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May 26—PORTAGE — Maryn Swank and Lauren Shaffer have been quite a combo for the Portage softball team this season and Tuesday afternoon's District 6 Class 1A softball quarterfinal match up with Homer-Center proved to be no different. Swank went 62/3 innings before handing things over to Shaffer for the save as the second-seeded Mustangs hung on for the 6-5 win over the seventh-seeded Wildcats. .
'An extremely good filter': Hundreds of plants installed along stream in Manheim Township park lancasteronline.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lancasteronline.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
As Dellinger Run wends its way toward Chiques Creek, it stretches through 56 acres of farmland in Rapho Township, where owner Mark Heller enjoys watching the ducks and fish that swim in the stream.
But wildlife hasnât always been so plentiful in the waters that cut Hellerâs produce operation in two. The stream, he said, had been in an unhealthy state for years.
Erosion was a big problem, according to Heller, who said it was exacerbated during heavy storms.
âIt was always shifting in position,â he said of the streamâs course.
That was before Heller was approached by clean water experts at Penn State University who connected him with funding and advice on how to restore stream banks and add forested streamside buffers.
A million-dollar grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will pay the total costs of riparian buffers and other conservation practices on farms in three contiguous watersheds in Pennsylvaniaâs Lancaster, Lebanon and Dauphin counties.
âWhen you say total cost, is there anything the farmer has to pay out of pocket?â we asked Lauren Shaffer.
âNope,â she said. âThereâs even a bonus.â
A cover crop of winter rye was no-till planted between corn stubble from a prior year s crop to ensure live roots are in the soil year round. Penn State Ag and Environment C
Shaffer is an outreach specialist with the Penn State Agriculture and Environment Center in Lancaster. The grant covers 220 square miles of heavily farmed land in watersheds drained by the Chiques, Conoy and Conewago creeks.