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Origins with Chris Thompson · Clean Water Conversations

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hello everyone and welcome to Clean Water Conversations, the podcast where we have casual discussions about creating clean and clear waterways right here in Lancaster County.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Ken.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Alison.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Allison, we have arrived.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have arrived.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're kicking off this podcast with a special interview with Chris Thompson, the manager of the Lancaster County Conservation District, who was one of the founders of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he's going to tell us about the origins of the Clean Water Partners and the why and how behind its foundation.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is a slightly different style of discussion than what you're going to hear in future episodes.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of calling this episode episode one, we're calling it origins.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: But with some of the fun elements found in this episode, like icebreakers and trivia, they will continue.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And the rule against acronyms without explanation.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: The conservation world uses a lot of acronyms.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And for those of us who are new to the conservation world, uh, we might not always know what those letters mean.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: So when one of our guests or even one of us uses an acronym without explaining what those letters mean, you'll hear this.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we will stop and ask them to explain.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: With those little housekeeping items out of the way, let's get right into the origins of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners with Chris Thompson.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Our very first guest here is Chris Thompson.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: He is the district manager of the Lancaster County Conservation District.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: He was one of the founders of the Lancaster Clean Water Partners.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to hearing you talk about how this whole thing got started.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, Chris, welcome to Clean Water Conversations.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Ken.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we are going to start out with an icebreaker.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: So a little question just to kind of get inside your head a little bit.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: The question is: if some big Hollywood producer were to come here and make a movie about conservation efforts here in Lancaster County, who would you want to play you and why?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Stop.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Liam Neeson.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Liam Neeson.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can you do the accent?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Me neither.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: I can't do it either.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's okay.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, Chris, tell us about your background.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where did you start?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Were you always interested in the environment?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh going back uh as a even a kid, we I grew up on a farm in Delaware County, small farm.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh even at that point it was really a gentleman's farm.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: We had four generations living there.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But my family always cared about the the land, the soil, and and the community.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh even my grandfather would take us fishing on the bay, uh, didn't realize the connection I'd have later in life, but he would take us there and just tell us how important it was to take care of the bay and uh to enjoy it, but also to take care of it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that that experience as a child really laid the groundwork for both caring about the environment but also about the community that you live in.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the job I have now really helps to bring those passions together.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell So what uh what brought you to Langster County Conservation District?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um I started uh started back in 1990 as a I had a a business of my own.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was a retail flower shop uh and uh landscape business.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved what I did.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I loved interacting with people, working with nature in that regard.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I was so busy with my work, I didn't get to work in the community.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2008, uh when the economy started dropping, I was looking for what else I could do and saw a job at uh posted with York County for the assistant manager uh at the conservation district, and the job description was everything that really fit who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I applied for that and and received that job, not really knowing anything about a conservation district, um, but just uh uh appreciated the overall goal and and service that they provided to the community.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as I started in that job, just learned to appreciate all that the a conservation district does.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: They every county has a conservation district, and yet they really fly under the radar.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't even know that they exist, and yet what they do truly impacts every person in their county.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so I worked there for um about seven, eight years, and then um the position, the manager position came open here in in Lancaster County.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I knew Don McNutt uh and had worked with him on a few things, and he kept encouraging me to apply, but that was pretty intimidating.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lancaster's uh everything happens in Lancaster, and I was uh I didn't feel like I was ready for it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: He asked me to just fill out an application so the the uh headhunter knew what to look for in a manager, and so I did, and the next week they called me to come in and apply.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I did grudgingly.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh long story short, there's no looking back.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the best move I ever made.