CREP Corner

By Lee Ashford

CREP is an enhancement of CRP, called, appropriately enough, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Its primary focus is restoration of riparian corridors, with the program objectives being to:

1. Restore 100% of the area enrolled for the riparian forest practice (CP-22) to a properly functioning condition in terms of distribution and growth of woody plant species;

2. Reduce sediment and nutrient pollution from agricultural lands adjacent to the riparian buffers by more than 50%;

3. Establish adequate vegetation on enrolled riparian areas to stabilize 90% of stream banks under normal non-flood water conditions;

4. Reduce the rate of stream water heating to ambient levels by planting adequate vegetation on all riparian buffer lands;

5. Provide a contributing mechanism for farmers and ranchers to meet the water quality requirements established under federal law and under Oregon’s agricultural water quality laws; and

6. Provide adequate riparian buffers on 2,000 stream miles to permit natural restoration of stream hydraulic and geomorphic characteristics, which meet habitat requirements of threatened or endangered fish.

So what does all that mean to you, the professional agriculturalist? Over the next couple issues of this newsletter we will take a look at these 6 objectives, to see how they might fit into your operation. CREP is an entirely voluntary program, and applicable only to qualified lands, waterways, and landowners. You may never have heard about the program. You may not be interested in the program, even if you have heard about it. You may not be interested in it precisely because you HAVE heard about it! In future editions of this column I hope to provide some clarification and dispel some myths about CREP.

But, first….

Let me tell you a little about myself. I recently took an early retirement from another state’s wildlife management agency and moved to Klamath Falls with my wife of nearly 28 years. I had no intention of staying “retired” but had gotten my fill of bureaucratic nonsense, and felt it was time to move on. I have always appreciated the agricultural community – in fact, my entire life I’ve enjoyed eating food and wearing clothes – so when the opportunity arose for me to take a position in which I could actually work to HELP farmers and ranchers navigate the political red tape, AND continue to work on wetland habitat improvements, I jumped at it.

My principal interest is to make this program work the way it was intended. I believe CREP is a program with a lot of good aspects to it. It’s not perfect, and I hope to have some small part in changing it for the better, but it does provide some incentives which might be enough to help you implement some changes on your land you already have been considering.

I inherited a fair number of applications for the CREP program. Many of these have been setting in a pile, waiting for somebody to start working with them. I am now that “somebody”, and by the time you read this I should already have contacted most, if not all, of those applicants. I look forward to working closely with many of you at your request, as you continue stewarding the land to which you are so intimately tied.

They put a telephone on my desk, so I’m assuming it’s okay for you to call if you have any questions about CREP! My number is (541) 883-6932, extension 116. I hope to hear from you soon….