New $274 Million Program to Restore 100,000 Acres of Floodplains and Buffers on Troubled North Carolina Rivers

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today praised US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman’s approval of the North Carolina Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). The $274 million program will be paid to farmers to restore 100,000 acres of wetlands and forested and grassy streamside buffers in three nutrient-sensitive river basins within the Albermarle-Pamlico Estuarine System (APES): the Chowan River Basin, the Neuse River Basin, and the Tar-Pamlico River Basin. The program also targets the nutrient-sensitive Jordan Lake watershed, where runoff from farm fields contributes to impairment of the Upper Cape Fear River Basin. Runoff from agriculture is the biggest problem in the region and the number one source of nitrogen pollution.

“The USDA Enhancement Program has provided us with a creative solution to a complex problem,” said Jane Preyer, director of the North Carolina Environmental Defense Fund office. “We are grateful for Secretary Glickman’s vision and the flexibility of this program. It will do more to restore the Albermarle-Pamlico Estuarine System, the second largest estuary in the country and a tremendous ecological and economic resource, than any other program in the state.”

“Senator Marc Basnight deserves great credit for launching the effort to bring a restoration program to this region, and we applaud Governor Jim Hunt and Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Wayne McDevitt for proposing a North Carolina CREP,” said Preyer. ” Credit especially belongs to the board of the state’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund for its substantial and long-term investment in this effort.” The Trust Fund is providing the bulk of the state funding for the CREP, or more than $40 million of the state’s $53.5 million share. The remaining state funding will come from the North Carolina Wetlands Restoration Program and the North Carolina Agriculture Cost Share Program.

The North Carolina CREP follows six other successful enhancement programs approved in Maryland, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon, New York, and Washington.

Enhancement programs combine state funds with the $2 billion annual federal Conservation Reserve Program to follow scientifically based plans to restore habitat and filter polluted runoff for a river or bay. Daniel Whittle, senior attorney, and Dr. Joe Rudek, senior Scientist, in EDF’s North Carolina office, worked with officials at the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund to develop the enhancement plan.

“This quarter billion dollar program will make a huge dent in the state’s efforts to clean up these troubled rivers,” said Whittle. “This CREP, combined with other ongoing efforts to target nitrogen pollution, will result in cleaner rivers and improved habitat for fish, waterfowl and other wildlife in the APES regions and Upper Cape Fear basin. And because this program targets flood prone, marginal cropland, it should be a big help to farmers. ”

“Runoff from crop and pasture lands contributes more than 80% of the nitrogen being delivered to the Neuse Estuary and more than 50% of the nitrogen being delivered to the Pamlico estuary,” said Joe Rudek, an EDF senior scientist. “Wetland restoration and a network of forested buffers under this program should help clean up both rivers.”