CWMTF Response (in bold) to Proposed NCASWCD Resolution on the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Resolution:
Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program WHEREAS, the State of North Carolina entered into an agreement in 1999 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a North Carolina Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP); and, WHEREAS, the goals of CREP are to significantly reduce the amount of nutrients entering estuaries from agricultural sources through a voluntary, incentive-based program; to assist North Carolina landowners and land managers in achieving nutrient reduction goals for agriculture, to significantly reduce the amount of sediment entering water courses; to enhance habitat for a range of threatened and endangered species dependent upon riparian areas; and to decrease excess pulses of freshwater in primary nursery areas; and, WHEREAS, CREP was developed to be a working lands program, based in large part on the needs of working landowners practicing conservation; and, WHEREAS, the USDA has committed to provide 80% ($221 M) of the funding for CREP and the State of North Carolina has committed to provide 20% ($53.6 M) of the funding for CREP; and, The 1998 goal of CREP was to restore 100,000 acres in nutrient sensitive watersheds in five years. Only about 22,000 acres – less than one fourth of that goal – have been restored in six years. Unfortunately CREP has only processed enough easements to draw down $16,000,000 in federal funds. CWMTF has provided $5,800,000. The actual federal-state ratio is closer to 64-36 not 80-20. The Farm Bill, and its conservation programs, expires in 2007. It is now highly unlikely that the State will be able to draw down even half of the funds that USDA committed to NC by 2007. WHEREAS, the State of North Carolina would derive the 20% match for CREP through the North Carolina Agricultural Cost Share Program, the North Carolina Wetlands Restoration Program, and the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund; and, In 1999 the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources proposed that CWMTF would provide $39,000,000 to help match federal funds for CREP. DENR also proposed that DENR/DSWC, NCACSP, and NCWRP (now NCEEP) would provide the rest of the matching funds: DENR/DSWC, $4,600,000; NCACSP, $8,841,000; and NCEEP, $1,155,000 for a total of $14,596,000. The Board of Trustees of CWMTF did not vote to approve $39,000,000 for CREP. The Board of CWMTF has committed $10,086,000 in two grants. CWMTF does not know how much DSWC, NCACSP or NCEEP have actually committed to or spent on CREP. CWMTF has requested this information from DSWC. WHEREAS, the NC Soil and Water Conservation Commission has earmarked existing Agriculture Cost Share Program funds to help meet its obligation for matching funds for CREP, because no additional funds have been appropriated by the General Assembly for this purpose; and, DENR committed $8,841,000 in NCACSP funds for best management practices and technical assistance for CREP in 1999. CWMTF does not recall DSWC or DENR asking the General Assembly to appropriate funds for CREP. WHEREAS, the NC Division of Soil and Water Conservation has sought to convert CREP administrative support positions now funded by Clean Water Management Trust Fund to general funds appropriated by the General Assembly; and, CWMTF does not recall DSWC or DENR asking the General Assembly to appropriate funds for administration of CREP. Contrary to its legislation and policies CWMTF not DSWC has provided most of the operating support for CREP – a total of $1,878,000 for nine positions since 1999. About 32% of CWMTF’s funds for CREP have paid for DSWC administration. As Districts know from their work with CWMTF, CWMTF rarely provides funding for administration. If CREP is a priority for DSWC and DENR, then DSWC needs to support its administration. CWMTF leaders expressed this concern directly to DENR and DSWC management last year. Furthermore CREP’s administrative costs are too high for the number of acres enrolled and restored. A CWMTF contractor and a CWMTF State Property Agent closed over 10,300 acres of conservation easements and fee simple acquisitions in 2004. Thirteen CREP positions have closed on about 22,000 acres in six years. WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund agreed to provide up to $39 M for CREP, having awarded $10.1 M thus far for CREP; and, The Board of CWMTF never agreed to unconditionally provide $39,000,000 for CREP. DENR proposed that CWMTF provide $39,000,000. CWMTF is an independent agency appointed by the Governor and General Assembly. The Board of CWMTF has provided two grants totaling $10,086,000 for CREP. The Board has required DSWC to apply for new grants and compete with other applicants. The Board of CWMTF is not obligated to fund an ineffective program with high administrative costs. WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees and staff for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund continue to impose restrictions on the lands enrolled in CREP that make the program less attractive as a voluntary, incentive-based working lands program, and less flexible in meeting private landowner management and economic objectives; and: CWMTF “imposed” and expanded the minimum riparian buffer width from 50 to 100 feet when in provided an additional $4,200,000 to DSWC for CREP in November 2003. Over a protracted eighteen-month negotiation CWMTF staff pushed DSWC management to increase incentives to land owners and to reduce the backlog of enrollments. CWMTF and DSWC agreed: 1) to increase compensation to landowners for permanent conservation easements, 2) to