LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. -- An Amish farmer examines young trees and shrubs he planted last fall along the stream running through his farm.

A few trees are starting to peak from shelters built to protect them from pests and "green death," when new trees are swallowed up by old growth. When the trees and shrubs are fully grown, they'll form a buffer to keep grazing animals and stormwater carrying manure fertilizers out of the water.

"I knew my cows were in the creek, and I knew that there would be some problems if [U.S. EPA] would show up," the farmer said.

The farmer is among a handful of Amish farmers here who have accepted federal cash for taking steps to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The payments are controversial here. The farmer asked that he be identified in print only by his first name, Daniel, because he was afraid his neighbors might see the story and criticize him for taking federal money.

Lancaster Plain Sect farmers have historically spurned government help. But their desire to keep to themselves is being challenged as the Obama administration targets Chesapeake Bay pollution.

Some, like Daniel, are getting help from federal programs and nonprofits. But there are still holdouts, even as EPA plans new inspections in the area.

"The Amish community was very comfortable with the old model. If a farmer really wanted to keep their head down and avoid any interaction with outside agencies, they had no problems in doing so," said Lamonte Garber, agricultural specialist for the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation. "Now there is a lot more attention being paid to farms that have runoff problems and stream management problems, and there's pressure on them to deal with those problems in fairly short order."

It may seem an anomaly that environmental regulators are targeting an area known for residents who don't use electricity or drive cars, and who have land stewardship written into their religious codes. Many have also embraced no-till, strip and contour farming methods that reduce erosion and runoff from their fields of corn, alfalfa and tobacco.

But the problem is in their barnyards. On many farms, dairy cows stand outside in mud near the barn, with wire fences doing little to stem the flow of manure and sediment.

"The concern with many of the smaller farms, whether English or Plain Sect, is with a traditional barn that's been built close to the stream," said Don McNutt, administrator of the Lancaster County Conservation District. "When they built the barn 200 years ago, the farm had two cows. Today there are 55 head of cows. The stream is still the same distance from the barn."

The problem is compounded by the concentration of farms in Lancaster County, one of the country's most densely packed and fertile agricultural regions. There are more than 5,000, about half operated by Plain Sect and half by "English," or non-Amish, farmers.

Under Pennsylvania regulations, every farmer must have a manure-management plan, along with a conservation plan or an erosion and sediment control plan.

Kevin Sunday, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, acknowledged that the agency has historically ignored smaller farms in enforcing those requirements.

"It was a matter of making decisions of how to best apply resources, so we took a look at the biggest contributors first and worked our way down," Sunday said, adding that inspectors would scrutinize a small farm only if they received a complaint.

That began to change a few years ago with EPA's multistate focus on the Chesapeake Bay and the anticipation of the agency's Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), which call for reductions in runoff into the bay. When excess nutrients reach the water, they cause algal blooms that lead to dead zones.

Of the pollution that reaches the bay from Pennsylvania, agriculture contributes 42 percent of the nitrogen, 56 percent of the phosphorus and 59 percent of the sediment, according to the state DEP.

Under Pennsylvania's plan to reduce its nutrient flow, a large portion of reductions must come from agriculture. The plan, accepted by EPA and largely opposed by farm groups, has officials examining whether existing regulations are being enforced.

EPA 'guns ablazing'

In the winter of 2009, EPA conducted site inspections of 24 farms in the Watson Run watershed in Lancaster County, most of them Plain Sect farms. The agency did not make a good first impression.

"They came in here with their guns ablazing and really tried to hammer some people hard," said Brad Beiler, an English farmer in the region.

David McGuigan, EPA Region 3 associate director of water protection, defended the agency's approach, saying officials worked with state colleagues and the conservation district to identify watersheds to target. EPA has also inspected farms in Shenandoah Valley and on the Delmarva Peninsula.

"We were not aware whether the majority of people were Plain Sect farmers or English farmers," McGuigan said of the Lancaster inspections.

The findings from Watson Run and from inspections done later in nearby Muddy Run served as a wake-up call. The agency found that 85 percent of the farmers did not have the proper manure or conservation plans.

"These regulations have been on the books for decades, but there's never been a concerted effort by anyone to go and let farmers know they even needed to have a conservation plan," said John Shuman, president of the Octoraro Watershed Association.

Conservation groups that had been working with Plain Sect farmers stepped up efforts to get them into compliance. EPA has given notice that it will soon be inspecting farms in the Meetinghouse Creek and Nickel Mines Run watersheds.

But it is difficult at times to convince Plain Sect farmers to change traditional farming methods and set aside acres to benefit the Chesapeake Bay. Some farmers have trouble enough turning a profit on land that is smaller than 100 acres on average.

"We're not willing to make a big sacrifice in crops, just as anybody is not really willing to make a sacrifice in their wages," explained one Amish farmer in the Nickel Mines watershed, who declined to be quoted by name given his wariness of media outside his community. "Our crops are our wages."

