June 14, 2002

“Land use according to its capability conforms with natural law.”

Hugh Hammond Bennett (1881-1960).

Focus on the Field

American Samoa Now a Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) Area
As a new RC&D area, American Samoa will undertake projects including reduction of soil erosion, water quality improvement, wildlife habitat enhancement, creation of jobs and businesses, protection of heritage sites, and improvement of sewage treatment.  The new RC&D has a 7-member council with President Imo Tiapula leading the organization and bringing his vision of a strong RC&D to American Samoa.  Your contact Lyn Howell, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 808-541-2600, ext. 118 or lhowell@hi.nrcs.usda.gov.

The Dirt on Lewis and Clark
NRCS National Soil Survey Laboratory technician Jan Lang has been looking at soil around Lincoln, Nebraska, in a whole new way. After former NRCS Chief Pearlie Reed challenged employees to come up with creative ideas for a Lewis and Clark display, Jan created pigments for her acrylic paint from soil samples at the lab and began painting scenes of episodes from the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lang, who hadn’t painted for 25 years, lost no time in attracting attention to her unique works, with the National Park Service planning to feature her work in their “Corps of Discovery 2” traveling exhibit. Lang will have 14 paintings for the exhibit completed by mid-summer – in time for the exhibit tour beginning in January 2003. The tour will begin in Monticello, Virginia, and stop at numerous points along the Lewis and Clark trail where thousands of visitors will view Lang’s paintings. “I’ve always been fascinated by Lewis and Clark. It’s been a lot of fun to research their trip and recreate these images,” Lang said. (from a story in the May 2002 Neb News).  Your contact is Joanna Pope, NRCS Public Affairs Specialist, at 402-443-3463 or joanna.pope@ne.usda.gov.

Drought Fosters Partnerships
Three partners teamed-up to combat the drought in New Mexico when the city of Albuquerque offered some of its water to get farmers through this summer and to help protect the endangered silvery minnow. In an agreement reached last week, the city of Albuquerque agreed to loan 70,000 acre-feet of the city’s San Juan-Chama River water to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, which faces a nearly depleted water supply. The city will also lease up to 40,000 acre-feet to the Bureau of Reclamation to keep the Rio Grande River flowing for the minnow. In exchange, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the Bureau of Reclamation have agreed to review their concerns regarding the city's drinking water project plan. With streamflows and reservoirs at record low levels, this has been a particularly tough year for New Mexico’s farmers and aquatic life. Cities are enacting strict water restrictions and some 11,000 area farmers who grow alfalfa, corn, chile, and vegetables are facing shortages of water for the irrigation season, which traditionally runs through October 31.  Your contact is Barbara Garrett, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 505-761-4406 or barbara.garrett@nm.usda.gov.

NRCS Participates in Future Farmers of America in Minnesota
Informing youth about career opportunities in natural resources is a mantra for William Hunt, NRCS State Conservationist in Minnesota. So it was only fitting that the agency participated at the recent Minnesota Future Farmers of America (FFA)’s State convention. Hunt held a career workshop on “Challenging Careers with USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service” for 50 youths. He also addressed 3,000 FFA youths and guests of the group’s keynote speakers. NRCS also exhibited at the FFA career fair.  Your contact is Sylvia Rainford, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 651-602-7859, or str@mn.nrcs.usda.gov.

Relief for Drought-Stricken Montana
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman recently announced the release of $750,000 in expedited Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) funds to dryland farmers in 11 Montana counties that are experiencing the worst drought conditions in the Nation. “Montana has been hit hard by these drought conditions and we continue to examine every effort to provide additional relief to farmers and ranchers in the State,” said Secretary Veneman. “Because of the recent rain and snow, we hope that there is now enough moisture in the soil to allow seed germination. However, if the drought persists, the farmers will have only a small window of opportunity to get the conservation practices in place before the soils dry out again.” NRCS will use the EQIP funds to help producers in Blaine, Cascade, Chouteau, Fergus, Hill, Judith Basin, Liberty, Phillips, Pondera, Teton and Toole counties to rapidly establish or maintain ground cover to protect the soil and lessen or prevent dust storms.

In order to maximize public health and safety benefits, first priority will be given to fields that have highly erosive soils, are near population centers or adjacent to roads, and which currently have little residue on the soil surface. Producers will be offered two options for controlling wind erosion: cover crops and no-till farming for residue management. NRCS will offer producers flat rate payments of $16 per acre for cover crops and $9 per acre for no-till. For this effort, NRCS developed a simplified application process jointly with the Farm Service Agency to expedite the process. This will allow producers to immediately begin to install the conservation practices.
Your contact is Lori Valadez, NRCS Public Affairs Specialist, at 406-587-6842 or lvaladez@mt.nrcs.usda.gov.

