USDA Unites wtih Partners to Improve Water Quality in Lake Champlain

From the USDA:

Posted by Jason Weller, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Chief, on January 22, 2015 at 1:00 PM

The Vergennes-Panton Water District along Lake Champlain in Vermont was able to upgrade the city's water treatment plant with support from USDA. The Department is working through several agencies to help improve water quality in the lake. USDA Photo by Bob Nichols.

In recent years, blue-green algae blooms have frequented Lake Champlain, impairing the lake’s water quality. Through a new partnership with USDA, nearly 20 organizations in the area will work together with farmers and ranchers to help improve water quality of the lake and reduce algae blooms.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food & Markets and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources are uniting partners to engage and support farmers and forest landowners who use voluntary conservation practices that lead to cleaner water. Called the “Accelerated Implementation of Agricultural and Forestry Conservation Practices in the Lake Champlain Watershed of Vermont and New York,” this project will provide outreach to farmers throughout the watershed and help connect them with innovative conservation solutions for their land.

Last week, I visited this natural treasure and met with the local partners who are making this effort possible. Lake Champlain provides habitat for more than 300 bird species and 80 fish species, holds 6.8 trillion gallons of water, and provides drinking water for more than 200,000 people. The lake provides critical habitat as well as serves as an economic driver from recreation.

But a high level of nutrients, like phosphorous, has jeopardized the lake’s health. Agriculture is one contributor of phosphorous, and this project will enable farmers and forest landowners to take proactive steps to reduce or prevent runoff of phosphorous.

Lake Champlain is the sixth largest body of fresh water in the United States, topped in size only by the five Great Lakes. It contains 6.8 trillion gallons of water and is a drinking water source for nearly 200,000 people. Water quality is the lake is negatively impacted by phosphorus pollution.

Studies show that most of the phosphorous entering the lake comes from a relatively small footprint of land. Together, these local partners working with USDA, will target resources to areas most in need, what we call critical source areas, such as steep lands and lands prone to flooding. This project will target outreach and implementation of conservation practices to those areas.

This project is one of more than 100 unveiled last week as part of the first cadre of projects funded by the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). Created by the 2014 Farm Bill, RCPP is a partner-driven, locally-led approach to conservation. It offers new opportunities for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to harness innovation, welcome new partners to the conservation mission, and demonstrate the value and efficacy of voluntary, private lands conservation to a national audience.

With RCPP, partners are in the driver’s seat with technical and financial help from NRCS.

RCPP empowers local organizations and communities to demonstrate the importance of locally-led action and benefit from strong public-private partnerships in delivering solutions to natural resource challenges.

RCPP also attracts additional resources and allows for the expansion of private lands conservation efforts.  In this round of projects, the agency is providing more than $370 million to 100-plus projects in all 50 states and leveraging at least $400 million in partner contributions.

In Vermont, NRCS plans to invest $16 million in the project, and the partners will match with $20.5 million in contributions, including funding and technical assistance.

The heart of RCPP is about empowering local organizations to design and deliver solutions that benefit natural resources where they live and work. This project in Vermont and New York brings together a variety of partners from the local and state levels, including soil and water conservation districts, agricultural associations, government agencies and non-profit organizations. We’re proud of the leadership these local organizations are providing to execute this program, and we look forward to the benefits to come.

Working together, we can ensure we have a cleaner, healthier Lake Champlain for future generations.

NRCS Chief Jason Weller (at podium) joined leaders and partners from Vermont and New York to announce a new project that will work to improve water quality in Lake Champlain. USDA Photo.

Secretary's Column: New Approach to Conservation Creates New Partnerships, New Jobs

From USDA:

Posted by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on January 14, 2015 at 3:40 PM

This graphic outlines the effectiveness of the RCPP program, leveraging Federal and partner support. Click to enlarge.

When USDA unveiled the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program last year, I said that this effort would pioneer a new era of conservation. As of today, the program is doing just that—leveraging an unprecedented three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar investment in projects to preserve clean land and water and create new jobs across the country.

One of the innovative programs in the 2014 Farm Bill, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program brings a wide variety of new partners together—from private businesses, to universities, to local and Tribal governments, to non-profit organizations and more—to develop their own action plans and to pledge their own resources to the project. Local organizations are in the driver’s seat, setting priorities and developing conservation projects that make sense for their communities.

The response to this new approach to conservation projects was overwhelming. Earlier this year, when local partnerships submitted their plans to USDA, they requested more than six times the amount of available funding in the first round. This incredible response is a call to action and it shows how much need there is for a program like RCPP.

From the first round of applications, we selected 115 of the most effective, most innovative projects from across the country to receive more than $370 million in the first round funding. Local partners will invest over $400 million more, for a total funding impact of nearly $800 million.

