2007

President’s Message

A Look Back on Forty Years of Conservation

and Community Activities

I am very pleased that at our annual meeting this year several of our presenters will be some of the founding members of the Octoraro Watershed Association. It is always interesting to look at where you have come from. There was a mission when the organization was founded, and at a recent retreat held by the Board of OWA we agreed it was again time to look at our mission statement to see if it is still appropriate to meet today’s needs. A lot can change in 40 years but I think we will find that the overall mission, although somewhat more complex today, will include many of the same ideas.

It is also important to look at our history to see how far we have come. A sense of accomplishment is important to any organization. In recent months OWA has begun to foster a fledgling watershed organization, “The Friends of Fishing Creek.” With OWA’s 40 years of experience we can feel proud and confident in helping this or any new watershed organization get started, offering advice as to what has worked and what has not. Another interesting aspect of our work today is a countywide group formed through the Lancaster County Conservation District that will give all watershed groups a chance to share ideas and allow better networking for funding. We have these opportunities because of better communication abilities that were not available 40 years ago. OWA looks forward to partnering with this group and sharing the many successes that have worked for our association.

Finally we must salute and honor former members of the association and those that chose to serve on the Board of Directors. Without their dedication and visions we would not be celebrating a 40 year anniversary. An organization is only as strong as its members and those that chose to serve. As new members come into the association they learn from existing members what we are about. And so is true for the Board members who serve the membership.

I encourage you all to learn what you can during the celebration of 40 great years. Take that knowledge and share it with others that live and thrive within the watershed and encourage your neighbors or co-workers to become members. Perhaps you would like to serve on the Board of Directors and take a more active role in the association’s day to day operations. Remember what we do with water can have a lasting affect and there is always somebody or some thing downstream.

I look forward to seeing you all at the annual meeting!

Octoraro Watershed Association 2006 Calendar

Soil is Meant to Be Covered

Axel Linde, Director

This phrase was coined by Steve Groff, a long time no-till vegetable farmer in Lancaster County. Farmers in the Octoraro watershed are continuing the switch from tilling soil to planting their crops using no-till equipment. More research is showing both short term and long term benefits of not plowing the soil. Farmers are reporting higher yields, fuel savings, labor savings, herbicide savings and most importantly, less erosion.

No-till equipment has greatly improved in the last two decades. Manufacturers have changed the design of the front coulters, altered the depth control wheels, added row cleaners, improved the closing wheels and added other options all to improve the uniformity and correct depth for optimum growth. No-till corn planters and no-till drills are available in many different widths and some can even be pulled by small lawn tractors or horses. No-till is catching on among local crop and livestock farmers as a result of higher diesel prices, higher labor costs and because less equipment is needed for field preparation. Additionally, soil that stays covered during hot summer months experiences less evaporation and therefore retains more moisture for the growing crop. Long term no-tilling and use of winter cover crops greatly improves the soil structure and increases the soil organic matter. This increases the water infiltration rates, increases the earthworm population, raises the nutrient efficiency and helps to reduce soil compaction issues.

One common misconception is that nitrogen is lost if manure is not plowed under immediately after spreading. Manure spread on a healthy and living cover crop with a strong and healthy soil structure will be quickly absorbed with little chance that nutrients will be lost. Other alternatives are a high amount of crop residue, manure injection or shallow incorporation to help reduce odors.

No-till is not just for corn or soybean growers. Other successful growers use no-till to establish pumpkins fields which produce clean pumpkins in the fall. Delicious healthy tomatoes and other garden vegetables also grow well with reduced tillage. Organic growers are experimenting and finding success with rolling tall cover crops followed by direct seeding into the thick mulch. Gardeners and landscapers are accepting no-till as a positive solution to reducing soil loss and improving soil tilth.

Currently, Penn State Cooperative Extension in Lancaster is working with several local Amish farmers and equipment manufacturers to build a no-till tobacco transplanter to be used on Lancaster County farms this spring. However, no-tilling is more than just using no-till planters—it is a year round system of management designed to improve soil health and increase your operation’s sustainability. For more information about transitioning to no-till, ask a successful no-till farmer or check out www.panotill.com or lancaster.extension.psu.edu or call 717-394-6851.

