"One can readily understand why the North Dakota Game and Fish Department so deeply appreciates the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service for the wonderful work they do to conserve, protect, and enhance our environment."  -- Dean Hildebrand, Director, North Dakota Game and Fish Department, North Dakota Outdoors magazine, March 2002.  See article in this issue.

NRCS NewsLinks

NRCS people, projects, and programs appeared this week in the following newspapers:

National: Rewarding Private Conservation: Private Property Can Be Nature's Best Friend (Reason)
Regional: Coalition Investigating Water Quality in Northwest (Grounds Maintenance)
Missouri: After 100 Years, Missouri Completes Soil Survey (The Kansas City Star)
Texas: Organization Slates Workshops on Wildlife, Cattle, Ecotourism (The Monitor, McAllen)
West Virginia: WVU Professor Believes Chicken Waste Can Be Turned into Fuel (The Charleston Daily Mail)

NRCS Drought and Snowpack News
Colorado: Low-water Worries (The Rocky Mountain News, Denver)
Montana: Spring Rains, Cool Temps Help But... (The Billings Gazette)
New Mexico: Light Snowpack Sells Rafters Down the River (The Albuquerque Tribune)
Utah: "Worst Case Scenario" Reality for Utah Water (The Standard-Examiner, Ogden)

NRCS Third-party Vendor Meetings
Iowa: USDA Wants Your Ideas on Conservation Technical Help (Wallaces Farmer)
Mississippi: Crop Consultants Discussed at Forum (The Greenwood Commonwealth)
Texas: Farm Bill Might Include Third-party Vendor Help (The Amarillo Globe-News)

(NOTE: Links are tested at the time NRCS This Week is cleared.  However, by the time readers try the link, the story may be off the server.  In most cases readers can go to the paper's homepage where they will be able to access the story through the paper's archives).

Earth Day 2002

See the house!  See the grounds!  See "Conservation Where You Live!"

NRCS and the Forest Service are sponsoring an Earth Day celebration and planting ceremony at the Forest Products Laboratory, a Forest Service research facility in Madison, Wisconsin.  The event will show environmentally minded homeowners how to conserve natural resources and create a lively and livable house and yard at the same time.  See Conservation Where You Live!

Focus on the Field

2002 National Wetland Award Winners Announced -- Seven outstanding wetland educators, activists, scientists and conservationists were selected as recipients of the 2002 National Wetlands Awards for their exemplary contributions to the conservation and restoration of the nation's wetlands.  The award winners will be honored at a ceremony on May 16, 2002, at the U.S. Botanic Garden on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.  This year's winners are:

-- Christy Foote-Smith, director of the Massachusetts Wetlands Restoration Program, who, over the past 20 years, has developed hundreds of wetland restoration projects.
-- Dr. Robert Hastings, director of the Turtle Cove Environmental Research Station in Louisiana and the Alabama Natural Heritage Program.
-- Jim King of the California Coastal Conservancy who, among his accomplishments, has restored 22 acres of exotics-dominated upland and completed planning and fund raising for an additional 500 acres.
-- Clarence Mortenson, a South Dakota landowner who, with his sons, has restored wetland ecosystems on his property for more than 50 years.
-- Dr. William Patrick, director of the Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute and professor of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University.
-- K. Angel Pilago, executive director of the Kohanaiki 'Ohana who has helped enact new wetland protection laws.
-- Jim Sweeny of Indiana who has devoted his life to restoration of the Grand Kankakee Marsh.

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have sponsored the awards since 1989.  NRCS cosponsors and helps judge the awards.  For more information on the National Wetlands Awards winners, or for information on the ceremony, please contact Dorigen Fried at 202-939-3250.

NRCS and the U.S. Army Partner for Conservation -- The U.S. Army Environmental Center recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with NRCS to provide technical assistance to selected Army installations.  Signatories are NRCS Chief Pearlie S. Reed and Army Assistant Chief for Installation Management, General R. L. Van Antwerp.  Presently, a variety of soil and water conservation programs are implemented through each installation’s comprehensive environmental program, and the Army recognizes the value of natural resource protection planning and the implementation expertise NRCS can provide to local military installations.  The MOA targets environmental concerns on outdoor training ranges and other training areas.  To receive funding, NRCS in designated states must enter into a local MOA with approved Army installations.  FY 2002 funds can be used on installations in Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.  Your contact: Angel L. Figueroa, Soil Conservationist, U. S. Army Environmental Center, SFIM-AEC-RDS, 5179 Hoadley Road, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland 21010. Phone: 410-436-1502, fax 410-436-1548, e-mail: angel.figueroa@aec.apgea.army.mil.