Leveraging our own resources by encouraging private investment in conservation means we can do more and have a greater impact than we ever could on our own. Since 2009, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has worked with 750,000 producers and landowners to implement conservation activities on 325 million acres. The Regional Conservation Partnership Program helps us to extend the impact of our resources even further. Over the next five years, USDA plans to invest a total of $1.2 billion through the program, leveraging an estimated $2.4 billion for conservation in total with the matching investment from partnering organizations.

Today’s announcement is just the beginning. Keeping the momentum going, we will soon take proposals for new projects. Another round of funding will be announced later this year, and USDA is working with new applicants to develop partnership plans that will enable even more worthy projects to be completed in the future. To learn more about the Regional Conservation Partnership Program and to see a list of this year’s projects, visit www.nrcs.usda.gov. For more information on today’s announcement, you can listen to a media call with Secretary Vilsack and NRCS Chief Jason Weller.

Location map for RCPP projects. Click to enlarge.

Partnership to Help Sage-Grouse Continues to Grow

From USDA:

Posted by Byrhonda Lyons, NRCS Montana, on January 12, 2015 at 11:30 AM

Michael Brown shows the key places he and others at the NRCS work with ranchers and other partners to conserve and connect sage-grouse habitat. SGI photo by Deborah Richie.

When many different groups come together for a common goal, the impacts can be tremendous. That’s the case for the sage-grouse, an at-risk bird in the American West. Since 2010, over 1,100 ranches have teamed with the Sage-Grouse Initiative (SGI) and conserved 4.4 million acres across 11 western states, an area equivalent of 2 Yellowstone National Parks. The diverse partnership led by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service includes ranchers, state and federal agencies, universities, non-profit groups and businesses that rally around a common vision of conserving wildlife through sustainable ranching.

SGI continues to grow and just over the weekend ConocoPhillips announced the company will invest $1 million to further strengthen the partnership. The contribution was made to the Intermountain West Joint Venture, one of the key partners of SGI. New funding will be used to extend the partnership through 2019 by providing $200,000 per year to support SGI’s Strategic Watershed Action Team, or SWAT. This team provides field delivery, science, communications and partner development support to SGI.

“SGI has been successful because our partners have bought into this model of voluntary, proactive conservation and stepped up with significant investments,” NRCS Chief Jason Weller said. “This growing partnership shows what private landowners, NRCS and partners have accomplished together over the last five years, and it will play a key role in transforming the initiative into a durable conservation effort.”

Once numbering some 16 million before settlement, sage-grouse have dwindled to as few as 200,000 birds. The SGI works to reverse trends by proactively conserving sage-steppe landscapes, providing win-win solutions to non-regulatory threats facing ranching, sage grouse and 350 other species.

NRCS launched SWAT in 2011 as its primary vehicle for increasing capacity and scaling up SGI delivery. This model teams 40-plus paying partners with NRCS and places 27 partner conservationists in NRCS field offices to provide technical assistance to private landowners and facilitate conservation projects. Additional SWAT funding is invested in science to effectively target conservation investments where benefits are highest and in communications to maintain partner and landowner support and participation.

Clancy Jandreau and Michael Brown, with NRCS, conduct a range inventory as part of the Sage-Grouse Initiative. SGI photo by Deborah Richie.

“We have a mechanism that works,” said Tim Griffiths, Sage-Grouse Initiative National Coordinator.  “SWAT is an incredibly efficient way to leverage partner resources and is resulting in unprecedented SGI participation and outcomes.”

A primary outcome of SWAT is the doubling of SGI conservation since 2011. The SWAT has helped:

• Establish conservation plans for more than 1.8 million acres of grazing systems, providing better habitat for sage-grouse and forage for livestock;
• Remove more than 200,000 acres of conifers, restoring original habitat the sage-grouse needs.
• Mark or remove almost 800,000 feet of fence, minimizing the risk of sage-grouse colliding with fences;
• Restore more than 800 acres of wetlands, enhancing habitat; and
• Place almost 25,000 acres in conservation easements, guaranteeing healthy habitat in the long-term.

From private companies to state and federal agencies to non-profit organizations, all SGI partners rally around the common vision of achieving wildlife conservation through sustainable ranching.

“In SGI, all partners put their differences aside and agree to work on common ground,” Griffiths said. “Focusing all our efforts to achieve a shared vision has enabled us to achieve unprecedented success.”

Griffiths also credits the SGI and SWAT’s success to the partners’ willingness to work together behind a common SGI brand and share success with all. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when nobody takes the credit.”

The agreement became effective Jan. 1 and continues through December 31, 2019.

Mandi Hirsch, a member of the Sage-Grouse Initiative SWAT, conducts a field inventory. SGI photo by Deborah Richie.