Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP)
CREP is an enhancement of the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP. It is a cooperative program jointly funded by the USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB). It was developed to be a tool which private landowners may use to address problems -- actual or potential -- caused by non-point source pollution entering waterways from their property. With CREP, a landowner agrees to take a small portion of his property out of production for a period of time, and actively convert that portion back to some semblance of the naturally-occurring riparian vegetation community that might have existed there in the past.
Not every piece of land is eligible for CREP, and not every landowner will be eligible, either. The programmatic restrictions are fair, and thus are rigorously enforced. Not everybody will find the restrictions to be worth the payments. However, it is an entirely voluntary program, so if you don't like the rules you are under no obligation to enroll! If you DO enroll, make sure you read and fully understand your contractual obligations, requirements, and restrictions. CREP is an exceptional opportunity for some people, but it can be a major headache for others. DO NOT enroll in CREP if you think it sounds like an easy way to make some money from a government "handout" or get a "free" fence!
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's look at some of the reasons CREP might be a program worth your consideration.
Oregon's CREP program came into being in 1998, the result of significant forethought and negotiation between the State of Oregon and the United States Department of Agriculture. It was developed to go hand in hand with Oregon's Senate Bill 1010, the Agricultural Water Quality Management Plan Act. Under SB-1010 each watershed in the State of Oregon would develop its own watershed-specific plan to address water quality issues within that watershed. This allowed the individual watersheds to focus on their own set of problems, and develop a timetable and set of rules by which they would function in the future.
Klamath County consists primarily of two major watersheds: the Lost River watershed, and the Klamath Headwaters watershed. (Small parts of several other watersheds also lie within the County, but those are the two big ones.) The text of the Agricultural Water Quality Management Plans developed by these two committees is available online (Lost River plan, Klamath Headwaters plan), but the overall bottom line as it relates to CREP is, livestock won't have unrestricted access to rivers any more. Regardless of whether there is or is not any "proof" that your livestock are a signficant contributor to poor water quality, the landowners and others who served on those committees wanted to remove even the perception that ranchers and farmers don't care about water quality. The management plans stipulate that individual landowners whose property lies adjacent to a river or other waterway will take specific actions to prevent non-point source pollutants from entering the water from their property. (It's important that you understand nobody is accusing anybody of being a source of pollution. The whole purpose of SB-1010 was to let local committees decide what local problems to address, and to come to some agreement as to how best to address those problems.)
The easiest ways to accomplish that goal are to erect a fence to keep livestock away from the river; provide an alternative water source off-channel; and plant and/or allow streamside vegetation to grow back so pollutants can be filtered out before they get to the water. CREP provides cost-share money to help you pay for each of those options. CREP also pays an annual rental payment, just as if you were leasing your acreage to another person for the specified period of time.
Below are several links to pages in this website which explain various aspects of CREP. Clicking on each link will take you to the page addressing that subject.
CREP Subject Links:
Basic Rules of the Program
Application Process
After the Planning is Over
FAQ's
Generic specifications for:
Fences
Trees Use Exclusion Bird Nest Boxes