York Countywide Action Plan for Clean Water

Overview

PA, under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement, has an obligation to clean up its waterways in the Chesapeake Bay Region. With 43 counties and over 49,000 miles of streams and rivers that flow into the Bay, this can be a daunting task. Early in PA’s Chesapeake Bay Phase 3 Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) development process, the Commonwealth sought out the community leaders to help determine the best way to employ practices and projects to clean up the pollution entering their waterways. PA selected four counties to be early planners — Lancaster, York, Adams, and Franklin – in the development of local Countywide Action Plans for Clean Water. The other 39 counties will follow, benefiting from the lessons learned in these four pilot counties.

The YCPC and the County Conservation District (YCCD) staff worked collaboratively with the York County Coalition for Clean Waters (YCC4CW) to develop the York Countywide Action Plan (CAP). The CAP sets forth four strategies to improve local water quality. These strategies include: (1) programmatic changes needed at the State level to enable the success of countywide water quality efforts, (2) policy and funding actions for the County and/or municipalities, (3) implementation of urban and agricultural BMPs to reduce pollutants, and (4) water quality actions achievable through the Conservation District’s funding programs.

York Countywide Action Plan (CAP) (PDF)

View the March 19, 2021 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom.

View the January 15, 2021 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom.

View the November 20, 2020 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom.

View the September 18, 2020 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom.

View the July 17, 2020 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom.

View the May 15, 2020 YCC4CW meeting conducted through Zoom

Action Teams

The County Commissioners designated the YCPC as the lead agency to implement the York CAP in partnership with the YCCD and YCC4CW. The YCC4CW has evolved into five (5) Action Teams:

Education & Outreach
Revenue Building
Data Management
Project Implementation
Legislative & Programmatic Changes

A representative of the YCPC and/or YCCD serves on each Action Team. In addition to these Action Teams, there is a Leadership Team and a CAP Coordinator.

Click through to see each Action Team description.

Revenue Building

Working with the Project Implementation Action Team, the Revenue Building Action Team will develop a flow chart of projects in varying phases of development, estimate the amount of funding needed in each phase, and identify potential funding sources, both traditional and non-traditional. This information may be reviewed with the Data Management Action Team. to determine if the projects in the chart will get us the needed reductions. This information will also be reviewed with the Project Implementation Action Team to determine if we should promote a different mix of projects to meet the necessary reductions. This may also lead to a targeted message campaign about funding availability, specific projects that are being sought, or other specific messages.

Legislative & Programmatic Change

Clearly describe/define the programmatic and policy changes identified in the York Countywide Action Plan (CAP) needed for successful CAP implementation. Develop a strategy that will inform and engage the appropriate agencies, legislators, interest groups, and other interested stakeholders to move the needed legislative, programmatic and policy changes forward in order to accomplish the CAP goals. This may include various actions, such as letters, meetings, white papers, etc. Actions being implemented outside of the Action Team that impact identified program changes shall be tracked and comments provided, if applicable.