Fiber Optic Faculty
Faced with a dwindling number of both qualified continuing education instructors and general curriculum teachers, the Wheatland Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) in northwest Oklahoma came up with a plan to link limited teacher resources to students via a two-way fiber optic telecommunications network between schools and vocational technology centers. The Northwest Oklahoma RC&D wrote grant proposals for outfitting a studio and providing telecommunications equipment for an interactive video and fiber optics network linking eight school districts. The local telephone company laid fiber optic lines and provided equipment. The success of the program has resulted in many more courses being offered via the telecommunications network. An additional 20 school districts were also added, providing residents from rural districts with access to adult continuing education programs from the State universities and educational centers. An on-line, interactive telecommunications medical link between physicians and patients living in outlying areas, enabling doctors to diagnose and prescribe treatment, has also been added to the network.  Your contact is Carl Smith, Wheatland RC&D coordinator, at 580-234-8331 or carl.smith@ok.usda.gov.

KELO TV's "Growing Places" Promotes Conservation
KELOLAND-TV, the South Dakota Association of Conservation Districts (SDACD), and NRCS have put together a 12-story package titled, "Growing Places," featuring Backyard Conservation practices. The 2-3 minute mini-features are designed to appeal to the urban audience by bringing countryside conservation practices such as soil sampling, wildlife habitat, water conservation, and mulching to their own backyard. This summer, viewers in the Sioux Falls viewing area can watch "Growing Places" features on KELOLAND-TV’s “After Nine” segment, every Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. starting this week. All others can watch the segments by going to http://www.keloland.com/NetCast/Index.cfm and clicking on “KELOLAND After Nine.” Viewers can go to http://www.sdconservation.org and click on “Backyard Conservation” for .PDF files describing each of the featured practices. Kudos go to Angela Ehlers, SDACD Director, and Mary Lou Lacey, NRCS soil conservationist, for their research. Colette Kessler, NRCS public affairs specialist, and Madeline Shields, SDACD communications consultant, orchestrated the series.  Your contact is Colette Kessler, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 605-224-2476 or colette.kessler@sd.usda.gov.

Word from Washington

Chief Knight Notes 2002 Farm Bill High Lights on the Airwaves
On a USDA radio bridge this week, Chief Knight outlined the highlights of the 2002 Farm Bill. The Chief covered the following points.

• The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 represents an unprecedented investment in conservation on America’s private lands.
• The Farm Bill gives us a chance to do a lot of good for agricultural landowners and for the country as a whole.
• Taking $13 billion and putting it to work on the land is a major challenge.
• The bill covers 6 years, but we want to get a running start this year.
• Today, The Department of Agriculture is making a couple of announcements that will help landowners benefit from the Farm Bill this summer:
• First, we are streamlining the procedures for our conservation programs.
• The Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service are making it easier for farmers and ranchers to benefit from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
• EQIP is administered by NRCS, and CRP is administered by FSA.
• Until today, a decision made by one agency for either of these programs required concurrence by the other agency.
• We have eliminated the need for concurrence, which means less red tape and faster action for America’s farmers and ranchers.
• Jim Little of FSA and I are working closely to streamline the decision making process.
• Our agencies will still work informally to make sure Farm Bill programs are functioning properly, but we are committed to doing our coordination without delaying the decisions.
• I am confident that America’s farmers and ranchers will see quite a difference in how quickly our agencies can make decisions.
• Applications are available at local USDA Service Centers, NRCS field offices, conservation districts, or on the web (http:// www.sc.egov.usda.gov).

Your contact is Richard Lindeborg, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 202-720-4772 or Richard.lindeborg@usda.gov.


Conservation Programs Streamlined
Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced this week that administrative concurrence processes for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) have been streamlined and simplified. “We are trying to cut the red tape to get the job done and enable producers to participate in our conservation programs in a timely manner,” Secretary Veneman said. “This kind of teamwork among USDA agencies is particularly critical as we implement the new Farm Bill. We will continue to look for ways we can improve our systems to help producers,” she added.

USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) and NRCS, which administer CRP and EQIP, respectively, worked together to streamline concurrence and will soon be issuing administrative guidance. The streamlined concurrence processes, which will save valuable time at the county level and reduce duplicative efforts, allow NRCS or FSA the flexibility to proceed without the formal approval of the other agency. This removes a time-consuming step in the implementation process and will allow the agencies to operate more efficiently. This is important, considering that both agencies are now aggressively working to implement the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Act), which includes a number of new programs and benefits under the Conservation Title.

