Marsh Creek Watershed Protection Project

-Submitted by Vy Trinh
Watershed Specialist, Adams County Conservation District

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In 1983, complaints by local residents to the PA Department of Environmental Resources (precursor agency to DEP) led to the discovery of contamination by volatile organic compounds at and in the vicinity of the Westinghouse Elevator Plant in Cumberland Township near Gettysburg, PA.  Residential well sampling indicated widespread ground-water contamination and Westinghouse installed water mains to provide residents with access to public water supplied by Gettysburg Municipal Authority (GMA). 

In 1999, Westinghouse was fined nearly $3.3 million for multiple violations of the PA Clean Streams Law involving the ground-water contamination at the site.  Land Conservancy of Adams County (LCAC) principals spearheaded an effort to obtain funds from the Westinghouse fine to help protect Gettysburg’s public water supply, since it was that system used to provide drinking water for residents impacted by the contamination.  In December 2001, PA DEP provided an $850,000 Community Environmental Project Grant to the Adams County Conservation District to create the Marsh Creek Watershed Protection Project. The Marsh Creek watershed includes multiple groundwater wells and a surface water intake used by GMA for the Gettysburg public water supply.

Marsh Creek is located west of Gettysburg and the basin covers about 56 square miles above the GMA surface water intake. The watershed is primarily rural and agricultural and under intense development pressure.  While the water system typically serves about 12,000 people in Gettysburg and portions of two surrounding municipalities, the usage swells in the summer to accommodate the 2 million annual visitors to the Gettysburg National Military Park.

Utilizing the findings of the Watershed Assessment and priorities established in the Evaluation System, the Conservation District installed Best Management Practices (BMPs) and watershed improvements providing an 80% cost-share of the lowest cost estimate modeled after existing agricultural cost-sharing programs. The Conservation District utilized Marsh Creek funds to work with two landowners to install a variety of BMPs to manage manure and stormwater runoff, as well as install stream bank fencing through the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Marsh Creek funds were also used to install 825 feet of stream bank fencing for landowners who were not eligible for CREP, and developed technical design specifications with partial implementation of BMPs on one additional farm. In addition, several landowners were encouraged to participate in cost share programs offered by the Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to supplement the efforts of the Marsh Creek project. Two landowners were able to secure funding through NRCS’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program to install agricultural BMPs and funding through CREP to install stream bank fencing.

Simultaneously, the Land Conservancy developed a rigorous evaluation and ranking process that prioritized parcels for fee-simple and conservation easement acquisition based on hydrologic, physical, historical, cultural and development pressure factors and assigned a purchase price range for each parcel. 

The Land Conservancy used the DEP funds provided by the Conservation District and leveraged additional funds from a variety of sources to purchase twelve bargain-sale conservation easements on key properties with a total of 1,011 acres preserved through the project. The easements limit or prohibit future residential development, require permanent buffers along waterways and the use of an approved conservation plan for agricultural production, stipulate maximum impervious site coverage, and disallow underground storage tanks.

The outcome of the Marsh Creek Watershed Protection Project has met all of the project’s initial goals: To significantly protect, preserve, and enhance land and water resources in the Marsh Creek Watershed; and to protect and enhance both the quality and quantity of public water supply in the Marsh Creek Watershed and in the Gettysburg area. In addition, the project has been the impetus for several additional educational, protection, and improvement projects, has reaped an EPA Region III Source Water Protection Award, and serves as a successful model for watershed-based Land Preservation/Best Management Practices conservation action in the Commonwealth.