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's possible here in Lancaster County, just the attitude of the people, the residents, uh it's a great staff and engaged board of directors.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a determined people or residents that really want to get things done.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now I mentioned at the at the intro part there that you were one of the founders of Lancaster Cleanwater Partners.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: This is a short question with a long answer, I'm sure.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: But um, what was the impetus behind creating Lancaster Cleanwater Partners?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So in 2014, when I uh came into Lancaster as the district manager, first thing I did was, you know, of course, you want to make a big impression and really try and stand out from your predecessor.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh not that he did anything wrong, it was all really great, but I everywhere around Lancaster we kept hearing how it Lancaster is the problem.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't fix Lancaster, it's uh nothing's gonna be successful as far as a clean bay.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I met, first thing I did was meet with our our district watershed specialist who was Matt Koffroth, and I said, Matt, what what do you know about the watersheds here?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a longtime uh employee here and uh extensive knowledge of every watershed, every watershed group.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um he told me who the where what the low-hanging fruit was, where you could really make some progress as far as cleaning up local water.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we we started creating this priority list, and and uh I I kept running into funding uh challenges.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Funding is an issue, capacity, people, technology, uh skills.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We just kept running into one problem after another.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so that that um didn't diminish our the drive to make a difference, but it just said we have to go a different way.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I started uh, this is again 2014-15, we started meeting with EPA officials, also known as uh Environmental Protection Agency.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: They had been talking about um the Bay uh Pennsylvania not doing enough, and they started to talk about backstop options, um, which would be increased regulations, federal regulations and inspections that would really uh ratchet down on primarily agriculture uh and uh because they were seeing agriculture as the prime culprit, but also the best opportunity for making the biggest impact.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you can address pollution issues on the farm, it will keep it'll help expedite that whole cleanup process for our local water.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I had gone to the commission county commissioners at the time and explained some of the concerns that I saw, some of the red flags about the the direction EPA was going and and primarily that Pennsylvania at the time was not uh stepping up to the plate to do enough.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I said if if Lancaster uh independent of the state, Lancaster needs to show we're taking control of the uh taking taking this issue seriously and we're doing what we can to clean up our local water.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Around that time, the the conservation district had started uh we had our part of our 2016 planning uh uh planning meeting was how do we turn our red streams blue?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were trying to figure out how we can expand our capacity to really address the clean water issues in the county.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we ran into those same issues, funding for staff, regulatory responsibilities from county delegation, I mean state delegations, um uh and we just could not seem to generate the manpower to take on this new initiative, um, and and which gave even more opportunity for the Cleanwater at the time, the Cleanwater Committee to continue to advance and grow and take on some more of that responsibility for getting the the vision for Langster's Cleanwaters uh to be adopted by the the whole community.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: As it progressed, um we we secured funding from the the Keith Campbell Foundation.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we were looking for or if we have funding for people, uh what are the what what is the the person going to do?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time we were looking for one one person, a coordinator, to help help just amplify the messaging and the and the initiative to make sure it's a countywide effort.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so after meeting with the Keith Campbell Foundation as far as uh fund providing asking them about providing funds for the Clean Water Initiative, um, one of the um uh criteria that they have is that they they operate through 501c3s.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and thankfully the conservation district several years ago had started a 501c3 foundation for conservation efforts here in the county.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the the uh conservation foundation of Langster County specifically.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so the funding that was received uh for the partners effort has comes through our foundation.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So part of that uh arrangement that we had with the Conservation, the Conservation Foundation employing the Clean Water Partners uh staff, uh we have a service agreement between the foundation, uh the partners, and the conservation district to really facilitate and and and be clear about what is uh expected and required of that interaction between our different teams.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: At that same time, uh Commissioner Lehman had had called together a small group, uh actually it started with Lisa Riggs, who is the uh director of of the community economic development corporation here in the in the county, uh, to address that issue because if the backstop options were implemented, it would really restrict any kind of business growth or economic development.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh Lisa reached out to a couple different uh folks in the county, other movers and shakers, uh Mike Peachy, uh Heather Veludis, uh, and myself to talk about how do we how do we address the clean water issue at a local level.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh Commissioner Lehman was a part of that group, and we we met for a few weeks and started to create this clean water committee.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had gone to Virginia, talked with the Keith Campbell Foundation representatives, and identified uh some funding for an initiative and for a person to help move the whole effort forward.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: As the discussions continue to develop, uh Lisa Riggs reached out to John Cox and uh who at the time was the president of Turkey Hill Dairies and asked him to become involved with the idea this is not just an initiative that uh a small committee can can undertake.