9 and 10

Historic agricultural practices often involved farming up to or very near the stream itself, causing soil erosion and pollutant movement into the streams. Research shows that the creation of vegetated riparian buffers (usually a combination of wooded buffers near the stream plus a grass filter strip between the farmland and the wooded buffers) is a highly cost-effective pollution control measure. However, implementation of such buffers requires that the farmer lose some productive farmland, which reduces farm profits. Buffer creation, while inexpensive in general, still entails a cost not normally borne by the farmers. Finally, the buffers benefit downstream areas more than the farmers themselves.

For this reason, existing programs engage the farmer as a partner but provide a high percentage of cost-share funds for implementation. Creation of agricultural riparian buffers has only gradually gained acceptance, in part due to the extensive paperwork and procedural steps involved in available federal programs.

The Raritan Basin Watershed Alliance proposes implementation of agricultural riparian buffers through non-governmental funding sources, to reduce the cost per acre of buffers and to prove that farmers will participate in such efforts if administrative costs can be significantly reduced. They will also use this project as a pilot program to demonstrate how federal cost-share programs should be implemented successfully. Federal design standards will be used to ensure consistent results.

Agricultural areas are found in many parts of the Raritan River Basin , including southern Middlesex County , southwestern Monmouth County , eastern and northern Mercer County , much of Hunterdon County , southern and western Somerset County , and the valley and plateau areas of the Highlands in Morris and Somerset Counties . The nature of farms in these areas is highly dependent on soils, slopes, farm size, nearby markets and development pressures.

The North Jersey Resource Conservation & Development Council, in cooperation with the Raritan Watershed Agricultural Committee and with financial support from the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, NJ Water Supply Authority and NJ Institute of Technology, is implementing a $170,000 project to identify riparian (stream side) restoration needs on farmlands throughout the Raritan River Basin. These farms would be targeted for riparian buffer implementation to improve stream water quality. The identification of potential project areas is already funded, and so all new funding would be focused on project implementation.

Costs for this project will be between $6,000 to $7,000 per acre of vegetated buffer, including outreach, site planning, land preparation and planting costs, plus nominal payments for putting the land into non-production status. Given that most buffers will be approximately 150 to 170 feet deep (including both wooded area and grass filter strip), an acre of buffer will address 1200 to 1300 linear feet of stream bank (roughly four acres of buffer for each mile of stream bank).

Total project costs are scalable, but could address hundreds of acres of buffer creation along many miles of streams. A productive project for the Middlesex County region could probably start at $600,000 and be scaled up from there based on available resources.

The North Jersey Resource Conservation & Development Council serves as fiscal agent for the Raritan Basin Watershed Alliance, and will be responsible for receiving funds for and implementing this project on behalf of the Raritan Alliance.