​By: Cathy Yeakel, District Manager, BCCD
Pennsylvania and neighboring states are working at local levels to clean up our state’s waterways that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. In 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) submitted the Phase III Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP), which established tangible nutrient reduction goals based on locally-led initiatives to reduce water pollution, improve quality of life, address flooding problems, and obtain credit for previously installed best management practices.  Within the Phase III WIP, all 43 Pennsylvanian counties within the Chesapeake Bay watershed were tasked with developing their own Community Clean Water Action Plan (CAP).

By: Tim Robson, Dirt and Gravel Road Specialist
This week’s column will be the first of four articles presented throughout the year focusing on municipal road maintenance.  I’ll try to explain what you might see going on in your township or borough each season and why.  I know many have wondered: why are they doing what they’re doing to my dirt road? Although every crew does things slightly different, general tasks are consistent around the county. I will simply explain the process from my view as a former Road Foreman and current Dirt and Gravel Road Specialist here at the Bradford County Conservation District.
For this first article, we will focus on the upcoming spring maintenance season.

​By: Ad Crable, Staff Writer, Chesapeake Bay Journal
The Susquehanna River has the most flood prone basin east of the Mississippi. And Binghamton, NY, located entirely in a floodplain at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango rivers and downhill of steep, flash-flooding watersheds, might be its most pummeled victim.
But now, after the twin punches of an all-time record flood in 2006 followed by an even more devastating 500-year flood only five years later, officials have decided to quit fighting its rivers and instead rebuild to roll with the punches. 

​: THERE’S A BIG DIFFERENCE AND HERE’S WHY IT MATTERS!
By: Dan Rhodes, Education Coordinator, Bradford County Conservation District
Walk down the street and ask the first person you meet to define the terms ‘conservation’ and ‘preservation’. Repeat this test a few dozen times and you’ll most likely find that when confronted with these two very different terms and concepts, it is often difficult for people to differentiate them. Many people within the media, within government and within environmental activism groups even view the terms conservation and preservation as interchangeable in their meaning, so don’t feel bad if these terms confuse you! 

By: Joe Quatrini, Technical Team Leader, BCCD
Recently, the Bradford County Commissioners made a huge commitment to watershed rehabilitation. Using money from the Act 13 Unconventional Gas Well Fund, the Commissioners have dedicated $200,000 per year toward the restoration of streams to reduce erosion, prevent property loss, protect infrastructure, and improve flood resilience. Building off past successes of the County Stream Initiative program, the commissioners are entrusting BCCD with the administration of these new funds. The funds will be utilized in three critical stream areas: stream stabilization, emergency stream response, and to further the Bradford County stream pilot program. Currently, the Commissioners have designated $110,000 to stream stabilization, $75,000 to emergency stream response, and $15,000 to the stream pilot program. Hopefully, this funding will last for years to come and significant natural resource restoration can be accomplished.

​By: Tess Flynn-Belles, Natural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
This past year has provided a lot of us with plenty of time to reflect on our properties and home and come up with new ways to freshen the place up. With the amount of calls that the Conservation District received about new pond construction last year, it must have been high on some of your lists! So, with that, we thought we would provide some things to consider before you start.

​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Farmers today face challenges.  Farmers of any day have.  So too will farmers of the future.  That is one reason a group like the Future Farmers of America (FFA) exists – to help get them ready.
Four Northeast Bradford High School students are now wearing blue and gold as they begin a series of leadership challenges that will shape them for life.  Joshua Keeney, Emma Neuber, Kale Winters, and Kaleb Keeney are obviously willing to grow as they don their first FFA jacket in January 2021.  Their jackets were awarded to them from the Pennsylvania FFA Alumni Association after each wrote an essay about what the FFA jacket means to them and about their plans in FFA and in agriculture.

​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Do you realize that regular, every-day, neighbors of ours are producing world-class, healthy, 100% all-natural sugar right here in our own back yard?  It’s one of those forgotten wonders.
While maple sugar harvest here pre-dates recorded history, today, Pennsylvania ranks 6th out of 25 US states in production while Bradford County is 5th among 56 Pennsylvania Counties.  Bradford County’s 53 sugar makers install an estimated 54,200 taps each year, producing 8,000 gallons of delectable, 100% all-natural maple syrup.  Many direct-market their product as maple syrup along with the other most common 100% natural-sugar forms of maple cream, maple candy, and dry maple sugar.  Maple flavored goodies beyond these are only limited by the imagination.

By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist
Ok, let’s get down to the brass taxes.  What is a rain tax, where is it happening, and what can I do to help the situation without going to that extreme?  Who wants to be taxed for rain falling on their property?  “We don’t have control over that” is what they say, but we DO have control over what happens to it from there.  Can you imagine Towanda (or insert your community here) before it was Towanda?  Especially because it is built on a side hill.  One thousand years ago a 2-inch rainfall event happened, and all that rain went into the ground.  The river level was unaffected.  The rainfall gradually moved through the soil layers and the excess was released into the river days or weeks or even months later.  The result, no flooding.  Picture it during the next 2-inch rainfall that we get.  Rain hits your home, it hits the streets, it hits the schools and businesses.  In some places there are no places whatsoever for it to infiltrate into the ground.  It goes from your downspout to the curb, dumped into the street, adds to the water already running down the street, hits the storm drain and goes DIRECTLY to the river.  The result, billions of gallons of water now going down the river that never made it there before.  And it is going there like NOW.  Add that to water coming from Sayre and Waverly and Athens and Chemung and Binghamton and Owego, etc.  The town fathers didn’t think about this when they set up some of the systems, but as more and more communities grow, they are thinking about it now.  Now we have a huge problem.  We have concentrated all that water and sent it downstream (along with it- pollution, erosion, sediment, nutrients, etc.).  Again, do we care enough to try and fix it one house at a time?  Or do we institute a (wait for it…) Stormwater Fee (RAIN TAX)?  NNNOOOOOOOO!!

By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist
Hopefully part 1 gave you some things to think about and maybe even got your blood boiling a little bit.  That was my intention.  I want you thinking about this and even thinking that maybe you can do something about it in your own little corner of the world.  It really doesn’t take much to make a huge difference in some cases.  Our goal, as homeowners AND business owners, should be that absolutely no rainwater leaves our properties, especially in normal rainfall events.  NONE.  I know it is easy to run inside while it is raining and just not realize, or maybe even care, where that rainwater is going.  Well we should.  Next time it rains, grab the rain suit and head outside.  Take a stroll along your property and take note of what you see.  Are you adding to the problem, or not?  Is water leaving your property, or not?  If it is, is there anything you can do about it?