Thanks for clarifying that point, John. You're right that I originally overstated things. Seems only the most conservative with the two sects refuse government money. I've amended the text above to more accurately reflect that.

It's a nice story but it helps to get your facts straight. The "Trust and Clean Water" article is somewhat misleading. It states; "since Mennonites, and Amish like them, will not accept government assistance."
Actually what was written in the Washington Post article is more accurate. "The most conservative Mennonites refuse money like this, considering it undue entanglement with the government." I assure you that there are many Mennonites who will accept some forms of government assistance. The Post article states that "Phillips's real success has not been explaining the government to the Mennonites but explaining the Mennonites to the government". Reading the article on this site would lead one to beleive that Phillips has not been as successful as he thought in helping some government employees get it right.

After reading the full article in the Washington Post, it appears to me that this really is not so much of an EPA success story as it is a credit to the hardworking conservation district staffs out there. They are making the contacts and have a personal relationship with the landowners. That is how voluntary conservation gets on the land.
The only thing that the federal govt., eg- EPA did was leave them alone and not interfere. Sometimes that is the wisest thing for government agencies to do. That is the REAL lesson here.
BRAVO to soil and water conservation staffs throughout the nation!!!

I applaud Mr Phillips. I would be interested who he works for. I followed the link to the story but it just called him a case worker. One of my concerns since I work for NRCS is this work would be charge to our CTA-General fund code and we generally do not get enough in that fund code to work effectively in the planning process and if the producer is not accepting cost share then the implementation is also under CTA compounding the the problem. Also if there is a heavy cost share workload then it is a proirity and so the non cost shared workload gets put on the back burner. In many cases working with individuals it takes a lot of one on one time to gain trust and get conservation on the ground but government budgets and management keeps pushing us to a more corporate mentality of getting the cost per widget down. This sometimes comes at a cost to true & important conservation.

This is great! It is important that the government tries to get past it's old sterotype! As government agencies we have a lot to offer people and getting the message out there will help bring so much progress in protecting our natural enviornment!

Mike,

You are right, of course. I read too fast and wrote too quickly, but as I noted in my previous comment, I've amended the story to correct the error. Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow!

George,

I didn't mean the phrase "EPA success story" to convey that the improvements were a product of extensive EPA involvement, only that the clean up of Muddy Creek was declared a "success story" by EPA and featured on its Web site as such. In fact, if you follow that link to the EPA site and look in the "Partners and Funding" section of the page, you'll see the following credits:

"Residential and agricultural successes have largely been the result of partnerships between the Shenandoah Valley Soil and Water Conservation District (SVSWCD), Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Rockingham County Farm Bureau, and USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

In addition to these agency partners, the watershed's Old Order Mennonite community played a significant role in the project's success. The community strongly values land and water resources and took the initiative to voluntarily implement extensive BMPs such as stream exclusions, loose housing barns, and numerous manure storage units. Religious beliefs preclude the community from accepting any financial assistance to implement BMPs. Community members refused any cost share assistance and assumed complete financial responsibility for 8.3 of the 10 miles of livestock exclusion fencing installed throughout the watershed."

Anthony,

Mike Phillips works for the Shenandoah Valley Soil and Water Conservation District in Virginia.

The primary success story is the community and its avoidance of government entanglements. The rugged individualism demonstrated is refreshing to read about. On the other hand, it's maddening how handing out taxpayer money was presumed by government officials to be the easy solution.

One could hardly accuse Mennonite communties with "rugged individualism". They are very community oriented, moreso than most of us. Perhaps if we relied more on others in our community we would have less need for provision from the government.

Hello, nice site :)