Lancaster city's effort to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay will begin simply: with the retrofit of a few parking lots to absorb rainwater instead of dumping it into the sewer system.

While the result is important, the real attention of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation will be on the process.

Lancaster received a $350,000 EPA grant to formulate a strategy to encourage private-sector landowners to make changes.

Parking lots, where rainwater runs directly into city sewers, are the "low-hanging fruit" where relatively low-cost upgrades can have a significant impact, said Charlotte Katzenmoyer, Lancaster's Public Works director.

The EPA hopes the public-private partnership the city wants to establish becomes a model for the 2,000 municipalities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The city grant was one of six for Lancaster County announced at a Tuesday morning press conference with EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation Chesapeake Program Director Amanda Bassow and Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray.

A second grant, totaling $149,988, was given to a consortium of six Lancaster County municipalities to devise ways to manage stormwater.

The municipalities brought together by the Lancaster County Clean Water Consortium are: Mount Joy and Lititz boroughs and Manheim, West Lampeter, East Cocalico and Warwick townships.

Lititz and Warwick were further recognized later Tuesday with the presentation of EPA regional Source Water Protection awards. The awards honored the municipalities for their joint wellhead-protection program to safeguard sources of drinking water from contamination.

The awards were presented by Garvin at the Warwick municipal office.

The $1.74 million in grants are intended to spur municipalities and property owners in the lower Susquehanna River basin to prevent pollution from flowing into rivers and streams that eventually run into the Chesapeake Bay.

Lancaster city has been at the forefront of efforts to prevent raw sewage overflows into the Conestoga River during heavy rains. During storms, water rushing into the combined stormwater/sanitary sewer system overwhelms the city wastewater plant's capacity.

The city has embarked on a 25-year, $140 million effort to prevent the nearly 1 billion gallons of overflow from reaching the river by having rainwater soak into the ground.

Alleyways have been repaved with porous pavement, as have basketball courts in city parks. Water-absorbing "rain gardens" have been added to city-owned parking lots and the planting of thousands of streetside trees is planned.

Yet 87 percent of the city is privately owned and officials cannot reach their goal by focusing on city-owned land, Katzenmoyer said.

The EPA grant will be used to establish a public-private consortium that will work with private parking lot owners to design and finance improvements.

Katzenmoyer believes a consortium would be more cost-effective than a city-run program. And, she said the process must be made profitable to attract private-sector investors. A consultant had already been hired to help develop a strategy, she said.

Katzenmoyer said she hopes to have a plan in place a year from now. Then, she said, the city hopes to return to the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation for an additional $150,000 grant to begin funding projects.

David O'Neill, NFWF regional partnership director for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, praised the effort.

"That kind of model is cutting new ground for the region and the nation," he said.

Additional grants are:

Penn State University, $378,105, to develop a public/private partnership approach to restore buffers along streams in Dauphin, Lancaster and Lebanon counties.

Stroud Water Research Center, $500,000, to provide technical assistance to farmers and advance nutrient credit trading.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation, $200,000, to enroll 368 acres of new forested buffers in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program and improve of 1,715 existing acres of buffers.

Nature Conservancy, $161,158, to improve water quality and brook trout habitat in the Juniata, Lower Susquehanna and Potomac River watersheds.

bharris@lnpnews.com