Pooling Resources to Protect Land around French Creek

Since the 1960s, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has worked to protect the pristine water of French Creek. This stream in northwestern Pennsylvania is important because it directly impacts the water quality of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, and it shelters rare and endangered aquatic life. As awareness of this watershed’s value has grown over the years, so, too, has WPC’s network of partner organizations working to advance common goals. Today, the story of French Creek’s remarkable health is also a story of the power of partnerships – including a new venture that has just begun its work.

 
In November 1969, WPC took an early step in protecting French Creek by acquiring the 299-acre Wattsburg Fen Natural Area, an integral part of the watershed. WPC’s approach was one that would be used many times in the decades that followed: Protect the watershed by conserving the land that impacts it.

Throughout its 40-year history in that region, WPC has worked to raise public awareness about the unique and fragile conditions that exist in French Creek, and supported numerous projects that helped to protect it.

In 1995, the French Creek Project – a partnership of WPC, Allegheny College and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council – won a national award for sustainability from Renew America. The award cited the group’s “innovative approach to watershed education and its effort to engage landowners, business leaders, teachers, students and the general public in stream protection activities.”

Today, WPC’s commitment to French Creek has taken the form of a partnership with the French Creek Valley Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy. The goal of the joint venture is to accelerate protection of the watershed by combining the efforts of local, regional and global conservation organizations.

French Creek Valley Conservancy President John Tautin said, “We are a lightly populated area and our local resources are just not enough to keep this globally significant watershed safe. Our joint venture with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and The Nature Conservancy is a good example of how our community is benefitting from like-minded organizations that exist outside the boundaries of our watershed.”

In its first year, the joint venture has protected almost two miles of French Creek’s shoreline by working with private landowners who chose to permanently protect their land through
voluntary conservation easements, permanent legal agreements that limit future development of a property and are tailored to the interests of the landowner. Each of these easements prohibits development of these properties and creates or maintains a 300-foot vegetative buffer along French Creek to filter out runoff and prevent erosion of the stream banks. The joint venture partners will continue to reach out to private landowners along French Creek in an effort to protect land that would impact this 117-mile watershed.

“By availing themselves of these voluntary easements, the landowners are improving water quality not only for their neighbors who live in the French Creek watershed, but anyone who
lives downstream,” Tautin said.

Winter 2008 Conserve  |  Western Pennsylvania Conservancy  |  Fallingwater