Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy (MRC) is delighted to report that it has been awarded a $130,000 agricultural outreach grant by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The purpose of the grant is to develop, fund, and implement collaborative pollution-reduction projects with farmers and agricultural landowners on the Choptank River and to utilize an Agricultural Outreach Coordinator to assist MRC’s Riverkeepers in this effort.
Forty-one projects in the Chesapeake Bay watershed received $9.22 million in grants from the Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund, which is administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). MRC has assigned Tim Rosen, a scientist with a Masters degree in Watershed Hydrology, to work with our Riverkeepers on this program. Only one-third of the projects submitted were funded.
Our goal is to identify and prioritize key agricultural pollution sources in the Choptank watershed, obtain collaborative agreements with landowners, and design and begin implementation of remediation projects to resolve those pollution issues.
MRC is already working to design and implement a multi- acre treatment wetland to intercept nutrient-laden groundwater on a 1300 dairy cow farm, identified as one of the single largest sources of nitrate pollution on the Choptank. Partnering with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies (UMCES), and the farm owner, MRC plans to complete this keystone restoration project and to effectively use it as a model in a major outreach effort, developing additional restoration proposals for other key agricultural polluters.
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