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to change uh how the county is responding.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: We needed some real uh people well connected in the community, real movers and shakers, and and so Lisa reached out to John and and he became the uh kind of the the lead or the chair of this small group and and helped to really lay out some strong foundation for where where this uh uh the Cleanwater Committee could start to go.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh back in this the spring of uh spring summer of 2017, the the Cleanwater Committee expanded again to include additional representatives from the community Charlotte Katzemoyer, Joe Sweeney, Wolfry, Matt Royer, and Peter Hughes.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at that time, at that time we met with Beth Langman of Deweast partners, and and we began creating that framework that eventually became the Cleanwater Partners.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Matt Koffroth and and uh myself and Matt Royer began developing a NIFWIF, which is National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, um uh a great funder for so many conservation projects throughout the region.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we began developing a proposal that create uh that pulled together, I think it was about 18 different projects that fit very nicely into that whole clean water initiative.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it it that uh paired with the Keith Campbell Foundation for a person really created a package deal.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We had a if we had funding for people and funding for projects that would allow the Cleanwater Cleanwater Committee to really begin doing something and accomplishing some some of those fundamental uh steps in the process of establishing not only projects on farms and and in the community, but also a clean water fund that would allow for the the um receipt of additional funding to get more projects done on the ground.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it established the opportunity to create different committees in the in the county that would help to move it all forward.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we still needed uh uh a person to help lead that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so in early in 2018, towards the end of 2017, we had started interviews, but in early in 2018 we hired Allison Gibson, um who on this here sitting here at the table, uh and uh to to lead the charge as far as the the clean water coordinator at the time.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it um uh uh I I think uh Alison had a steep learning curve as far as what was happening uh uh relative to clean water in the county, but based on her presentation skills and and just her personality, she really has been able to take that that what started as a very small committee uh and uh I say a very big vision, but a very small committee, she's been able to help take that to to the to the have the impact that it has today.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you Chris mentioned that I started in January of 2018, and Chris, when I arrived, there were draft documents, there was a thing called a common agenda.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't have all the metrics filled in, but it had a lot of strategic work that create went into creating that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So can you explain kind of that small group?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like what was the thought process behind the framework that was chosen?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned that the people coming together really knew where they wanted to go, but how how you operationalized that showed up in a few key pieces or a few key documents.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Early on that the the as the Clean Water Committee was growing, uh we we were encouraged by the Keith Campbell Foundation to um to formalize ourselves into a uh some uh an organization itself, still housed within the conservation district as as far as the host entity, but creating a separate identity.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and they connected us with a group out of Annapolis called uh Dew East.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so we had a few planning sessions with Dew East, and they really helped to formalize and and organize us as an independent group, us being the Cleanwater Partners.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: We spent a long time talking about a name and a logo.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: They really, again, helped to uh make the formalize the the Cleanwater Partners.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: They also helped to create the common agenda that helped to establish not only who the partners are but where they're going and where they need to go.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that uh that committee that turned into a steering committee eventually became known as the Cleanwater Partners.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: After hiring Allison, uh you used that as the framework and the driver for where we were going.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really produced a very positive result in throughout the county.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was a really important tool.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the language that was originally part of it was that it would be clean and clear in our and then in our generation or in a generation.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the question that we got was well, whose?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is that yours?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is that mine?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is that my grandkids' generation?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So defining that, I think, was one of the first things that the group had to tackle.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned that the metrics and the numbers that are always hard to get to when you're thinking of community-wide improvements, but even that definition, like people shy away from wordsmithing things as an entire group, but trying to get a vision statement.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tell me a little bit about what what was the struggle there?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: What were some of those conversations like?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh uh it's kind of a funny thought to think of it now, but right, we were intentionally um uh ambiguous about what that really meant because it was such a big, uh, a big lift.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: We really didn't know what it would take or what what the success would look like.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at the time we were working with the state, again, with that reboot strategy, creating a cap or the countywide action plan.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is in 2018, and they they were giving us numbers uh of reductions, like 11 million pounds of nitrogen and and a couple hundred thousand pounds of phosphorus.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had no idea how uh so they were telling us the goal, but they weren't telling us anything about how to get there.