This is the second year of a new program designed to protect stream corridors in the Susquehanna and Potomac river basins as part of the Chesapeake Bay restoration project. Fencing along streams creates a vegetative buffer which helps improve water quality by reducing soil erosion and nutrient deposition caused by livestock. Nutrient runoff from agricultural lands is a primary cause of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.
Nutrients promote excessive algae growth which robs aquatic life in the bay of oxygen.
Landowners in all or parts of the 41 Pennsylvania counties within the Potomac and Susquehanna river basins are eligible for funding. Participants must maintain the fence for 10 years and landowners need not open their land to public access to qualify.