ND Department Director Thanks NRCS in State Magazine -- North Dakota Game and Fish Department Director Dean Hildebrand commended NRCS in the opinion section of the most-recent issue of the North Dakota Outdoors.  Mr. Hildebrand expressed special thanks to NRCS State Conservationist Tom Jewett and NRCS staff throughout the state for providing technical assistance to help private landowners participate in USDA conservation programs.  The director gave special mention to emergency recovery measures implemented through the agency's Emergency Watershed Protection Program and aspen management and winter habitat measures undertaken through the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program.  He also discussed how waterfowl and waterfowl hunters have benefited from Wetlands Reserve Program projects, and outlined programs that the Game and Fish Department and NRCS work on cooperatively.  Statewide distribution of the magazine is more than 26,000.  Read Director Hildebrand's op-ed at http://www.state.nd.us/gnf/ndoutdoors/issues/2002/mar/docs/matters-of-opinion.pdf.  Your contact: Arlene Deutscher, ND State Public Affairs Specialist, on 701-530-2099. 

PA's "Root Wad Master" Adds to Accomplishments -- NRCS Pennsylvania's “resident root wad master,” Alan Wood, completed two more streambank stabilization projects with root wads.  Root wads include the root mass or root ball of a tree, plus a portion of the trunk.  Root wads are used to armor a streambank by deflecting stream flows away from a bank.  They also provide structural support to the streambank, habitat for fish and other aquatic life, as well as food for aquatic insects.  On Little Toby Creek in Jefferson County, 56 root wads were installed near Brockway; 12 more were installed along the Lackawanna River in Forest City.  The latter project stabilized a 25-foot slope of mine spoil that was eroding a rail-to-trail.  Both sites were seeded with grasses and planted with live stakes.  Establishment of three more root wad sites is planned for sites in Chester, Montgomery, and Beaver counties this summer.  Your contact: Alan Wood, NRCS Pennsylvania State Office, on 717-237-2211. 

WHIP Helps SC's Player Go for His Goal -- Mooney Player is a well-known former football coach in South Carolina; however, many of his fans are not aware of his interest in wildlife.  Player illustrated his commitment to wildlife by enrolling 800 acres of his land in NRCS' Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP).  Player used WHIP to restore habitat for wild quail and to restore his quail population back to one bird per acre.  Five years ago before enrolling in WHIP, he counted .4 birds per acre.  “My goal is to reach one bird per acre, which I hope I can accomplish with a little luck and some more rain,” Player said.  “The severe drought in South Carolina has contributed to the massive decline in the quail population.”  By removing 70 percent of his pines to encourage undergrowth and burning the ground every two to three years, his quail are returning.  “I’ve kept a half-acre of thick, overgrown forest area to show what this place looked like before I got involved with WHIP,” he said.  “It reminds me how far I’ve come in terms of improving the acreage for the quail.”  Your contact: Amy O. Maxwell, State Public Affairs Specialist, on 803-765-5402.

Tech Tip

National Plant Center Assisting Nor-Rel-Muk Nation -- The National Plant Data Center (NPDC) is assisting the Nor-Rel-Muk Nation (one of nine major Wintu groups) in gathering member’s knowledge of resource management practices and forest management history.  Parts of their homeland fall within the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion of northwest California.  Through oral interviews with indigenous elders, archival research, and museum studies this project will shed new light on the diverse ways in which the Wintu, with specific emphasis on the Nor-Rel-Muk nation, managed vegetation with fire.  For example, fires were set by the Wintu to encourage the production of long, straight wine-red shoots of redbud (Cercis occidentalis) for basketry and new tillers of beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) for overlay designs of baskets.  Fires were also set to encourage the growth and abundance of edible bulbs of various kinds of perennial wildflowers.  Reconstructing the Native American details of fire regimes and perceived reproductive response of native plants to indigenous fire management is a necessary step in the rekindling of Indian-environment relationships upon their traditional gathering sites on public lands.  It also may offer land managers alternative ways to diminish the threat of catastrophic fires and restore the ecological role of Native American fire in these fire-adapted ecosystems.  Your contact is Kat Anderson, Department of Environmental Horticulture, University of California at Davis, at 530-752-8439 or mkanderson@ucdavis.edu.

TECH TIP

Global Biodiversity Information Facility Established - The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the outcome of a collaboration of nations around the world through the Convention on Biological Diversity to make biological information globally accessible to decision-makers and the public. The GBIF is an interoperable network of biodiversity databases and information technology tools that are in various phases of development. Users will be able to navigate the world’s vast quantities of biodiversity information, which can be used for national economic, environmental, and social benefits. A GBIF subcommittee for the Electronic Catalogue of Names of Known Organisms (also known as the Catalogue of Life) has formed a Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG). The STAG recently met in Sydney, Australia, to work on the Catalogue. Scott Peterson, National Plant Data Center Director, was a STAG participant. NRCS PLANTS http://plants.usda.gov and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System http://www.itis.usda.gov will function within this network. For more information, visit the GBIF Web site, at http://www.gbif.org/.
Your contact is Scott Peterson, Director, NRCS National Plant Data Center, at 225-775-6280 or scott.peterson@usda.gov.

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The NRCS Mission: The Natural Resources Conservation Service provides leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.

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