Columbia County Soil and Water calls for more staff to capture surge in state conservation funds

Dylan Sadowski, executive director of Columbia County Soil and Water, told Columbia County supervisors the district is working to capture a recent surge in state farm-conservation funding but lacks staff to pursue and manage all eligible projects.

Sadowski said New York State conservation programs totaled nearly $70,000,000 in 2024 and are administered competitively by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. "These programs can only be used for farm projects in New York state, and there's only 58 districts that have access to that $70,000,000," he said, adding the district seeks to increase planning and application work so local farms can access the funds.

The district has pursued multiple program lines this year. Sadowski said Columbia County Soil and Water secured $177,000 in competitive awards distributed to 27 farms in 2024, $146,000 to support cover crops and rotational grazing for 13 farms, and a $2,800,000 award for what he described as the Hudson Valley's first covered-and-flared manure-storage system on a dairy farm. "This project will destroy all methane coming from it," he said, estimating the farm's manure storage will reduce greenhouse gases "by 30,000 tons of CO2 each year." He also said the project will reduce truck trips, cutting "about 10 plus million gallons of less waste annually."

Sadowski described the district's capacity constraints in detail. He said the Soil and Water district has two staff carrying out agricultural work—himself and a colleague, Mikayla—and recently hired a single entry-level technician. "We have the lowest staff district out of all of our neighbors," he said, noting nearby counties have more staff despite some having less farmland. He added that most other districts have two or three technicians to inventory farms, develop conservation plans and pursue grants.

Board members and others at the meeting urged county support to expand staff capacity. Sadowski said planning is the bottleneck: some conservation plans require detailed consultant work and can take about a year to complete before a grant can be implemented. "We're doing a lot of work and trying to keep up with the funding, but we're still leaving millions of dollars on the table," he said.

Sadowski said not all funding will recur at the 2024 level: the $2.8 million award was an outlier, and the district typically brings in smaller sums. He said the district intends to submit multiple competitive applications in the next round and wants to discuss with county supervisors ways to grow capacity so more farms can be assisted.

The presentation included exchanges about program administration: Sadowski said the state Environmental Protection Fund is a principal source and that Department of Agriculture and Markets administers the competitive programs, with review panels that can include Cornell Cooperative Extension or DEC staff. He also noted that some large western-New York counties bring in millions annually because they have larger staff teams to prepare applications.

Sadowski closed by repeating the request for county collaboration to increase technician capacity and to help more eligible farms apply for and implement conservation projects.