REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio – The Henry County Soil and Water Conservation District, Legacy Farmers’ Cooperative, and Steve Davis, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), have received the first-ever H2Ohio Lifetime Conservation Advocate Award from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA). The award honored their leadership and commitment to water quality through H2Ohio.

H2Ohio, launched by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019, is a water quality initiative addressing serious water issues in Ohio. Problems like harmful algal blooms on Lake Erie, failing drinking water, wastewater, and home sewage treatment systems due to aging infrastructure, and lead contamination from old water pipes and fixtures.

“We’re so proud of the work that our soil and water division offices and our partners have done in this unprecedented trailblazing first couple of years in H2Ohio,” said ODA Director Dorothy Pelanda. “We thought it was only fitting to recognize one, a soil and water office, two, a partner, which is an ag retailer, and three, an individual for standing out from the very beginning and showing their enthusiasm and support and creative help for the program.”

The entire Maumee River Basin can be enrolled in the program, Pelanda said. Currently, about 38 percent of the total cropland is signed up.

“The first award went to Henry County Soil and Water District,” Pelanda said. “Their staff was at the first meeting when we rolled this program out, and they recognized that to have a successful program, they would need their partners to help promote the program.”

H2Ohio was introduced in Henry County in February 2020, just in time for the pandemic shutdown, said Abby Wensink, H2Ohio technician with the district. Despite the temporary shutdown, by August 2020, the district had already signed up 200 producers. They have to keep track of fertilizer levels and follow 4R recommendations.

“They all had to turn in a nutrient management plan, so they had to have a soil test, know where their soil levels were, and tell us what they were planning on putting on,” Wensink said. “We approved those, checked them to make sure they were within Tri-State Fertilizer Recommendations, and then they had to report everything they did.”

Legacy Farmers’ Cooperative, the second award winner, had their staff at those early meetings in Henry County, asking questions about practices to understand how they could be part of the program and what the districts needed from producers to participate in H2Ohio, Pelanda said.

“They assisted producers in six counties: Wood, Henry, Putnam, Fulton, Hancock and Lucas, over the past year alone,” she said. “That’s a tremendous outreach.”

In the early days, Legacy did a preliminary program where producers did a voluntary nutrient management plan when H2Ohio was coming together, said Paige Fitzwater, Legacy’s precision services manager.

“We had staff here that were already knowledgeable about those types of things,” Fitzwater said. “So, when growers were interested in this program, it seemed just natural that they would contact us. We wrote 110 voluntary nutrient management plans for 60,000 acres.”

Davis, the third award winner, has been Western Lake Erie’s water and soil expert for more than four decades, Pelanda said. Davis was not available for comment, but John Wilson, NRCS state conservationist for Ohio, said:

 “Steve Davis deserves many accolades for his work in the Western Lake Erie Basin, and we thank our partners at H2Ohio for recognizing those efforts. Steve Davis began working for the Soil Conservation Service, now the Natural Resources Conservation Service, in 1972. That’s 50 years of service, and what an incredible career it has been. His ability to bring together diverse groups of stakeholders across state and international borders has ensured a collaborative, multi-faceted effort to direct financial and technical resources into the basin.”

In addition, Davie has played an integral role in the Western Lake Erie Basin Initiative, Western Lake Erie Basin Partnership, and Tri-State Regional Conservation Partnership Program. He was also involved in many other initiatives that have made significant strides in meeting the binational phosphorus load reduction targets established in the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.