None The Nature Conservancy in Ohio Press Releases Search All Press Releases Randall Edwards Phone: (614) 717-2770 ext. 30 E-mail: redwards@tnc.org

Freshwater Protection Program Benefits Ohioans

The Nature Conservancy Promotes Success of Scioto Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program

Letter to the Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
November 29, 2007

Spencer Hunt’s Nov. 14 story about the freshwater protection program in the Scioto River watershed highlighted important limitations of the program but could have said much more about its benefits.

The Nature Conservancy strongly supports the Scioto River Watershed Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and the conservation partnership that developed it. More than 53,000 acres have been enrolled in contracts that will, for the next 15 years, protect water quality and provide wildlife habitat throughout the watershed of Ohio’s most biologically diverse river. In addition, 585 acres have been permanently protected through voluntary conservation easements. In other words, the program positively affects an area the size of the Shawnee State Forest.

And though we would be pleased to see additional acres enrolled near Big Darby Creek, the 16,000 acres enrolled in Ross County help protect the Scioto River and Paint Creek. Both these waterways are steadily improving and now support a wide variety of aquatic life. The program also is preventing tons of sediment, nutrients and chemicals from flowing into the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico, where rural and urban drainage contributes to an annual “dead zone” of low-oxygen water that kills fish and other marine life.

In future programs of this type, Ohio’s waterways would benefit from more targeted action, but the Scioto River and the people who live along it already benefit from this important Farm Bill program.

Gary R. Moore
Agriculture Policy Specialist
The Nature Conservancy in Ohio

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.