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Watershed restoration program for Delaware farmers goes unfunded

Delaware Public Media

Delaware will miss out on a million-dollar grant from the USDA for watershed preservation on unused agricultural lands -- for now.

The program that would get that money, Delaware's Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP, went unfunded this year. In September, it was listed as suspended.

The CREP has been run out of DNREC for 25 years. Administrator Bob Palmer says it's paid for buffers, tree plantings and more on thousands of acres of farmland:

"So a landowner that's in ag production could take out questionable or not highly profitable agricultural pieces and put them in the CREP program and in turn get an incentive payment," he says.

The USDA paid for about 80 percent of the program, with the state supplying the rest. But the lump sum account Delaware set up to fund its end has run out -- and legislators haven't replenished it.

"Knowing this was coming, we as department have recommended a CREP line item, a budget item, for the last five years," Palmer says, "and it just hasn't gained any traction."

In tough budget times, he says it's hard to ask legislators for what seems like new funding -- though the CREP has been operating since 1990.

Now, the budget squeeze means Delaware will miss out on new USDA funding for Chesapeake Bay watershed states to do CREP work. And Palmer says it'll make it hard to fulfill the state's requirements for the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan.

And the longer they wait, the more expensive it will be to re-enroll, he says. DNREC is asking for $1.5 million to cover re-enrolled land from last year, this year and next year. That would match the federal contribution for the next 15 years.

CREP Brochure

Annual Report 2014

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