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a recent total Maximum Daily Load study conducted by the DEQ calls for farmers to fence out cattle to reduce bacterial pollution in county waters. Voluntary programs such as CREP are important to make implementing the TMDL plan affordable for landowners.
Nancy Utz, a soil conservation technician with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says livestock not only deposit fecal matter in streams but also denude vegetation and cause erosion along stream banks.
“It’s amazing how quickly [plants along the stream banks] grow back [after livestock are fenced out],” Utz said.
“Another thing about getting the riparian buffers back is the trees are there to pull banks back [after floods],” she said.
Since cattle are excluded from wetlands and streams in the program, CREP helps pay for installing troughs on other parts of the land to give the animals access to drinking water.
“We are talking about changing water to a mechanism,” Utz said.
How landowners
get paid
Cost-share payments are administered through local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, which are subdivisions of state government. Rappahannock County lies within the fivecounty Culpeper District.
The state will reimburse the landowner for up to 25 percent of the eligible costs, up to $200 per acre. A 25 percent state
92.4%