The White Clay Watershed Association participates in the Christina Watersheds Municipal Partnership. The mission of the Christina Watersheds Municipal Partnership (CWMP), a long-term partnership of Pennsylvania municipalities, county agencies, and watershed conservation organizations, is to facilitate and support the engagement and collaboration of Pennsylvania municipalities, landowners, and other stakeholders to restore and protect the water quality of streams in Brandywine Creek, Red Clay Creek, and White Clay Creek watersheds.

Beneficial Outcomes

Since 2003, this Partnership has provided broad-based collaborative education and municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) regulatory planning and coordination efforts to municipalities and private, non-profit, and government partners in the PA portion of the Christina Basin.  The CWMP coordination efforts have achieved significant cost savings and improved consistencies for MS4 municipalities through information sharing, tools and templates, and facilitation of collaborative planning, among other services, and assisted them with watershed-based approaches to regulatory compliance. In recent years, CWMP has assisted municipalities in preparing pollutant reduction and TMDL plans and facilitated 3 pilot areas of multi-municipal collaboration planning in the Brandywine Creek and White Clay Creek watersheds.

Emerging Challenges

Every five years, the CWMP MS4 municipalities must complete the pollution reduction planning approval process, and then begin a new era of municipal implementation efforts with the associated financial, regulatory, logistical, and operational uncertainties. This transition to implementation will continue to benefit from flexible and responsive coordination among the partners, and clear communication between the partners and Pennsylvania DEP, to address challenges as they emerge and to most effectively and expeditiously begin reducing water pollution.

Planning and Coordination:

The work of the CWMP is coordinated by a team including; Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, Gaadt Perspectives, Chester County Water Resources Authority, Brandywine Conservancy, Chester County Conservation District, David Ross, Ph.D. (Bryn Mawr College), Stroud Water Research Center, and White Clay Creek Wild & Scenic Program.  Our team plans four quarterly meetings for our municipal partners each year and coordinates with our regulatory, municipal, academic, and funding partners to improve the streams in the Christina Basin.

For more information about CWMP, please visit our website at cwmp.org.