Since over half of Pennsylvania lies within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, farmers and forest landowners play a major role in helping to clean up the Bay by installing water quality conservation practices that assist the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania meet its Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) goals in the watershed.
Since 2008, NRCS has provided more than $268.5 million in financial assistance to Pennsylvania farmers and forest landowners in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed through a number of Farm Bill Programs, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative (CBWI) program and Conservation Stewardship Program (CStP), among others. In the Bay Watershed, these funds have been utilized primarily for nutrient reduction, erosion and sediment control, stream corridor protection, and overall landscape health. On average 80-85 percent of Pennsylvania’s funds are devoted to livestock producers and those cropland producers who apply manure on cropland. From 2008-2015, PA-NRCS applied nutrient management to more than 157,000 acres and installed 759 waste storage facilities, more than 6 million square feet of heavy use area protection, and over 3 million linear feet of fence to improve pasture and stream conditions.