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“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing
through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals”
from A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, (1887-1948), American author
and conservationist.
In This Issue
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Status of Farm Bill Rules
NRCS Drought News
Arizona Drought Woes
Drought NewsLinks
Focus on the Field
California: American Indian Plant Workshop Inspires Local Educators
Mississippi: State Soil Becomes Official
New Mexico: Lost and Found
South Carolina: Study Reveals: Lake Full of It
Tennessee: National Grazing Lands Conference
Word from Washington
Secretary Veneman Announces $7 Million for Conservation Efforts in the
Klamath Basin
Tech Tip
Stream Design Handbook in Development
This Week's NRCS NewsLinks!
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Status of Farm Bill Rules
Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) Program
The AMA final rule will be published in the Federal Register soon.
Contact: Dave Mason, Program Manager, at 202-720-1873.
Conservation Security Program
Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
Extended comment period closed April 3, 2003.
Contact: David McKay, Team Leader, at 202-720-1845.
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
Proposed Rule
30-day comment period closed March 12, 2003.
Contact: Melvin Womack, Team Leader, at 202-720-1845.
Farmland Protection Program
Request for Proposals was published in the Federal Register on April 3, 2003.
Deadline for proposals is May 19, 2003.
Contact: Denise Coleman, Program Manager at 202-720-9476.
Technical Service Providers
An amendment to the Technical Service Provider Assistance – Interim Final Rule
was published on March 24, 2003. Comments on that amendment must be received by
June 30, 2003.
A correction to the Technical Service Provider Assistance – Interim Final Rule
was published in the Federal Register on March 31, 2003. The comment period for
the TSP Interim Final Rule (published November 21, 2002) was re-opened, with
comments due by April 30, 2003.
The policy, handbook, and amendment to the rule are available on the NRCS
website at http://techreg.usda.gov/WhatsNew.aspx.
Contact: Melissa Hammond, TSP Group Leader, at 202-720-6731.
NRCS Drought News
Arizona Drought Woes
Drought and fire conditions continue to be a very high concern to lawmakers and
citizens within the State of Arizona with almost daily print and electronic news
coverage of fires and drought and fire recovery efforts. NRCS in Arizona
continues to work on drought and fire-related projects throughout the State.
NRCS engineers, water, soil, and environmental specialists continue their work
on fire recovery efforts both on the White Mountain Apache Tribe Reservation and
surrounding area. NRCS is also working closely with other Federal, State and
local agencies with restoration assistance on the White Mountain Reservation and
private lands in the surrounding area. NRCS has set-up a temporary office as
part of this effort. NRCS works with volunteers to re-seed and put down straw to
re-establish ground cover and sand bag homes to protect them from flooding.
Your contact is Ron Joy, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 602-280-8778, or
ron.joy@az.usda.gov.
Check out the National Drought Monitor website at
http://drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
Focus on the Field
American Indian Plant Workshop Inspires Local Educators
NRCS, with help from some Earth Team volunteers
and others, hosted the 26th annual conference on American Indian Education in
Santa Clara, California. More than 900 people attended the 3-day conference to
hear from a number of speakers, including Reina Rogers, NRCS American Indian
liaison, who gave a presentation, Learning from California's First Teachers:
Listening to the Landscape. Reina and other presenters explained how American
Indians gather plants and tend the landscape. The talk also included a
description of a variety of historical horticultural techniques and products
that are still used today by California Indian people to manage wildlands. The
program inspired the Warner Unified School District from southern California to
begin plans to set up an American Indian school program in conjunction with the
Los Coyotes reservation. School representatives hope to see the program include
student-managed native plant projects.
Your contact is Reina Rogers, NRCS American Indian liaison, at 530-284-1300.
State Soil Becomes Official
It’s official. The State Legislature of
Mississippi passed a bill, signed into law by the Governor that establishes the
Natchez soil series as the official State soil of Mississippi. The actual
language of Mississippi House Bill 1273 states, “Be It Enacted by the
Legislature of the State of Mississippi: Section 1. Natchez silt loam
(coarse-silty, mixed, super active, thermic, Typic Eutrudepts) is hereby
designated as the official state soil of Mississippi.”
Your contact is Jeannine May, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 601-965-4337,
or jeannine.may@ms.usda.gov.
Lost and Found
Two New Mexico NRCS employees who had been
missing overnight, Friday, March 28, in the high mountains near Santa Fe Ski
Basin, were found the next morning cold, tired, and hungry. Rhett Muse, KOAT-TV
cameraman, Dan Murray, NRCS hydraulic engineer, and Richard Armijo, NRCS
cartographic technician snowmobiled into the snowy mountains near Sante Fe to
measure the depth of the snowpack in the Aspen Vista area – a trailhead near the
ski basin. After a heavy snow began, the three attempted to take a shortcut out
of the area on foot and became separated. Police and rescue teams began
searching Friday afternoon after KOAT, in Albuquerque, reported that Muse had
failed to file a story as planned. Muse hiked out on his own Friday night and
Murray and Armijo were found by rescuers the following morning. Dan Murray told
reporters on Saturday after his rescue that “I was doing a lot of praying last
night for my family, Richard, and Rhett. I was glad to see the sun come up and I
was very glad to see the rescue team.”
