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Press release

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, Governor O

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Stay informed and get inspired with our in-depth reporting about the people and ideas making a difference, insight from our experts and the latest environmental progress.
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Press release

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, Governor O

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     
 
CONTACT:
 
Terry Noto, (585) 455-7671, tnoto@rochester.rr
Suzy Friedman, (202) 492-1023, sfriedman@edf.org

(Westminster, MD - April 24, 2009) Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley today signed an agreement to stimulate participation in Maryland’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). This program provides financial rewards to farmers who volunteer to help improve water quality and enhance wildlife habitat by converting sensitive cropland and marginal pastureland to buffers along streams and wetlands. These buffers and wetlands filter nutrients out of runoff from farm fields and provide important habitat for wildlife, such as bog turtles and other highly endangered wetland species.
 
 “Today’s signing should provide an important boost to the efforts of Maryland and USDA to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay and restore wildlife habitat,” said Terry Noto, a CREP and wetlands expert with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  “It streamlines CREP by putting an emphasis on the most effective ways to improve water quality — installing narrower buffers of land closest to streams and restoring wetlands — and by providing farmers with clearer, more straight forward practice requirements and more attractive incentives.”
 
When USDA and the state of Maryland launched this program in October, 1997, it was the first progr