Secretary and Governor Sign Revised Agreement
By Keith Tackett, Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack joined Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and others at a private Arbor Day ceremony April 24 at a farm in Westminster, Md. They met to sign Maryland's revised Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP).
The revision substantially increases incentives for installing riparian forest buffers on farmland, which is a goal of the Forest Service’s Chesapeake Bay Program.
Maryland was the first state to join CREP when it was established in 1997. It is a voluntary federal program that allows agricultural landowners to receive annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish long-term, water quality and wildlife practices on eligible farmland. More than a decade later, most states have adopted CREP.
A 100-foot-wide forest buffer has the capacity to trap 95% of sediment and remove 78-80 % of the nutrients from surface run-off.
About 100 people were in attendance including Maryland's Secretaries of Agriculture and Natural Resources, State Forester Steve Koehn, and Sally Claggett, U.S. Forest Service Liaison to the Chesapeake Bay Program. |