Virginia - Riparian Corridors

"The higher you go in watersheds, in the headwaters of river systems like the Potomac, the more streams there are. So naturally, this area has great potential for riparian buffers," said Robert Whitescarver, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Team Leader in the Headwaters Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), which includes Augusta County and the cities of Waynesboro and Staunton. In early 1998, there were 14 miles of riparian forest buffers 35 to 150 feet wide planted on over 100 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Using CRP, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the state's cost-share program, the SWCD will have over 27 miles of buffers planted by the end of 1999.

All of the riparian corridors have three components: fencing to limit livestock access to streams, providing alternate livestock watering systems, and tree planting. Says Whitescarver, "Since the rental rate for pasture is less than the rental rate for CRP, we're paying landowners more than they'd get if they rented the same ground for pasture. USDA has created a program that gives farmers what they have wanted for a long time--compensation."

Another component, "even more profound, is that the [conservation] district and a nonprofit partner have put together a program for acquiring riparian easements in perpetuity. Some landowners have placed an easement on riparian areas without any incentive except for a federal income tax deduction and local tax incentives. Some people are going beyond our definition of riparian buffer to include the whole floodplain in an easement." As Whitescarver describes it, the Valley Conservation Council (VCC), a local land trust, does the brokering, writes the documents, and does the courthouse work. And, either VCC or the Headwaters SWCD holds the easement. In Virginia, conservation districts have that authority, and Whitescarver says sometimes it's more advantageous for the nonprofit to have the conservation district hold the easement. The key is flexibility--and landowner preference. In addition to the Headwaters SWCD and the VCC, numerous other groups are working with Whitescarver, including the state's Department of Forestry, Department of Conservation and Recreation, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Augusta County has over 1,500 farms, many of them in beef or dairy. In terms of agricultural sales, it's the second largest county in Virginia. But, it also is a county under development pressure. As Whitescarver says, "The more land gobbled up for nonagricultural uses, the more intensive the agriculture has to be."

One of the farms Whitescarver works with is owned by Vicki and Mike Seckman who graze about 400 head of beef cattle and raise corn and rye and alfalfa for hay on 1,500 acres. The farm drains into both the James and Shenandoah rivers. Vicki, who her husband and Whitescarver both credit with leading the push for buffers, says, "We fenced cattle out of the creeks, leaving them five different access points. We put in nearly three miles of fencing, with half-and-half funding. We're in the process of planting trees and shrubs along the creek banks--some hardwoods such as green ash, black walnut, swamp cypress, and some shrubs." The Seckmans bought the farm just three years ago, though she says, "I grew up on a farm, and we lived on a farm when we first got married." She is enthusiastic about wildlife benefits, too. "There are deer and rabbits, and people have seen a few bear; but I think they're just passing from one mountain range to the other. Large parts of the valley have been deforested and the wildlife doesn't have enough habitat, so we're hoping to help solve that problem."

At the top of the Shenandoah watershed is Marcus Cupp's 150 acre home farm in Verona. "I was born in '35, came up knee-high to a duck on a farm, and I'm still here on the same farm." He operates a 150 milker Holstein dairy farm in partnership with his two sons. In 1996 he bought a neighboring farm of 273 acres and put the two together. On the new land, which has a lot of marshland and streams, he has enrolled about 30 acres along nearly a mile of the streamside land in CRP for buffers. "I went 35 feet back from the center of the stream and planted hardwood, bald cypress, and pine. That means there's a 70 foot swath; in some places with marshland there may be a couple hundred feet. I stripcrop the 150 acres I farm on either side of the tributary to keep the erosion down, and put in buffers to filter out any runoff that would happen to come off the land."

"When I bought this new place," Cupp says, "I just saw that marshland and I wanted to do something. I've never been involved in any government programs before. I always wanted to be my own self, to run my own show, and didn't want anybody telling me what to do." But, last fall he went to a meeting about CRP, listened to Whitescarver, liked what he heard, and signed the land up for CRP. "I was just going to let it lay there, but the CRP rent will help pay the taxes." Cupp figures there may be some financial benefit from the hardwoods, "although I'll never see it. I don't plan to use that land, so why not grow something for somebody else?" Cupp says he got interested in forestry in high school when his agriculture teacher used to have his class plant trees on school land. Some have been harvested for pulp, yet "there's still a good stand of trees."

On Cupp's place there is abundant wildlife--"geese, ducks, deer (they're too plentiful), rabbits, quail, turkeys, coyotes, and bobcats. I'm afraid we're going to get beavers; the ones on my home place were cutting the buffer trees." Cupp thinks of possibilities. "I've got plans down the road. Bobby [Whitescarver] and I have talked. I planted a lot of bald cypress. After those cypress get up, I'd like to put a small, 2-foot-high dam in to back up water a little deeper. Then, when the trees get a bit bigger, raise the dam a little more. You know--the Everglades." He adds, "If you never have a vision, you never accomplish anything. I may never be able to fulfill my dreams there, but I've got a vision and I go preaching to the boys--and if I don't get it done, they might."

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