Octoraro Watershed Association ∙ 517 Pine Grove Road ∙ Nottingham, PA 19362

p: 717.529.2132 f: 717.529.2041 theowa.org owa1@epix.net

Lancaster County, PA

Bart Township

Colerain Township

Little Britain Township

East Drumore Township

Eden Township

Fulton Township

Sadsbury Township

Salisbury Township

Paradise Township

Christiana Borough

Maryland

Cecil County

Rising Sun

Chester County, PA

West Sadsbury Township

Sadsbury Township

West Fallowfield Township

Upper Oxford Township

Lower Oxford Township

West Nottingham Township

East Nottingham Township

Highland Township

Oxford Borough

Atglen Borough

Parkesburg Borough

The Brown Case

Arba Henry, Treasurer

No, this is not a legal brief or the result of a court case, but what is and continues to be referred to by some as “The Case.” When I became Treasurer of the Octoraro Watershed Association this dusty brown briefcase was passed on to me. At one time I am sure it contained all the history of the Association, but over time and people, most of the material in it has either been filed in the Association’s office or discarded.

When I received The Brown Case, it contained very little usable information. It did contain some old treasurer records and bits and pieces of old meeting agendas or minutes. Most of this material was later used in putting together the history of the Association as found in the Association’s brochure. However, the majority of the information was quite frankly of no value.

Over the years the “keeper” of the case has used it for various purposes. I am sure if it could talk, one would hear a wealth of information concerning the operation and history of the Association. For the most part, however, no doubt it spent most of its time in someone’s closet or hallway gathering dust; at least that is what it has done in our household. This is not to say that what it has carried has not been important. I am sure that at sometime it once served as The Octoraro Watershed Association, having been carried from home to home with all of the records stored inside.

Fortunately, through the cooperation and support of the Chester Water Authority, the Association and its records found a home first in the offices of the Watershed Superintendent and today in a house owned by the Authority, thereby permitting the records of the Association to be kept at a central location.

Thus, it’s not what is currently in the case that is important, but what the case has contained, perhaps over the course of the entire 40 years of the Association, as it moved from one member to another. Today it contains the Board of Directors Handbook, some financial audit reports of 2000, and the most recent agenda and minutes of the Association’s Board meetings.

The Brown Case will be available for all to see at the annual banquet and meeting of the Association, after which it will be retired to the offices of the Octoraro Watershed Association to become a prominent part of the Association’s archives. What better reason to attend the annual meeting!

Update from Cecil County

Rupert Rossetti, Director

Welcome to the Cecil County portion of the watershed! There are ~35 square miles of the watershed in Cecil County, with four major sub-watersheds: The Octoraro Main Stem, Stone Run (including the town of Rising Sun), Green’s Run and Basin Run. All of the tributaries are designated as Use III, Non-tidal Cold Water streams. Land use is predominantly rural, with 50% in agriculture, 30% in forests and wetlands (predominantly along

the stream corridors) and 20% in residential.

The Maryland Department

of Environment (MDE) has identified

the Octoraro as a watershed of special

interest this year. Stone Run is

listed on the impaired waters (303d)

list, and MDE is in the process of

determining the need for regulating

the quality of the water through assignment

of a Total Maximum Daily

Load (TMDL). The Octoraro has

also been targeted for additional biological

monitoring sites, which will

help generate a more statistically

robust sample size for use in data

analysis and identification of water

quality stressors.

As part of this biological

monitoring, a Cecil County contingent

will participate in the Stream Waders

program again this year, which is sponsored

by the Department of Natural Resources.

Nicole Tripp and members of the MD Conservation Corps will be doing macro-invertebrate sampling later this spring, with specific focus on reaches where there are gaps in existing data. We're hoping that some of the sampled reaches will turn out to be especially high quality habitat with diverse bug assemblages—this is quite likely, given the high indexes of biological

diversity that have already been measured in some parts of the watershed.

Fellow Cecil County resident, Sally Skelley, and I will also monitor nutrient levels every two weeks with the Octoraro Nitrate Task Force (see locations on the map). Nitrates are relatively high at the PA border, with a small dilution effect apparent from the three Cecil County tributaries (Stone Run, Green’s Run and Basin Run).

Bellbank Bridge Project

Blair Fleischmann, Director

The effort to reconstruct the Bellbank Covered Bridge is continuing this spring with applications being submitted for various grants related to the project. The Bellbank Bridge is located on the Octoraro Creek and connects Upper Oxford Township, Chester County to Colerain Township, Lancaster County on Street Road. For more information about this project, please contact Steve Berkowitz at 717-529-2206.

