculture and urban polluted runoff entering the Chesapeake Bay, but appears to be on track to meet its phosphorus reduction goal.

The Commonwealth will have to accelerate progress if it is to have 60 percent of the pollution reduction practices in place by 2017 and 100 percent by 2025, as it committed to do in the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint.

The Blueprint includes science-based limits on the pollution fouling the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and streams as established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Also for the Blueprint, states developed individual plans to achieve those limits and committed to two-year milestones that outline the actions they will take to achieve success.

“Bill Chain’s wealth of experience in working with agriculture throughout much of his life, including being a farmer himself, coupled with his experiences in education, brings a unique and comprehensive approach to addressing the water quality challenges facing Pennsylvania’s agricultural community,” Campbell added.

Chain owned and operated a 160-acre livestock and hay farm in Franklin County for 20 years, where he worked closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the county conservation district.

Chain, who lives in Carlisle, Cumberland County, received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture and a teaching certificate from Rutgers University. He earned a master’s degree in Education from Shippensburg University, and has done post-graduate/doctoral study in Educational Leadership at Duquesne University.

For the past seven years, Chain served as Superintendent of Schools for the Fairfield Area School District in Adams County.

Chain was an agricultural educator with Future Farmers of America for 14 years. He is a former board member and vice president of the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy, a PA Farmers Association committee member, and was a member of the Adams County Water Resource Advisory Committee.

5/18/2015