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was really a nebulous idea of what we could do.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we were intentional about saying uh sometime in the future the water will be clean.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know how we're getting there yet.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, as you said, Allison, more and more the public was saying, well, how do we measure success?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: How are we going what are what are we shooting for?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: How are we going to do this?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we we did narrow that that goal, that objective down to within this generation or within the 40-year.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that also aligned with what the county, the county planning commission was doing.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were just many other um opportunities to build on what other partners, little P partners around the county were doing to help demonstrate that this is not uh this isn't one group trying to usurp authority or uh over override anyone else.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be a collaborative effort that pulls everybody together with common goals, common agendas to build on that success and really make progress and expedite progress.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, going back to the original intent, we had to show that we were being effective and and successful uh at a rate that was faster than anything we had done to date.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and that that shift from saying that clean and clear was going to be within a generation to clean and clear by 2040, that process itself, just as you said, bringing in existing work that had been happening for a long time, the county comprehensive plan of places 2040.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: That work that the Clean Water Partners, as this collaborative entity, was doing, was happening alongside what the state was saying had to happen by 2025.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't that one was getting rid of or more important than the other, but that they were happening alongside.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have this milestone in front of us with what the state is saying, but then Lancaster's got a bigger vision.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking ahead at 2040 and the realistic implementation of the things that showed up as the priorities and strategies on that common agenda.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Chris, you mentioned that the district and the partners' missions are really aligned.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And currently the partners' staff are conservation district employees.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: That offer to house them and have a service agreement and then have the independent organization of the cleanwater partners exist separate from the district.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really unique setup.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can you give us a little bit of insight about the why and the build-up to that kind of relationship?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's actually a very interesting relationship.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Clean Water Partners staff are are actually considered, or they are, conservation district employees that get leased back to the Cleanwater Partners.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: One of the reasons uh that the Clean Water Partners is is housed within the Conservation District was that the one of the initial goals or objectives of the steering committee was to make sure that the Clean Water Partners was a nimble organization that that was able to operate um uh uh very efficiently without a lot of overhead.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and um uh if you have staff, uh there's a lot of uh administrative oversight that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's needed, and that can be expensive.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like a natural fit for the committee to have the clean water partners housed within the district because of the overlapping mission and goals and objectives that we shared in common.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it allowed for that efficiency, both cost effectiveness and efficiency for being in the same space.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, Chris, where do you see the clean or how do you see the clean water partners continuing to evolve over time?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or how where uh I feel like we between the Conservation District, the Conservation Foundation, the Clean Water Partners, we really have a great uh collaborative uh team effort to approaching our clean water efforts in the county where where we each have our specialized skills and abilities uh and and are are helping to move Cleanwater uh forward in in a variety of different ways.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um the Cleanwater Partners are tackling aspects of the community outreach that the district never could reach.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they're really helping to not only be the driver for pulling partners together, little P partners together, but also helping to uh uh help facilitate with a lot of what the district's trying to do by providing either applying for some funding, but also providing manpower and resources to really help us accomplish our common goals of making our county better or improving the county uh and helping us all to clean up our local water.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, is there something about either Clean Water Partners or the Conservation District that uh makes you the most proud?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, we started to document improved water quality in in some of the local streams.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this really is a result of many years of upstream work by the district and many other conservation partners.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: What excites me about this is that with the common agenda, it's really pulling together all the various partners into a common goal.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're working together and really amplifying each other's work to get more done.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I am excited to say that as we've delisted uh about three or four miles of streams in the recent years, I think in the very near future we're going to see even more streams delisted quicker.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It still takes a lot a long time to get that recognition, but it does uh the fact that we're building on past successes and doing it even more effectively, it's it's got to result in better and cleaner streams sooner.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Chris, can you give us a little bit of a description about what delisting is?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: You've used that term, and I think sometimes it can almost be an acronym on its own.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it yeah, clarify for us what that means.