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CREP Program Guidance

  • An Environmental Evaluation (EE) form will be completed for each CREP application. The completed EE form will evaluate the environmental effects for all practices required for the establishment of the buffer and or wetland restoration.
  • Forested riparian buffers (FRB) minimum width is the greater of 35’ or 30% of the floodplain. The maximum width for FRB’s is the floodplain plus 35’ not to exceed 300’
  • FRB’s enrolled in the CREP are allowed to be 100’ in width regardless of floodplain size. This should facilitate planning and establishment of FRB’s on small order streams and streams with narrow flood plains.
  • All filter strips CP -21 and zone 3 of CP-22 must be planted to stiff stem native warm season grasses or warm season grass mixtures. The minimum width for a filter strip and / or zone 3 of riparian buffer is 35’ and the maximum width is 100’.
  • When FRB are established on marginal pasture land there will be no zone 3 (grass filter up gradient of the planted hardwood trees) permitted.
  • All CP-22 (FRB) enrollments will contain zones one and two which will be planted to hardwood trees at the rate of 110 trees/ acre. The only exception to this is on the listed streams and stream segments. On these streams, a shrub/warm season grass mix may be planted. A minimum of 300 shrubs / acre will be required. If the landowner selects this option, a Virginia Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) fisheries biologist must concur that this is the preferred vegetative alternative for each individual site.
  • Enrollments which result in unmanageable units may be extended by up to 10% of the enrolled acreage.
  • If dry sinkholes are enrolled into the program, they are not eligible for cost share incentives to install alternative water systems.
  • It is highly recommended (not required) that a Riparian Forest Buffer job sheet or equivalent be completed for each Forest Riparian Buffer planned. If used, you may give the landowner the first two pages of the job sheet for their general information and place pages 3 & 4 in the plan.
  • Intermittent streams do not include grassed waterways or drainage patterns where grassed waterways are commonly installed to solve an erosion problems. As a general rule an intermittent streams should have the beginning of a channel formation.

CREP Guidance for wooded marginal pasture

A) If there is an existing tree, shrub, or woodland buffer which is grazed adjacent to a stream or other eligible water body and this existing buffer is:

1) less than the minimum width required in NRCS’s 391A standard and specifications for zones 1 &2 (the greater of 35’or 30% of the flood plain) and

2) not currently functioning as a buffer (grazed)

It is eligible to be included for enrollment into the CREP program.

B) If there is an existing tree, shrub, or woodland buffer which is grazed adjacent to a stream or other eligible water body and this existing buffer is:

1) greater than the minimum width required in NRCS’s 391A standard and specifications for zones 1 &2 (the greater of 35’ or 30% of the flood plain).

It is not eligible for enrollment into the CREP program.

 


 

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