The 2002 Act, which provides more than $17 billion in funding for conservation, increases the acreage that can be enrolled in CRP from 36.4 million to 39.2 million acres and increases EQIP funding to $6.1 billion.
Additional information is available on the USDA Web site at http://www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Changing Face of America is Theme of Science Day 2002
Resource professionals from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area participated this week in the Science Day Conference 2002 held in Rosslyn, Virginia. The annual event is sponsored by six natural resource professional societies to provide updates on cutting-edge issues related to science in the natural resource professions. The Washington, D.C., area chapters of the American Fisheries Society, Ecological Society of America, Society for Range Management, Society of American Foresters, Soil and Water Conservation Society, and The Wildlife Society sponsored the event.

This year’s theme was “The Changing Face of America: New Views, Visions, and Management of Our Natural Resources.” Speakers covered aspects of the three conference themes: Setting the Context: A Historical Perspective; Present Perspectives of Natural Resource Use-Future Trends; and New Faces and Respective Values of Natural Resources.  Your contact is Ted Kupelian, NRCS public affairs specialist, 202-720-5776 or ted.kupelain@usda.gov.

PLANTS Database Use Up Again
Use of the NRCS PLANTS database is up 72 percent for the period from May 2001 to May of this year, with a “hit count” of 6.2 million last month. The PLANTS Database is a single source of standardized information about plants. The database focuses on vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories, and includes names, checklists, automated tools, identification information, species abstracts, distributional data, crop information, plant symbols, plant growth data, plant materials information, plant links, references, and other plant information. PLANTS will soon incorporate State threatened and endangered plant status, and a new distribution update module to allow users to become contributors by adding distributional data directly to PLANTS.
Your contact is Scott Peterson, Director, NRCS National Plant Data Center, at 225-775-6280 or scott.peterson@usda.gov.

Tech Tip

New WIN-PST Software Prints from Screen
A new CCE version of the Windows Pesticide Screening Tool (WIN-PST) is available from the National Water and Climate Center at http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/water/quality/frame/pestmgt.html. Version 2.0062B includes an updated pesticide database with 21 new active ingredients and new Environmental Protection Agency product registration data. The most important enhancement is the ability to print reports directly from the WIN-PST report screen on any available network printer.

NRCS Pest Management Policy (November 2001) requires the use of WIN-PST or other NRCS-approved environmental risk analysis tools to support the development of the pest management component of conservation plans. NRCS, conservation districts, third party vendors, extension services, private crop consultants, and producers can use WIN-PST.  Your contact is Joe Bagdon, NRCS pest management specialist, at 413-253-4376 or joseph.bagdon@ma.usda.gov

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

Alaska: Cash Flows for River Projects (The Anchorage Daily News)

Colorado: Forest’s Loss will be Painful (The Orange County Register)

Georgia: Kingston Announces Funds for Irrigation (The Statesboro Herald, Georgia)

Illinois: Flooded Boone Farms May Get Aid (The Rockford Register Star)

Indiana: 2002 Farm Bill Benefits Wildlife (The South Bend Tribune)

Iowa: DNR Will Release Trumpeter Swans (The Ottumwa Courier)

Iowa: Road Ahead for Iowa to be Greener, Cleaner (The Des Moines Register)

Iowa: Swan Release Set for Monday (The Hawk Eye, Burlington)

Louisiana: State to Pay Trappers to Kill Nutria, Save Marsh (The Houma Courier)

Montana: River Peaks, Low June Flow Seen (The Billings Gazette)

National: USDA Streamlines Conservation Programs (AgWeb)

National: USDA Cuts Conservation Program Red Tape (Successful Farming)

Oregon: Workshop on Farm Bill Provisions Tuesday (The Herald and News, Klamath Falls)

Texas: American Farmland Trust Op-Ed: Farm Bill Program Could Help Save Texas’ Family Lands

Washington, D.C.: Great Outdoors Week 2002, A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

West Virginia: Anti-terrorism Bill Includes Funds for State (The Charleston Daily Mail)

West Virginia: Fills & Spills: Residents Blame Silt, Dirt for Filling Streams that Overflowed (The Charleston Daily Mail)

(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 its 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).

Colorado: Snowpack has Mostly Melted Away (The Pueblo Chieftain)

Colorado: Fire’s Impact will be Felt for Decades (The Colorado Springs Gazette)

Montana: Storm Helped Drought, but More Needed (The Billings Gazette)

New Mexico: 2002: Driest on Record? (The Farmington Daily Times)

Weekly Drought, and Snowpack Report for the Western U.S.

(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 its 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).

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