Countywide Action Plan (CAP)
More than half of Lancaster County’s 1,400 miles of streams, and much of its groundwater, are unhealthy.
Because of this, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the county as a priority area to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loads by 2025. The Lancaster Countywide Action Plan (CAP) outlines Lancaster’s path for reducing 6.4 million lbs. of nitrogen and 275,000 lbs. of phosphorus by the 2025 deadline.
Developed through a grassroots approach, the CAP embraces collaboration and scientifically-based practices as the main strategies for achieving ambitious, yet realistic, reduction goals. The plan includes a diverse collection of conservation practices on different land uses in the county.
To learn more about the background behind CAP, click here.
Funding for these projects is from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Countywide Action Plan Implementation grant to Lancaster.
Lancaster County streams have the biggest restoration opportunity of any monitored areas of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. With a mixture of rural, suburban and urban landscapes, the sources for water pollution are broad – but, so are the opportunities for conservation and restoration.
Lancaster County Clean Water Hub
Explore Lancaster’s Best Management Practices and water quality data in our interactive Data Dashboard, showcasing the Countywide Action Plan’s progress toward cutting 6.4M lbs. of nitrogen and 275K lbs. of phosphorus. Click here
Funding for these projects is from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Countywide Action Plan Implementation grant to Lancaster.
The CAP Coordinator
The CAP Coordinator is a team of partners coordinating and implementing the Countywide Action Plan. Beginning in 2026, the team is comprised of Lancaster Clean Water Partners and Lancaster County Conservation District staff. This video was made prior to that.
PRIORITY INITIATIVES
The Countywide Action Plan was originally developed in 2018 through a significant and collaborative grassroots approach with local partner organizations, experts, community members, and state agencies. Now, with nearly six years of implementation efforts, this revised version of the plan
emphasizes Lancaster’s progress, as well as lessons learned and new strategies to meet our reduction goals by 2025. Numeric goals per practice were updated in 2023.
The CAP is centered around the following priority initiatives:
Agriculture – The agricultural sector will require significant people and projects with implementation as the key driving factor in achieving long-term pollution reductions. Agricultural BMPs are captured by this initiative.
Developed – Lancaster County includes urban/suburban, rural, forested, industrial/ commercial, and open spaces not related to agricultural operations.
Natural – Riparian forest and grass buffers provide habitat, serve as flood protection, and filter water before it enters streams and rivers. BMPs from this Priority Initiative are extremely important to reaching our nutrient and sediment reduction goals. Efforts listed here will be managed by the Buffer Action Team, which implements new and maintains existing buffers and documents progress towards the county’s 8,655 total acres goal.
Data Management and Monitoring – The Data Management and Monitoring Priority Initiative is prioritizing the collective effort to develop a shared measurement system with access for multiple sources of data. A current focus area has been assembling water quality monitoring data, planning data, and other information from multiple agencies, in both tabular and spatial formats. The Metrics Analysis in 2023 gave us better accuracy and more precise goals moving forward.
TRACKING OUR PROGRESS
A core element of the Lancaster Countywide Action Plan (Lancaster CAP) is the Best Management Practice (BMP) Implementation Scenario. The scenario is a group of BMPs found across the agricultural, developed, and natural sectors. The primary objective of the scenario is for the county to demonstrate a proposed lump sum of reductions in nutrients and sediment through implementation of these BMPs by the end of 2025. Measuring the success of the overall CAP can best be described as a qualitative exercise with multiple considerations that cannot easily translate into a definitive and quantitative value, but the numeric reductions towards previously identified “targets” is a significant part of the success assessment.
