Trust in Action: Cocalico Creek Watershed Association’s Collaborative Path to Restoration

 The Lancaster Clean Water Partners is rooted in building strong, enduring partnerships, and expanding the ability and capacity of those partnerships. Our values create a common understanding of how we collaborate successfully and ultimately live out our mission and vision.

One of those values is that of Trust.  The Partners was created by community members for community members and our grassroots approach inspires trust in the community. We believe in the words from Stephen Covey:

“It is trust that turns mere coordination into true collaboration, just as it’s trust that turns a group of people into a team.” 

We ask our partners at Cocalico Creek Watershed what trust in action looks like to them.  Here is what they said:

The Cocalico Creek Watershed Association (CCWA) established in 2003, has a Mission to: “Protect, sustain, and enhance the quality of all water resources; to ensure the health and the welfare of the citizens; and to preserve the diverse natural, aesthetic, and recreational assets of the Cocalico Creek Watershed.”   The pandemic really set our restoration work back several years and were seeking a way to recover from the setback.  

CCWA  formed a pivotal partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2022, to accelerate our mission by increasing our technical horsepower to compete with the ever-increasing complexity of grant-seeking and project management. As founding partners of the stream and wetland restoration partnership in the Upper Cocalico Creek Watershed, we are pleased to continue collaborating with TNC, Lancaster Farmland Trust, TeamAg, LandStudies, local municipalities, and private landowners to advance wetland, floodplain, and stream restoration projects that improve watershed health and work with landowners and partners to reduce water quality impacts from residential and agricultural runoff in northern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

TNC as a global organization has demonstrated its experience with advancing on-the-ground wetland and stream restoration, but what really built the trust is the local boots-on-the-ground people that TNC has here in PA. As a partnership, we all care about our goals, each other, and each organization’s success. We trust each other as a partnership because we listen, we are authentic with one another and we trust the expertise of all partners in the room as they bring together diverse knowledge and skillsets. Thank you TNC for the opportunity to bring us together as partners on important restoration projects that will help achieve our mutual goals and objectives. We are excited about joint opportunities and thank you for your partnership in project development to completion.