(2/2025) In 2023 the PA Department of Environmental Protection hosted the first PA Clean Water Gathering. This was a collection of over 80 partners in PA and beyond focused on establishing a framework to improve clean water programming within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Partners ranged from local conservation districts, state and federal partners, and private non-profits. After this initial discussion three areas were presented as high priority challenges.

These areas were 1. Technical and Administrative Assistance, 2. Staff Building and Retention, and 3. Funding and multi-grant coordination. For those of you not in government or in a large private organization, this article is about to get wonky. The clean up of the Chesapeake Bay is a massive landscape restoration effort, one of the largest and most complicated projects in the world. This requires an equally massive investment in cooperation between partners in order to get everyone going in the same direction. The challenge in structuring this restoration effort is finding the balance between getting the work done effectively and efficiently, while not becoming overly bureaucratic.

Technical and Administrative Assistance

There are 43 Pennsylvania counties and about 1,200 local municipalities within Pennsylvania’s share of the watershed. These counties and municipalities have various populations, geographies, and government sizes. When a small government is asked or tasked with improving local water quality, they may not have the staff or technical knowledge to get the job done. Likewise for small community non-profits. Over the past year here are the recommendations that came out.

• Engineering Assistance is needed, especially in smaller municipalities
• Streamline and Centralize Reporting, to reduce paperwork at the local level
• Create a more structured approach to encourage Private/Public Partnerships
• Increase support and resources for project prioritization and timeline management
• Block permitting applications for watershed projects

Funding and Multi-grant Coordination

Most of us were taught to clean up after ourselves. While cleaning up your bedroom is pretty simple, it didn’t stop me from complaining. As my mom, would say, "You spend more time complaining about cleaning your room, than it would take to just clean it." Well cleaning up our local waterways is also pretty simple, if we all (corporations included) simply live by the motto "clean up your own messes". The challenge is that we don’t always know how we damage our waterways and we don’t always know the best way to clean it up. This is why on a community, county, and state level there is a need for grant funding. And due to people wasting, stealing, or using grant money inefficiently, obtaining and tracking grants has become very complex. Here is how PA hopes to cut through the bureaucracy and assist local governments and our partners get back on track without all of the confusion and paperwork.

• Create a Central Funding Spreadsheet
• Common Application/Letter of Intent Concept
• Connecting Projects with Funding
• Leverage Available Funding Sources More Efficiently
• Outreach and Education About Financing

Staff Building/Staff Retention

Today, this is a challenge in so many industries, but I do need to stress this. Against popular belief, government jobs are not as cushy or high paying as many think. Not just at the state, but at the local level many staff are trained to do a job and then leave to find a more profitable private sector job. The skills for both jobs may be the same, but the pay is not. In government it isn’t just about being efficient, it is also about getting quality staff to stay for less. The list below is what we need to attract, train, and keep the best and the brightest working here in our community making our lives better.

• Make Management and Leadership Training Available
• Diversify Staff Hires: Hire Staff with Different Backgrounds
• Regionalization: Regionalize Staff, Especially for Smaller Conservation Districts
• Cross Train to Build on Employee Knowledge and Address Turnover
• Allocate Dedicated Funding Annually for More Administrative/Program Staffing

At the end of the day these three initiatives may seem obvious, long overdue, or just boring, but they are a huge step in the right direction. At the 2025 Clean Water gathering PA Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said it best, "When we see the Bay’s challenges and solutions, as not just about the Chesapeake Bay, but about our own waterways, we start to see improvements in PA." He is 100% right. Since 2022, thanks to local water testing volunteers, we learned that most creeks in Adams County contain E-coli. We know that storms are getting more severe and causing more flooding. We know that without fish stocking there would be little or no recreational fishing. While the solutions above, may be too wonky for most, they are important. So is local action.

If you are interested in helping clean up our local waterways, here are some great organizations to join or just do a few hours of volunteering. Watershed Alliance of Adams County at www.adamswatersheds.org and I suggest you join their newsletter. Penn State Extension Master Watershed Stewards, www.extension.psu.edu. Penn State Extension has multiple priorities, so you will have to search for local resources. Gettysburg Green Gathering at www.gettysburggreengathering.com. Or if you want to get involved in a larger Bay effort, but still stay local for projects, reach out to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay at www.allianceforthebay.org. Or just drop me an email and I’ll point you in the right direction. Marty Qually at mqually@adamscountypa.gov