Removing Legacy Impairments to Promote Ground and Surface Water Quality: Economic Environmental Opportunities From Big Spring Run, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

The dense concentration of historic mill dams and valley bottom impairments throughout the Eastern United States has had a dramatic and largely unrecognized impact on the original ecology and functions of valley bottom ecosystems. While breached, abandoned and removed dams have been steadily releasing millions of pounds of previously stored nutrients and sediments stored in millpond reservoirs, these dams and infilled ponds buried thousands of acres of bottom land Habitat that originally served as functioning wetlands (GI). The applicant, in partnership with Lancaster Farmland Trust, and researchers at Franklin and Marshall College believe that efficient, cost-effective, privately funded restoration techniques can be developed for the unique conditions of the Eastern United States. The team intends to develop metrics that will allow projects to be successfully implemented by land owners, agricultural producers, municipalities and states. The restoration experiment at Big Spring Run (BSR) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania – which involves the removal of this “legacy sediment” and the rehabilitation of the buried wetland ecosystem - has demonstrated that this approach has significant potential for improving surface and ground water quality while reestablishing wetland Habitat and functions. This emerging Best Management Practice (BMP) has proven to quickly establish efficient and low maintenance green infrastructure and provides a verifiable non-point source alternative to traditional infrastructure. In addition, previously underutilized or restricted acreage can be transformed to create new business, employment and income opportunities for landowners and investors. Two significant positive consequences from this project will be: (1) to more efficiently target surface and ground water BMPs; and (2) to and maximize the economic value of the commodity produced by this restoration technique.