A22*Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 16, 1998 Lebanon Youth Plant Riparian Buffer (Continued from Pago Al) and bus for a morning and after noon session of tree planting and conservation discussions. Paul Troutman, a DCNR service forester, also helped. In addition to the Conservation District, the state Department of Conservation of Natural Resour ces (DCNR) was a partner in the project, providing more than 1,000 seedling trees and shrubbery that were salvaged from an Indiana County commercial nursery that was sold to the state for use as a prison site. In the April 17 issue of the Department of Environmental Pro tection (DEP) “Update" publica tion, it was repeated that DCNR and DEP have worked together since last fall until recently to move almost 618,000 trees from an Indiana County prison site to replant along streamsides through out the state. According to the DEP Update report, “The state is hoping to use the bulk of the tree seedlings to kick off a multi-year effort to replant Pennsylvania’s stream sides. Hie initiative will encourage planting trees along Pennsylvania Publicity Is critical to public education and continuing support for public programs. Without it, no matter how important, needed, or beneficial, programs can easily fail. Here Doug Wolfgang is interviewed by a television news crew about the riparian forest buffer planting project. With teams of students in the background planting or preparing to plant tree and shrubbery seedlings, this team of high school students plants a white pine, one of the few conifers planted along Beck Creek during this riparian forest buffer planting program. The leading edge of a long atring of high achool students heads on downstream with seedlings, spades, stakes and shelters to plant a riparian forest buffer along Beck Creek in waterways to buffer them from The state ReLeaf program stems pollution, as part of the Pcnnsylva- from a 1996 agreement made by ilia Stream ReLeaf plan.” Gov. Tom Ridge, as a member of the Chesapeake Bay Executive Council, to re-establish riparian forest buffers along 600 miles of streams in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The goal for the Chesapeake Council is to have a total of 2,010 miles of streambank forest estab lished by 2010, of which Pennsyl vania’s is a portion. That all is background for the one-day event during which stu dents, some obviously more exper ienced with outdoor activity than others, teamed up to plant more than 1,000 trees and shrubs along the stream. The Conservation District pro ject in Lebanon County was one of many similar projects conducted throughout the state, some done as part of a celebration of 1998 Earth Day. Hie Lebanon County youth included some who have been involved with the Envirothon program, some participating in durdav. May 15. 1993-A23 : afminq, s Lebanon County. The riparian project was a Jointly sup ported effort and provided multiple benefits, including education. Students pick up equipment for planting trees and shrubs, as Doug Wolfgang, with sunglasses, checks to make sure everyone gets the right equipment. advanced studies for the excep tionally gifted, and others enrolled in earth science classes. For the youth, the program offered the opportunity to gain some knowledge about streams and aquatic/land environment interdependency and relationships. It also seemed to provide the opportunity for local and state leadership, as well as local adults, to convey to youth the message that adults are not just concerned about stuffing their pockets with money, but also about the well being of the youth and what the youth have to look forward to inheriting. Whether or not they sensed that, the youth seemed pleased to participate. Hie project was done along a 2,000-foot stretch of the Beck Creek, a short, but important tri butary to the Quittapahilla Creek. That stretch of stream, for years, has had a grass bank, with the ground plowed as closely as possi ble to the stream edge without get- ting a tractor tire stuck. The low-grade, primarily limes tone stream, flows north, through two golf courses, and then receives a substantial flow boost from a spring. It then courses through a heavily grazed meadow with eroded, clay banks, and then travels through the county-owned Copcnhaver Farm before joining the Quittapahilla Creek in Annville. A little more than 20 years ago, a private fly fishing club had leased the now-heavily grazed stretch of the stream immediately upstream of the Copenhavcr Farm. Hie club had constructed a num ber of streambank protection devices and several jack-dams, which direct the force of a flooded stream into the bottom of the stream, instead of into the bank of the stream at a bend. Jack dams and other similar devices can be used to direct the stream’s farces to scour out an area and create a type of alluvial fan that (given the proper pebble and (Turn to Pago A 23)
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers