Written by Stephanie Page of the Oregon Department of Agriculture
John Marble, Mike Powers (ODA) and Kevin Seifert (Linn SWCD)

As curious cows watch from the other side of the fence, John Marble gives a tour of part of the streamside area on his property near Crawfordsville. John and his wife, Cris, have protected a large section of stream on their land for many years, and recently restored an additional 50 acres of streamside area with assistance from the Oregon Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). “We used to spend a lot of time driving the cows out of this area,” he explains. “Now we spend a lot less time moving animals around. It's easy to get into the mindset that chasing animals is just part of ranching, but it doesn't have to be.” More of John's time in recent years has been occupied with planting trees and shrubs, building fence, and installing off-stream livestock watering in the two pieces enrolled in CREP. The program provides cost-share for these activities and also provides rental payments to landowners for the acreage removed from agricultural production. “It is a real pleasure to work with landowners like John,” says Dan Sundseth with the USDA Farm Service Agency in Tangent. “And, it is landowners and operators like John who are making the goals and objectives of CREP a reality.” The program's goals are to work with Oregon's agricultural producers to restore streamside areas, enhancing wildlife habitat and water quality. Through CREP, the USDA Farm Service Agency and Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board provide funding for streamside restoration, and state, federal, and local agencies cooperate to provide participants technical advice. To figure out which species to plant, John worked with the Oregon Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Conservation Service. Each of the three areas enrolled in CREP on John's property received its own restoration plan to account for each area's unique conditions. “John has a wide variety of terrain on his property, including large streams and small draingeways,” says Sundseth. “He came to our office with an interest in doing conservation work on his land. He had a vision and some ideas of what he wanted to have happen. He was open-minded and willing to consider the advice and input of the technical agencies and, collectively, a restoration plan was fashioned that met CREP requirements without compromising John's goals and long-range plans for his property.” “Overall, I am very happy with the assistance I have received through the program,” John says. “One suggestion for improving the program would be to provide more help on figuring out where to order the seedlings. It was very time-consuming for me to do it, and I am used to ordering forestry seedlings. I think it is probably quite daunting to folks who are new to tracking down trees for planting. Also, if I were to do it over again, I would probably hire a contractor to put in all the fencing and plant the trees, instead of doing it myself and hiring some high school kids.” Other potential challenges for CREP participants include battling deer, elk, mice or vole damage to plantings and controlling competition from weeds. John has experienced few problems with predator damage, and his trees have overtopped competing grasses and broadleafs in many areas of the CREP ground. Canada thistle and grasses are probably still competing with trees in some areas, but generally, John has had few problems with blackberry and other plants that have caused problems on other CREP properties. John thinks this is because of the specific conditions on his property and because he has always tried to proactively prevent weeds by keeping the pasture healthy, and then control weeds that do show up as needed. The plantings are doing very well on some spots, fair in other spots. In one of the enrolled areas, volunteer cottonwood, oak, and ash outnumber the planted hardwoods; in another area, there are few volunteers. “Even if not all of the trees survive,” John says, “there are many other benefits of CREP.” John, who serves on the advisory committee for the South Santiam Agricultural Water Quality Management Area Plan and Rules, is happy with the water quality benefits he's observed on his CREP land. He has seen more birds on the CREP ground because the grasses are higher. The rest of the Marbles' property also demonstrates their commitment to good stewardship. They manage their grazing land as 3 independent grazing cells, and rotate animals between 25 paddocks within each of the cells. The Linn Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) helped the Marbles secure an OWEB small grant for livestock watering in one of the cells. “In intensive pasture management, good water access is a must. It helps in the quality of the pasture, providing viability to the producer and protecting water quality,” says Kevin Seifert with the Linn SWCD. “The OWEB dollars invested on John's property through CREP and the small grant program will provide significant benefits to the watershed.” Marble and Seifert agree that the best way to promote CREP and other stewardship funding programs is to highlight the benefits to the producer as well as the natural resource benefits. They have both observed an increase in interest among their neighbors and customers. “The financial incentives with CREP are hard to beat, especially for livestock and pasture situations,” Marble says. “I've always thought that a program like CREP would be a great idea, and I'm glad to see it growing.”