Chillisquaque-Limestone watershed group founder reflects on 25 years of projects, impacts & struggles ahead of River of the Year voting deadline

A kayaker paddles down Chillisquaque Creek in late fall below the town of Washingtonville.

​It is hard for Tom Benfer to travel the rural roads of Montour and surrounding counties and not come across a spot where he and the Chillisquaque-Limestone Watershed Association has completed a project and made a vital impact over the past quarter-century.

“I drive around and I’ll say, look, we did that project and cleaned up trash at that site or helped do all those streambank plantings and this is where we got people to commit to keeping things 35 feet away from the creek,” he said. “I can go over to Beaver Run up on the Montour Ridge where you can’t even see the projects from the road – you have to walk back to them.”

Benfer can rattle off countless stories about trash pickups over steep banks of Route 45 and efforts to plant trees and establish wetlands along stretches of the Chillisquaque Creek near Route 254 like they happened yesterday.

Unfortunately, he and his group are no longer able to do this work – the watershed association that started in 1999 with a $5,000 grant and a commitment from Benfer to clean up the extended watershed was forced to shut down in 2024 due to lack of active membership.

“We once were a large group, mostly of retirees, but over time, people passed away and we struggled to have enough people to have quorum to run a meeting. At that point, we didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “But there is still definitely work to be done.”
 
Apprehension becomes opportunity
In 1999, early efforts to potentially start a watershed group led to a series of three public meetings at the Montour Preserve.

“They were packed with farmers that I think were fearful that there would be regulations imposed upon them. At least, that was the concern raised when people were talking,” Benfer remembered. “I was sitting there listening and at the third and final meeting, it was said that if no one was going to be interested, it was going to end right there. I stood up and said I would chair a steering committee. Once I said that, we had lots of volunteers to assist.”

In fact, Benfer said they had more than 20 people join the initial committee, and using a $5,000 start-up grant, they kicked off the watershed group, complete with mission statement, bylaws, logo and everything else necessary.

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Listen to the full interview with Tom Benfer in the most recent episode of the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Podcast:

“Initially, I was out there making calls, going door-to-door and talking to people in the community about projects. Sometimes, they had to contact their mom or dad to make a connection. You had to have a connection, because otherwise, they weren’t going to get anywhere,” Benfer said. “Our watershed group was helping identify initial projects and saying to the conservation district: ‘Let’s work here.’ And then things snowballed.”

It was a crucial moment early for the watershed association, helping to work through the resistance and concern of some of the early farm projects that would ultimately spark additional efforts.

“Once we got some going and other farmers saw us succeed, they wanted in on it, too. Early on, they had to cover only 20 percent of things and soil conservation covered the rest. At that point, it was things like adding manure storage facilities, which was a big deal, and stream setbacks. It was a big focus to get 35 feet back on both sides of the creek and get it planted in grasses and trees,” Benfer said. “Once farmers saw they were getting help and it was making a difference, we had a lot of people wanting things done.”

Early success stories led to state officials stopping in for photo opportunities as cattle were being fenced out of creeks and water quality was starting to improve, which led to additional grant opportunities and more improvements.

“At one point, Sean (Levan, with Montour County Conservation District) told me were the third-highest recipient of grants in the state,” Benfer said. “That’s pretty good for being the smallest county.”


Tackling trash
Meanwhile, the watershed association also tackled numerous trash dump sites, removing thousands of tons of trash and thousands of tires from the banks of the Chillisquaque Creek, Limestone Run and various tributaries.

“One of our first cleanups was in Northumberland County along Route 45 over a steep bank down people threw all sorts of trash that wound up right down in the creek,” said Benfer. “We got enough people to make a human chain and hand items up from one person to another. To get tires out, we didn’t want to waste grant money buying a winch, so the Pine Grove Fire Company provided a truck with a winch and I used an old logging chain and we pulled out more than 120 tires up over the steep bank.”

Benfer said on that day alone, they filled two of Ted Heaps’ Disposals largest roll-off trash Dumpsters.

“One was filled with trash, the other with metal, and then we had different people with trucks taking away the tires to a recycling center,” he said. “We even pulled up an old pickup truck box that was at the bottom of the bank in the creek, and we filled that with trash.”

The association tackled countless other similar trash pickup efforts across the wider watershed in its years of existence.

“All different people in our watershed group would know of a site here or there along a waterway and recommend it and we’d go out over time,” Benfer said. “Certain sites we’d hit multiple times per year.”

Improvements were monitored via regular water sampling as well as macroinvertebrate and fish studies.

“With my background in biology, I was mostly involved in the macroinvertebrate studies and overall with all these efforts, we saw real, meaningful improvements,” Benfer said.


Outreach and education
He and his wife, who also served as an officer on the watershed association’s board, spent quite a bit of time developing posters and other educational displays for the local fair and other outreach events to raise awareness.

“We had some cool stuff, like snakes and other critters in jars and skulls and furs to check out. A lot of people would stop in and check it out and tell you how much they appreciated it all and the work being done,” said Benfer. “But you didn’t get any help.”

They developed an annual Chili-Lime Festival (playing off the Chillisquaque-Limestone in their name) in February where Benfer and his wife would cook a roaster full of chili and people would bring sides and lime-related drinks to a meeting and time of fellowship that included an educational program related to the watershed.

“It was a good time to develop an itinerary for the next year for our watershed group and a fun way to get together,” said Benfer. “We’d learn about all sorts of important creatures connected to the Chillisquaque.”

Unfortunately, these efforts weren’t enough to bring in new members.

“We just didn’t have the help we needed to be able to do the projects that needed to be done,” he said. “And these streams are important not only to our communities, but for everyone downstream from us.”

It is a concept Benfer realized from the initial moments of the association’s work.

“It pays to do work at the headwaters. If you can improve the origin of the flows, you will have the most effect,” Benfer said. “You’ve got to start at the headwaters and then work your way downstream, because if you start downstream and everything is bad above you, you’ll have no impact.”

Efforts to revitalize watershed association efforts in Montour County and beyond are being pursued, and one of the priorities with the River of the Year nomination for the Chillisquaque Creek effort. Consider voting for the creek by the January 16, 2026, deadline (one vote per email address) by clicking here.