Oxford Area Planning

Blair Fleischmann, Director

The Lower Oxford Township Board of Supervisors recently approved the Oxford Area Sewer Authority’s request for conditional use approval to permit spray fields on property currently owned by the Martin Family. This land is located along Bethel, Calvary, and Roneys Corner Roads and is in the Tweed Creek area of the Octoraro Watershed. The township imposed 21 conditions and it is unknown whether there will be an appeal of this decision. The spray fields will be part of a larger regional sewer plan for the Oxford region. The entire regional sewer plan is expected to be open for 30 days of public review and comments at a date soon to be announced. For questions about this update, please contact Blair Fleischmann at 717-529-6114.

Are There Nitrates in Your Water?

Axel Linde, Director

“What level of nitrates is too high for my family,

for my livestock, or for my garden? What can I do?”

These and other questions are a concern for homeowners in the Octoraro Watershed. Nitrates can occur naturally in rainfall and in ground water aquifers. However, excess nitrates can leach into the groundwater from many different sources. Rural sources can come from on-lot septic systems, gardens, lawns, manure or inorganic fertilizers applied in excess of what the crop can utilize. It is best to have your well water tested every year—levels over 10 ppm are considered high.

Excess nitrate levels can be addressed in several ways. One solution is to buy bottled water, but it can be rather expensive if you are feeding lots of children and/or livestock! Another option is treatment, but this also can be rather costly. Ion exchange units, reverse osmosis or distillation are all methods of treatment that can remove nitrates from drinking water. Boiling water or letting it sit in the container for several days does NOT remove nitrates.

A much more effective way of dealing with the problem is to try to identify the source and then reduce its effects on your well.

→ Check your septic system.

Is the absorption field properly handling the waste flows? When was the last time it was pumped out?

→ Check your well.

Is it properly constructed with casing, grouting and a sanitary well cap to prevent surface water and other contaminants from entering? What about the well itself—is it shallow or deep? The majority of well water comes from the rainwater falling on the ground within 200 feet of your well.

→ Assess your well’s location.

Stand near your well and take a complete look around for potential sources of excess nitrogen or other pollutants. Are you standing down slope from the septic system or a near a livestock holding area? Is there a gasoline or diesel tank nearby? Where do you mix or load pesticides or chemicals for your lawn, garden or fields? Does dirty surface water flow nearby when it rains? Is it close to a road with lots of traffic? Think about where you are standing. Typically there is only about 50-200 feet of dirt, subsoil or rock between you and your source of fresh well water.

Many resources are available to help you answer your questions about safe drinking water. Learning about proper well location and maintenance is your best line of defense against a polluted water source. Keeping good records of the well installation, inspections and tests results will help to detect problems early and allow time to make necessary changes. For further information check out Penn State’s Master Well Owner Network http://mwon.cas.psu.edu (814-865-2250) or PA Ground Water Association www.ngwa.org or your local Conservation District.

Seeing an Organization

From Both Sides

Ed Thayer, Director

It’s not very often that one gets to see an organization from both sides. Some years ago I was asked, as a fence contractor, if I would be interested in building some stream bank fencing in the watershed. Of course, being a fair business person, I couldn’t turn down a job, particularly if I got to work with OWA Project Leader and Recording Secretary, Pat Fasano.

On several occasions Pat and I would meet and travel to an Amish farm here in the Southern End whose owner was willing to fence off his stream or creek running through a pasture. The idea of course is an effort to help stabilize the stream banks, reduce manure influx into the stream and improve the health of animals. During previous and subsequent meetings with the landowner, Pat, with patience, understanding and a neighborly smile, would educate and help each farmer make his own decision as to what he felt would be the best for his particular situation.

Not long ago I was asked if I would join the OWA Board of Directors, and I agreed. Along with the other members, I attend the meetings (when I remember to) and do my best to help in whatever small way I can. Throughout my tenure I have come to see a dedication to an organization that could go unnoticed by anyone who has not had the opportunity to participate as a board member. With the same patience, understanding and reassuring grin, Pat helps guide the Board along its path. Having worked closely with many folks within the watershed as well as other groups and organizations, I can say that Pat’s never-ending dedication to this organization and this watershed is invaluable—it continues to help us make informed decisions about the future of the Octoraro watershed, and about the organization dedicated to protecting it.

Octoraro Watershed Association

Newsletter and Update

Spring 2007

Dedicated to preserving and protecting the natural and historic resources of the Octoraro Watershed