USDA ANNOUNCES FUNDING AVAILABILITY TO CONSTRUCT FIREBREAKS IN HURRICANE-STRICKEN STATES

Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama Eligible for Assistance

WASHINGTON, March 31, 2006—U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Bruce Knight today announced that Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program funds are available to help communities in three hurricane-stricken states to protect life and property from fires.

“A major priority for NRCS is to help communities rebuild after a natural disaster,” Knight said. “Emergency Watershed Protection Program funds are now available to build firebreaks to reduce the threat of fires from downed timber and create a safer environment for residents.”

The firebreaks will be funded with a portion of $300 million in supplemental appropriations approved by Congress in December 2005 for six hurricane-stricken states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. A firebreak is a strip of bare land or vegetation that slows down or buffers a fire. This conservation practice includes access roads, vegetated firebreaks, plowed or disked firebreaks and grazed firebreaks. USDA Service Centers will work very closely with state forestry departments to ensure proper procedures are being followed as they help communities and landowners carry out this conservation practice.

EWP provides technical and financial assistance to address public safety and restoration efforts on private lands. NRCS will pay landowners and landusers up to 75 percent of the cost, or up to $150 per acre, to remove dead or dying timber adjacent to important community structures such as schools and homes.

In the supplemental appropriations approved in December 2005, Congress expanded EWP program authority to pay part of the cost for timber removal on private, non-industrial land adversely impacted by the hurricanes. Normally, NRCS uses EWP funds to pay landowners and landusers to remove debris from stream channels, road culverts and bridges; reshape and protect eroded banks; correct damaged drainways; repair levees and structures; and reseed damaged areas.

Communities or landowners interested in this assistance should contact their local USDA Service Center at http://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov/locator/app?agency=nrcs. Additional information about EWP is available at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/ewp.

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