enroll existing forested buffers, and 3) to enroll remnant fields. CWMTF staff was surprised and disappointed that CWMTF rather than DSWC management had to investigate and propose strategies to meet CREP’s goal of half of the enrollments being permanent easements. WHEREAS, this funding for CREP is awarded on an annual basis through grant award from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and these grant awards are now subject to competition with grant requests for land acquisition and preservation projects; and, Appropriations to CWMTF are awarded on an annual basis by the General Assembly. Applications for grants from CWMTF have always been competitive. The Board of CWMTF reviewed 199 applications requesting over $350,000,000 in 2004. The General Assembly appropriated $62,000,000 to CWMTF in 2004. Soil and Water Conservation Districts and their partners have competed well for CWMTF funds. An effective CREP program would also compete well. Historically about half of CWMTF’s grants have funded acquisition of riparian buffers, wetlands, and floodplains. CWMTF funds both acquisition of conservation easements and land in fee simple – depending upon the desires of the seller. CWMTF provided matching funds for several farmland preservation projects in 2004. About a fourth of CWMTF’s grants have funded restoration of streams and treatment of stormwater pollution; and the other fourth have funded collection and treatment of wastewater, including elimination of straight pipes. WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees for the Clean Water Management has deferred continued funding for CREP, placing the future of state funding for CREP in jeopardy; and, The Board of CWMTF received a detailed presentation and debated CREP at length at its September 2004 meeting in Kinston. At its October 2004 meeting in Raleigh the Board of CWMTF voted unanimously to defer phase 3 funding for CREP (CWMTF Project #2004B-040) until the spring of 2005. The Board requested an evaluation and report from DENR “on steps that DENR will take to improve administration and implementation of CREP, including but not limited to increasing the processing of enrollments, increasing the number of permanent easements, decreasing administrative costs per enrollment, increasing the hydrologic restoration of enrolled tracts (such as reducing the number of ditches through the riparian buffers), and targeting enrollments to maximize water quality benefits.” The Board also recommended that DSWC “not process any easement when the administrative costs are greater than the compensation received by the landowner.” It took DSCW over five years to spend $5,885,000 from CWMTF. DSWC closed out its first grant from CWMTF in the fall of 2004. CWMTF believes that the $4,200,000 that it provided to DSWC in 2003 will maintain CREP through the end of 2005 if not longer. The Board often defers projects that need improvement or are not time-sensitive. WHEREAS, this unstable state funding and lack of appreciation for working lands approaches threatens the continued success of the CREP partnership with the USDA and the availability of the $221M in federal program benefits to the landowners of Eastern North Carolina. An ineffective CREP program threatens the success of the CREP partnership and has already cost the landowners of Eastern North Carolina and the waters of the Chowan, Tar-Pamlico, Neuse, and Upper Cape Fear Rivers. CREP’s problems will not be solved by simply throwing additional state funds at it. CREP needs to be redesigned to meet its goals. CREP is working in other states. Illinois has restored 100,000 acres. Minnesota has restored 100,000 acres. Maryland has restored 70,000 acres. About 90% of these acres are protected by permanent conservation easements. Illinois and Minnesota have already started phase two of CREP with additional acres and federal funds committed. NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE VOTING DELEGATES OF THE AREA 5 MEETING OF THE NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICTS meeting on November 9, 2004 in Plymouth, North Carolina, that the President of the North Carolina Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts request that the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund to continue to meet its obligation to provide funding for CREP, and to allow greater flexibility and technical decision making by the CREP federal, state and local partnership with assistance from the CREP Advisory Committee; and, The Board of CWMTF is not obligated to fund an ineffective program. DSWC has not formally requested any changes “to allow greater flexibility and technical decision making” by CREP. It is unclear how well the hydrologic restoration component of the original CREP agreement has been implemented in the field. The CREP Advisory Committee has been inactive. It did not meet in 2004. It met once in 2003. CWMTF is pleased that a meeting has been scheduled for January 2005. CWMTF urges DSWC to schedule regular meetings. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the delegates request that the President of the North Carolina Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts make contact with the General Assembly of North Carolina to alert members to the potential loss of conservation benefits to North Carolina’s working landowners and managers, and to seek adequate and stable state funding for the North Carolina Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program as a working lands conservation program. CWMTF welcomes Association and legislative review of CREP in 2005.
Fact Sheet on CWMTF Investments in Soil and Water Conservation
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