USDA and FEMA Intensify Cooperation to Reduce the Threat of Natural Disasters

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2000-Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are strengthening their partnership to help communities reduce their vulnerability to natural disasters.

"We will work even more closely together to equip our communities with tools to withstand natural disasters so that we can prevent loss of life, lessen property and crop damages, and hasten disaster recovery," said Glickman.

Much of this work will be done through Project Impact, an initiative by FEMA to help communities plan and prepare for natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or wildfires before they occur. Planning sound conservation strategies, building safer and stronger buildings, enforcing building codes, and effective community planning help to reduce widespread losses from natural disasters.

The partnership establishes ways for USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service to help at a local level. Those ways include helping at least two communities, in a cooperative pilot project, to identify flood risks related to aging small flood control dams and to implement measures to reduce or eliminate these risks.

A detailed summary of the Memorandum of Understanding is available on the web at www.nrcs.usda.gov.

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