What's the value of dirt? For the Lancaster County Conservation District, it's priceless.

The organization formed in 1950 with a mission of empowering farmers to maintain and improve the rich, productive soil of Lancaster County through conservation practices. Today, as the group marks its 75th anniversary, it has expanded its focus to include four more departments beyond agriculture, touching the lives of everyone who calls the county home.

"Coming out of the time period of the Dust Bowl, in the late 1920s and '30s, there was a national movement to create conservation districts across the country," said Sallie Gregory, Lancaster County Conservation District education and operations coordinator. What began as a local resource for farmers in Lancaster's Southern End to encourage sustainable practices soon grew into wide outreach, promoting conservation practices that included the proper ways and times to plow and constructing fences to keep cows from polluting streams.

"In 1950, the county commissioners approved having a conservation district the whole way across Lancaster County," Gregory said.

The county's conservation district, which is the largest in the state, now includes departments focused on erosion and sedimentation, watersheds, data and analysis and education.

"The erosion and sedimentation department works with people in development, such as landowners, construction companies or engineers, on any project larger than an acre," Gregory said, noting that the office reviews work plans to determine how the soil will be maintained prior to construction, during the work and afterward.

The watershed department encourages landowners to maintain their properties to promote water health.

"We all live in a watershed," Gregory said, adding that our actions could impact the watershed right outside our door or the wider Chesapeake Bay watershed. "This department focuses on ways people can maintain and protect the watershed. Maybe you have a no-mow zone in your yard to encourage pollinators, or you plant native plants to support wildlife."

For the data and analysis department, the goal is to tell the story of the efforts of the district and share the results with the public so people can understand the work and see the benefits of conservation, she said.

"In the education department, our role is to talk with residents about conservation practices and provide support for teachers and students working with state standards," she explained, noting that one such effort is the countywide Envirothon program.

The office works collaboratively with numerous organizations in the state, including the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Lancaster Conservancy.

Funding for conservation district work comes from state and federal sources, as well as grants and donations. The organization will also participate in the ExtraGive on Friday, Nov. 21, to support its 501(c)(3) Conservation Foundation of Lancaster County.

The employees of the conservation district, as well as the group's nine-member all-volunteer board, want people to understand the value of the district's work, as well as the impact we all have on our environment.

"A person might drive through Lancaster County and see plastic tubes sticking up next to a creek and wonder what's going on there," Gregory said. "We want to tell the story that those are protecting seedlings and that in 10 years, you're going to see a forest buffer next to that stream, which will protect the stream."

Projects like that one will take years to complete, but the district also has shorter-term initiatives.

"Our watershed department is working to put in-stream monitoring devices into more and more streams, so they see and chart on a daily basis what's happening in the water," she said, noting that these devices provide much quicker updates than a traditional stream sample that might be taken every six to eight months. "We currently have 16 in-stream monitoring devices, and we hope to add more in the future."

To promote its watershed work, the district will host the 2025 Lancaster-Lebanon Watershed Forum on Saturday, Nov. 15, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at Millersville University.

"The forum is a free event for volunteers, students, watershed organizations and practitioners to learn and collaborate," Gregory said. "This year we will hear from Dr. David Bowne at Elizabethtown College about wetland biodiversity and Hilary Dozier from USGS about local water quality monitoring." Registration for the event is required by Friday, Nov. 7, and breakfast is included in the forum. To learn more, visit https://bit.ly/3JhnUqn.

The conservation district also holds an annual tree seedling sale, which opens in February for pickup in April, and hosts a Youth Conservation School in the summer.

"We all impact our natural resources, whether that's in a positive or a negative way," Gregory said. "The conservation district is a resource for everyone, because we all use natural resources every day."

To learn more about the Lancaster County Conservation District, visit https://lancasterconservation.org.