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh currently in in Lexter County, uh more we have about uh 1,400 miles of streams in the county, and more than half by some studies, close to 80 percent of those streams are considered impaired, which is they don't either sustain, they're not fishable, swimmable, drinkable, um, or some level of impairment.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um in order to delist a stream, uh extensive work has to be done in that stream to fortify it as far as putting in protective BMPs that limit the kind of BMP.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So extensive efforts need to go when you have a stream that's impaired, uh uh uh a lot of effort needs to be um exerted to implement BMPs or best management practices.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that's on a farm that uh where you're installing a buffer or a uh a swale, a waterway that keeps the or a manure pit, whatever it is that's going to keep the nutrients uh and sediment from running into the stream, uh that's that those are just the sampling of the BMPs that need to be installed.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a municipality, uh any of the BMPs that are addressing stormwater and runoff, it's that kind of a uh protection that that we need to implement in order to start to help the stream turnaround.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, the way uh the way nature and the way the streams are designed, if you reduce the amount of inputs, the negative inputs, that they have this mechanism to help restore uh the uh they start to restore themselves.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we reduce the the inputs, the negative inputs, and start to restore the positive, uh they begin to heal themselves.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and that that delisting, uh we have several different volunteer monitoring groups.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have several monitors, uh which is uh uh the uh the equipment that we use is called a SAND, and that is uh uh equipment that goes right into the stream, it measures the several different components of the stream, but the basic ones are are sediment, dissolved oxygen, as well as the different nutrients.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and as those markers start to reduce, um it it reaches certain trigger points where the the volunteer organizations will they track that over years, and and as those those numbers start to come down, um it it um you you can start to then identify the the healthy bugs, uh the macroinvertebrates that are are help to restore a stream.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: The more the healthy markers start to increase, uh there's certain trigger points where our our our watershed team then will uh alert DEP, or Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, um the water quality managers to come down and do a stream survey, uh, and then they begin to do that fine tuning or that fine analysis to really document whether a stream has achieved a certain um health level.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so we do all that we can to lead up to that read um that delisting, but uh DEP themselves are the ones that uh after they have done that final monitoring and final um determination, they're the they're the really the only ones here in Pennsylvania that can delist a stream or take it off of that impaired list.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there are different gradients in that impairment, but um it all starts with the monitoring.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we try to do some monitoring before we do projects to see how how unhealthy a stream is, but also to measure progress and success.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: What we measure the stream and see where it is currently, do the projects and and then uh and and then monitor again post-project to see uh, and that happens over years, uh, do that post-project monitoring to see how the stream is being impacted positively, impacted by the the work that was done upstream.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Umce we reach those those good indicators, DEP comes down, uh they will do their stream assessment and surveys.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And again, they're they're ultimately the ones that would delist uh or take the stream off that impaired list.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Very good.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well that's all the questions we have for right now.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I am going to go into a segment.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is conservation, lightning, brown trivia.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how well this is going to work, but we're gonna give it a try.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna put 30 seconds on the clock and ask you a series of questions.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see how many of you of them you can answer in 30 seconds.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: This should be interesting.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: So here we go.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: In what year was the EPA formed?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: 1970.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and which president created the EPA?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh would have been Richard Nixon.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was indeed Richard Nixon.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when did the Clean Water Act pass?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 72.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: A single tree in its lifetime produces enough air to supply how many people with oxygen for a year?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's a tough one.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: That is a tough one.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: 15,000.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's actually four.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: What percent of the earth's water is fresh water?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say 12%.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Less than two percent.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I'm going to cut right to the last one here.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, which was named first, the Conestoga River or the Conestoga Wagon?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I would think the river, but it was indeed the river.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Good job.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Indeed.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: You did really well with those.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Those are some there's some really tough ones in there.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really impressed with how well you did with those.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hey, that is the time that we have.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: We are going to be back in a couple of weeks.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much, Chris.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: We really appreciate you being here.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that was very cool.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we will be back.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, take care.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.