Your contact is Fred Jacobs, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 202-720-6794, or
fred.jacobs@.usda.gov.
Study Reveals: Lake Full of It
A new study shows that the upper sections of Lake
Greenwood, a 11,400-acre South Carolina lake constructed in 1941, have been
severely impacted by sediment. These sections of the lake lost 45 to 60 per cent
of their original capacity and now contain enough sediment to fill about one
million dump trucks. The study was performed by the Saluda-Reedy Watershed
Consortium, in collaboration with NRCS. The consortium is a broad-based group of
non-profit organizations, universities, private consultants and public agencies,
working together in seeking clean, abundant, and healthy waters for Lake
Greenwood and the entire Saluda-Reedy watershed. This study is an important
first step in implementing conservation practices and other measures to reduce
sedimentation in Lake Greenwood, which is a critically important economic and
recreational asset to the region. It is the primary source of drinking water for
the Greenwood community and contributes significantly to the area's economic
well-being by attracting development, providing water-based tourism and
recreation, and generating hydroelectric power. The lake has a watershed area of
1,165 square miles, including much of the rapidly growing urban Greenville area
in upstate South Carolina.
Your contact is Dave Demarest, NRCS Foothills RC&D coordinator, at 864-467-2775,
ext. 102.
National Grazing Lands Conference
This year’s Second National Grazing Lands
Conference will be held at the Nashville Convention Center, Nashville,
Tennessee, on December 7-10, 2003. The theme of this year’s conference is
Harmonize With America¹s Grazing Lands, and will provide a forum for discussion,
exchange of information, technology transfer, identification of research and
program needs related to grazing lands and marketing of products, services, and
other benefits of grazing in order to make people more aware of the benefits of
grazing lands both from an economic and environmental standpoint. For more
information, go to the conference website at
http://www.glci.org/2NCGLindex.htm.
Your contact is John Peterson, National Conference on Grazing Lands Program
Manager, at 703-455-4387.
Word from Washington
Secretary Veneman Announces $7 Million for
Conservation Efforts in the Klamath Basin
Secretary Veneman has released $7 million to
assist farmers in the Klamath Basin in Oregon and California. The funds are part
of a $50 million fund for Klamath farmers made available through the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) authorized in the 2002 Farm
Bill. "The Bush Administration is working to assist farmers and ranchers in the
Klamath Basin," said Veneman. "This funding will help producers accelerate
implementation of conservation practices on the ground this year." Eligible
farmers will receive financial and technical assistance to improve the
efficiency of on-farm irrigation systems and institute other measures that
improve ground and surface water conservation. Conservation practices will
result in net savings in groundwater or surface water resources on the
agricultural operation of the producer.
"Through the combined efforts of the Klamath Basin producers, local conservation
districts and USDA, on-farm conservation measures will be implemented to reduce
water demand and increase irrigation efficiencies," said USDA Deputy Under
Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Mack Gray.
Farmers interested in applying for the EQIP funds may submit an application to
their local NRCS office or USDA Service Center. Applications also are available
online at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov. Program participants will receive funding when the
conservation practices in their EQIP contract are completed. Information related
to the Klamath Basin area is also available from the Department of the Interior,
http://www.doi.gov, and the Department of Commerce,
http://www.doc.gov.
Your contact is Mary Cressel, NRCS public affairs specialist, at 202-690-0547,
or mary.cressel@usda.gov.
Tech Tip
Stream Design Handbook in Development
A new stream design handbook, planned as National
Engineering Handbook part 654, is presently under development. Numerous authors,
both internal and external to NRCS, are contributing regionally sensitive design
tools. Since it will take a number of years to produce the basic content of the
guide, individual stream design notes will be released periodically on selected
topics.
The goal of this design guide is to consolidate new and existing tools,
techniques, and resources to support the design process associated with stream
restoration and rehabilitation. The proposed guide is planned as an "open-ended"
document so additional methodologies can be added as they become available.
Modifications will also be made to existing tools as experience in restoration
brings new knowledge and insight.
The NRCS is increasingly involved in stream restoration projects. This stream
design handbook will be of interest to the numerous disciplines interested in
stream restoration/rehabilitation projects. These projects cover the full range
of treatments from natural to structural. The goals and objectives of these
stream projects typically include restoring/rehabilitating a stream to address
bed and bank stability as well as habitat enhancement. While NRCS took a
leadership role in the development of the multi-agency reference "Stream
Corridor Restoration: Principles, Processes, and Practices," the need for a
comprehensive design handbook has been long recognized.
The production team is also soliciting broad input.
For more information, or if you want to contribute to the handbook, contact
Kerry Robinson, NRCS Water and Climate Center, at 919-838-2812, or
kerry.robinson@ftw.nrcs.usda.gov; or Jon Fripp, NRCS National Design,
Construction, and Soil Mechanics Center, at 817-509-3771, or jon.fripp@ftw.nrcs.usda.gov.
Please send correspondence and material for "NRCS This Week" to the editor by: e-mail to: fred.jacobs@usda.gov or by fax to: Editor, "NRCS This Week," 202-720-1564; or by mail to: Editor, "NRCS This Week," NRCS, P.O. Box 2890, Washington, D.C. 20013.
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