Using the Conservation Reserve Program for Cleaner Streams

A strategy for restoring riparian wetlands and native plants by creating a filter strip along a stream for trapping farm sediment and agricultural chemicals. Funding from the federal CRP program to retire eroding cropland and flood-prone lands along rivers, streams and waterbodies can begin a restoration of natural barriers to pollution. Much riverfront land has been converted to cropland and urban development. This CRP strategy can turn back some of the river frontage into intact floodplain. The Conservation Reserve Program was created by Congress in 1985 to pay farmers and ranchers to reduce crop surpluses and to retire erosion-prone lands which are marginal producers. Montana State funds can also be used to pay agriculture to create and maintain pollution filter strips. ~