It is also a slow process: "Meeting the Amish takes a lot longer than meeting with an English person," said Pat Fasano, project coordinator of the Octoraro Watershed Association. "You can't email, you can't call. They're busy in the barn or out in the field."

Many farmers, Plain Sect and otherwise, also have lingering bitterness about EPA's excursion into their region and the resulting media attention that made them out to be the "bad guys."

"There are so few of us, and it's a lot easier to zero in on us than it is on municipalities and on everyone else that is adding to the pollution," said George Hurst, an English farmer who recently installed one of the region's largest composting operations.

Federal funding problems

Octoraro is focusing on helping Plain Sect farmers write conservation plans using grant money from the U.S. Agriculture Department's Natural Resources Conservation Service and the state DEP, along with anonymous foundation grants.

At one farm, a conservation plan includes running water down to a stormwater basin, building an animal trail and fence and cleaning up the barnyard -- changes that will cost the Amish farmer between $60,000 and $80,000. The price is on the low end compared to other farms.

"I've seen them go as high as a couple hundred thousand," said Bill Rogers, a soil scientist with Lititz, Pa.-based Agricultural, Environmental and Technical Consulting.

To get around the government funding issue, Octoraro is experimenting with ways to channel the grants to private contractors like Rogers who are working with the farmers, while still allowing farmers to pay contractors directly for some improvements.

"We think we have a really good system here," Shuman of the watershed association said. Having two Amish liaisons on staff has also helped.

The Nickel Mines farmer, who is working with Rogers on his plans, seemed willing to strike a compromise.

"If the government wants to clean up the bay, and they've got to use my farm to do it, then they can pay," the farmer said. "If I put in a manure storage or make a waterway where it's to my benefit, then I want to pay."

Noel Soto, who last month toured Amish farms for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, seemed pleased with the sentiment expressed by the farmer. "We can work something with that," he said.

Years ago, conservation groups placed fences directly near streams, and many have proved to be useless because streams have changed direction and flooded. Many Plain Sect farmers are still hesitant about giving too much land away for conservation purposes, so Octoraro now advocates placing fences farther back and leaving grass inside that can be "flash-grazed," or grazed for a short while every now and then.

Another approach

But fencing won't help the broader problems in Pennsylvania -- there are 16,000 miles of impaired streams across the state -- or the Chesapeake Bay, said Garber of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

His group has approached the issue differently, advocating for the planting of buffers that extend at least 35 feet from the edge of streams, based on research done by the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale, Pa.

"Our view is that streams need trees, period," Garber said. "The trees play a fundamental role in not only preventing some runoff from getting to the stream but, just as important, transforming the stream environment into its more natural condition where the stream itself can start processing pollutants."

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is working within the federal Conservation Reserve Extended Program (CREP), which helps farmers plant trees and shrubs and pays them annual rents for the buffered land. In return, farmers maintain a 70 percent survival rate of the buffer, doing maintenance such as spraying herbicides and mowing between plants.

Five Amish farmers joined the original CREP program started in the late 1990s.

In 2010, the Bay Foundation began its "Buffer Bonus Program" specifically for Plain Sect farmers. Under the program, which has funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, CBF gives farmers a $4,000 voucher toward conservation if they plant and maintain buffers. Ten Amish farmers have signed a landowner agreement under the program.

The maintenance is time-consuming, especially with an unwieldy lawnmower pulled by a horse, but Amish farmers who have joined CREP generally do not have complaints about the program. However, they are hesitant about broadcasting it too loudly.

"I couldn't afford to spend all the money, but they helped me. I thought it only made sense," said a retired Amish farmer in eastern Lancaster County who joined CREP on his own in 2002. "I tried to keep it low-key. I didn't tell everybody I accepted money for it."

The Bay Foundation regularly checks up on the farmers to see how the trees are doing and collects invoices for conservation improvements. On a recent day, Garber showed up at Daniel's farm with his minivan loaded with young trees for the farmer to plant.

Much of what happens in the future with the foundation's efforts is dependent on budget cutting at the federal level. CREP, like all federal farm conservation programs, is in danger of being reduced drastically in the writing of the next farm bill. Garber said he worried that the Bay Foundation will be left with "very few tools to work with."

Individual efforts

Not all farmers need encouragement from the Bay Foundation or help from the government.

Leon Good, a Mennonite farmer and retired professor in Lititz, Pa., planted his buffer in the late 1990s without CREP. It runs along 1.5 miles of Hammer Creek, and on a recent day, he pointed out sycamores, willows, oaks and other trees that have grown up on their own.

Though his land was strewn with debris and logs from Tropical Storm Lee, he predicted it would have been a lot worse had the buffer not been there.

He also had a wetlands area installed to capture nutrient-rich water running down from his barn. As he stood describing the snapping turtle he caught there over the summer, a great white egret flew by. Both species had rarely been seen before the wetlands were planted.

"I've been always interested in sort of taking care of the land," Good said. "My dad was, too, but he never got into any of the programs and never asked for help. His philosophy was, if you borrow something you always return it in better shape than you found it, like a shovel.

"And for me, it's the land."

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