VSP
For agricultural landowners, the Voluntary Stewardship Program (VSP) is our opportunity to show that Walla Walla County can achieve natural resource laws through voluntary cooperation, as opposed to regulation.
Overview
How Does VSP Work?
Counties develop locally led work plans that use voluntary and incentive-based tools to protect environmentally critical areas while keeping agriculture viable.
Farmers voluntarily take credit for conservation work they have done or plan to do, which helps our entire county avoid regulatory mandates.
Farmers who enroll as VSP participants gain access to potential funding to help share the cost of eligible, farm-friendly conservation projects that help achieve VSP work plan goals.
Local stakeholders monitor work plan progress and report the results.
Walla Walla County must demonstrate that we're meeting goals to protect critical areas on agricultural lands voluntarily or we may be forced into a regulatory approach.
How Do I Participate?
Participation in VSP is easy and vitally important if agricultural landowners want to avoid one-size-fits-all regulations to protect critical areas.
Contact Grace Cooper at grace.cooper@wwccd.net and arrange a meeting time that works for you.
District staff use county maps to show the critical areas on your agricultural property. Using the VSP checklist, a technician will list the conservation practices already being implemented and identify additional practices to further protect the areas.
The District can help connect you to potential funding opportunities that cover part of the expense of eligible new conservation practices.
Conservation practices being implemented will be tallied in an aggregate fashion, not by individual landowner. Under VSP, protection and progress are measured on a county-wide basis. No personal identifying information is ever reported without express permission of the landowner.
What Are Critical Areas, and Are They On Your Property?
Landowners may use this VSP mapping tool to see which watershed you’re in and identify critical areas on or near your land.
Frequently Asked Questions
Program Gallery
VSP Mapping Tool
Use this online mapping tool to locate the watershed where your land resides and identify any critical areas present on or near your land.
VSP Local Work Group Minutes
The VSP Local Work Group drafted the plan after more than a year of public meetings and discussion. WWCCD sought additional comments before the plan was finalized and submitted to the state level for review. But members of the public are always welcome to contact us at any time for more information. While the plan was under development, the Work Group met regularly. Now there will be an annual meeting to report progress.