| BMP (Best Management Practice) Name | Total Actual Implementation | Target |
| Nutrient Application Management Core Nitrogen | 100,000 | 109,268 |
| Nutrient Application Management Rate Nitrogen | 18,739 | 20,613 |
| Nutrient Application Management Placement Nitrogen | 34,409 | 37,850 |
| Nutrient Application Management Timing Nitrogen | 5,714 | 6,286 |
| Nutrient Application Management Core Phosphorus | 100,000 | 119,962 |
| Nutrient Application Management Rate Phosphorus | 31,291 | 34,420 |
| Nutrient Application Management Placement Phosphorus | 57,797 | 63,577 |
| Nutrient Application Management Timing Phosphorus | 42,793 | 47,073 |
| Conservation Tillage | 59,000 | 59,296 |
| High Residue Tillage | 95,000 | 99,528 |
| Cover Crop | 3,000 | 3,545 |
| Cover Crop with Fall Nutrients | 105,000 | 115,538 |
| Commodity Cover Crop | 15,000 | 17,775 |
| Pasture Alternative Watering | 7,200 | 7,835 |
| Prescribed Grazing | 8,000 | 9,116 |
| Forest Buffers | 2,200 | 2,250 |
| Narrow Grass Buffers | 400 | 9,116 |
| Grass Buffers on Fenced Pasture Corridor | 100 | 176 |
| Narrow Grass Buffers on Fenced Pasture Corridor | 225 | 318 |
| Wetland Restoration | 200 | 396 |
| Wetland Creation | 36 | 56 |
| Wetland Rehabilitation | 23 | 32 |
| Land Retirement to Open Space | 3,400 | 3,381 |
| Land Retirement to Pasture | 325 | 342 |
| Tree Planting | 875 | 855 |
| Soil and Water Conservation Plan | 165,994 | 176,792 |
| Manure Incorporation | 70 | 76 |
| Agricultural Drainage Management | 9,600 | 12,872 |
| Non Urban Stream Restoration | 131,948 | 138,948 |
| Barnyard Runoff Control | 1,025 | 1,025 |
| Loafing Lot Management | 100 | 90 |
| Ag Stormwater Management | 30 | 50 |
| Runoff Reduction Performance Standard | 33,000 | 35,762 |
| Storm Water Treatment Performance Standard | 7,000 | 7,152 |
| Dry Ponds | 2,000 | 2,444 |
| Extended Dry Ponds | 9,100 | 9,602 |
| Infiltration Practices | 1,500 | 1,748 |
| Filtering Practices | 130 | 148 |
| BioRetention | 900 | 955 |
| BioSwale | 3,200 | 3,455 |
| Permeable Pavement | 8.30 | 8.30 |
| Vegetated Open Channel | 1,000 | 1,257 |
| Urban Filter Strips | 14 | 14 |
| Conservation Landscaping Practices | 100 | 125 |
| Impervious Surface Reduction | 58 | 58 |
| Urban Forest Buffers | 175 | 205 |
| Urban Grass Buffers | 30 | 45 |
| Urban Tree Planting | 32 | 36 |
| Urban Forest Planting | 24 | 31 |
| Urban Nutrient Management | 10,577 | 10,577 |
| Urban Stream Restoration | 35,000 | 45,740 |
| Storm Drain Cleanout | 29,610 | 29,610 |
| Grey Infrastructure Nutrient Discovery Program | 23,772 | 23,772 |
| Street Sweeping | 155 | 155 |
| Septic Connections | 365 | 365 |
| Septic Pumping | 2,500 | 2,500 |
Join our vision of Clean & Clear by 2040!
2026 Lancaster Countywide Action Plan Coordinator
The Countywide Action Plan (CAP) Coordinator plays a central role in driving implementation of Lancaster’s clean water strategy by supporting, tracking, and advancing progress toward the nutrient and sediment reduction goals established in the plan. The Coordinator provides leadership by organizing regular CAP meetings, seeking and managing financial and technical resources, engaging and guiding partner organizations to align their work with CAP objectives, and representing Lancaster in broader technical and community workgroups. Key duties include documenting and sharing CAP progress, coordinating Action Teams, facilitating data collection and reporting, and helping partners navigate permitting and public outreach. Administration of CAP implementation funding is a shared responsibility: Lancaster Clean Water Partners leads project selection, local process coordination, and outreach, while Lancaster County Conservation District focuses on grant application preparation, compliance administration, and data entry/reporting tasks—ensuring CAP funds are efficiently secured and used to support on-the-ground conservation work.
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