The Problem
Our Solution
Projective Objectives
Public Involvement
Timeline for Completion
General Information

River Reparian Zone
Phoenixville Student Senior Project
Class of 2001

PAGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Kimberton Hills has a moderate sized organic dairy that produces milk and cheese for the community; excess milk is sold locally to retailers and a neighboring farm that produces yogurrt. Our cows graze in pastures on a rotating basis, which gives them good exercise and allows them to feed themselves. The rotation helps to maintain the integrity of the pasture. Despite our careful attention, however, the stream banks in several of our pastures have become eroded.

Unstabilized stream banks in a pasture can cause many problems. When livestock overgraze and walk on the stream bank, the bank breaks down, and the soil becomes loose and can wash into the stream. The sediment washing in the stream covers the clean gravel and the stream channel becomes wider, more shallow and sluggish. The stream then becomes too warm and sluggish to support many aquatic organisms, and becomes polluted. Access to the unhealthy water causes the livestock to suffer a greater risk of contracting water-borne diseases such as leptospirosis, mastitis, salmonella, giardia, clostridium and Johne's disease.

Our Solution

Our request is for a $2,500 grant to partially fund a Stream Bank Stabilization Project. The total cost of this project is $16,950(see budget below). The project will involve the creation and implementation of a sound stewardship strategy for the entire length of a small stream that feeds the French Creek, which bears the state's distinction of being a "Stream of Exceptional Quality". This stream is about a mile long and begins just above our property, travels through our cow pastures, crosses over to two different neighbors' properties, teturns to us, the travels through a horse farm property just before it empties in the French Creek.

Projective Objectives

The Stream Bank Stabilization Project will:
-solve a problem that threatens the quality of an exceptional stream;
-create a local habitat for wildlife;
-involve people of diverse ages, skills and abilities; and will,br> -be a demonstration project for other people seeking practical ways to preserve and protect our environment.

In our stram bank stabilization project we will involve each of the land owners whose property this stream crosses as well as the local high school's environmental education students, an AmeriCorps team of volunteers, and handicapped and non-handicapped camphill Village residents. The High School students will be involved from the planning stages of the project and will recruit interested residents from the lcal community to participate as the work progresses. They will also offer technical assistance to neighboring landowners seeking to implement their own stream bank conservation projects.

We will instal fencing to keep the livestock away from the stream, build appropriate livestock crossings if necessary, and create a riparian buffer zone on both sides of the stream. Within the buffer zone, vines and other invasives that are choking out the native flora will be removed. Along the stream bank, native trees, bushes and herbaceous plants will be planted in order to help reduce erosion. In addition to serving as a natural filter for nonpoint source pollutants, the restored riparian buffer will serve as a diverse habitat wildlife, and possibilty as a corridor for migration. The stream bank will be stabilized and the stream's health restored.

Public Involement

We have always been open to public inspection and welcome the chance to give tours of our facilities and projects. We also have open relations with local conservation groups, the Soil Conservation District, as well as the DEP, and they are regularly invited to visite and observe our projects. By inbolbing the local hifh school as well as a number of neighbors, the news of this project will spread even further. We will offer field trips of the site for schools and organizations while the work is underway and agter its completion. Our initiative will be a demonstration project for other environmentally concerned landowners and organizations seeking cost-effective, practical slutions to such hazards to water quality and livestock health, and we will actively seek opportunities to share this information.

The stream bank stabilization project is under the auspices of our Environmental Initiative. The Initiative sponsors workshops, projects and programs that teach about existing sustainable and environmentally responsible technologies, especially those relating to innovative solutions to water quality and wastewater management. Participants are people of diverse ages, skills, backgrounds and abukutues - with an emphasis on students from area public and private schools. Outreach to the local community and beyond is a focus of our programs.

Timeline for Completion

The project will take approximate 9 months to complete. We hope to begin this fall working with the high school students who will interact with the neighborhood residents and obtain their support. A majority of the streambank work will occur in the winter and spring.