Five projects in Washington to receive $74.3 million through RCPP

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. (Nov. 3, 2023) – Five projects in Washington will receive $74.3 million in funding through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).

RCPP leverages a voluntary approach to conservation that expands the reach of conservation efforts and climate-smart agriculture through public-private partnerships. Historic funding is made possible by both the Inflation Reduction Act and the Farm Bill. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced improvements to RCPP as well as an unprecedented $1 billion investment to advance partner-driven solutions to conservation on agricultural land through 81 projects across the nation.

“NRCS is honored to partner with these wonderful organizations to enhance stewardship across the state,” said Roylene Comes At Night, the state conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington (NRCS-WA). “Through strong partners in Washingtion, at the same time as this incredible level of investment through the Inflation Reduction Act, together, I’m proud to say we’re taking full advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance our natural resources across the state.”

Five projects were funded in Washington:

Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program EL 84.7 Landowner Extension Mainline
Lead Partner: Grant County Conservation District
Total Funding Request: $19,666,600.00

This project will complete one of the nine lateral systems in the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program located in Central Washington. The finished EL 84.7 lateral will replace groundwater irrigation with Columbia River surface water for a total of 7,138 acres currently relying on rapidly declining groundwater wells, thereby helping to prevent source water depletion. Drilling deeper wells or converting to dryland crops are economic risks and won’t sequester as much carbon as irrigated production can through biomass accumulation. By reducing the extraction from deep groundwater wells, the aquifer can recharge naturally over time, maintaining its long-term viability. This benefits the local communities who rely on it for their drinking water supply by ensuring a stable and reliable water supply for future generations.

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Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program EL 80.6 Landowner Extension Mainline
Lead Partner: Grant County Conservation District
Total Funding Request: $13,100,000.00

This project is part of the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program located in the heart of the Columbia River Basin in Central Washington, with the goal to replace groundwater irrigation with Columbia River surface water for 5,222 acres of high-value irrigated farmland currently relying on the rapidly declining Odessa Subarea Aquifer, thereby helping to prevent source water depletion. Once constructed, this project would deliver Columbia Basin Project water from the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District’s canal to a total of 10 farms effectively removing 11 wells from pumping groundwater and conserving 15,888 acre-feet (5.1 billion gals) of water in the aquifer each year.

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Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program EL 86.4 On-Farm Project
Lead Partner: Grant County Conservation District
Total Funding Request: $7,200,000.00

This project is part of the Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program (OGWRP) located in the heart of the Columbia River Basin in Central Washington. The goal of the Grant County Conservation District’s project is to replace groundwater irrigation with Columbia River surface water for 5,426 acres of high-value irrigated farmland currently relying on the rapidly declining Odessa Subarea Aquifer, thereby helping to prevent source water depletion. Without more reliable surface water, farmers will continue to be impacted by declining groundwater levels. The goal is to conserve as much of the remaining aquifer as possible for the 25 communities that rely on it for their drinking water supply. This project will build upon funding through the Washington State Legislature to build the EL 86.4 mainline, utilizing RCPP to complete on-farm infrastructure.

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Upper Yakima River Water Supply and Fish Habitat Improvements
Lead Partner: Kittitas County Conservation District
Total Funding Request: $17,804,878.00

The Upper Yakima River Water Supply and Fish Habitat Improvements project will address critical needs for integrated conservation and restoration of watersheds in the Upper Yakima River of Central Washington. This supports the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, a 30-year water resiliency plan to protect and enhance fish and natural resources, improve water availability and reliability, establish more efficient water markets, manage the variability of water supplies, and prepare for the uncertainties of climate change through operational and structural changes throughout the watershed. The Kittitas County Conservation District will k assist producers with on-farm and delivery irrigation practices and habitat practices to improve water use efficiency, water quality and fish habitat availability. This project will replace 6 irrigation diversion structures with fish friendly structures opening up 2 miles of habitat, install 3 acres of riparian habitat; realize over 1,000 acre/feet of annual water savings.

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Absolute Enteric Methane Reductions in Washington State Dairies: A New Frontier on the Journey to Net Zero
Lead Partner: AGSPIRE INC.
Total Funding Request: $16,500,000.00

Agspire Inc’s Absolute Enteric Methane Reductions in Washington State Dairies project will help producers reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions. This project will generate a reduction of approximately 225,000 MTCO2e from enteric methane production in the NDA milkshed – lowering the GHG impact in the region, while providing producers in the milkshed with approximately $23 million in additional revenue from their use of 3-NOP. This reduction is equivalent to the carbon implications of taking 50,069 cars off the road, and it will come at no cost to production for the NDA milkshed, which produces over 9 million lbs. of milk annually and supplies over 1,900 jobs.

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RCPP Improvements
NRCS has identified ways to streamline and simplify RCPP, ease the burden on employees and partners, and help maximize flexibility for partners to leverage their investments with NRCS resources and capabilities.  

Through a concerted effort over the past eight months, using guidance, feedback and expertise from partners, employees, leadership and stakeholders, NRCS has identified several improvements that the agency will implement in the months and years ahead. 

Improvements include:

• Streamlining RCPP agreements for fiscal year 2023 awards and moving to one programmatic agreement to begin implementing the RCPP projects awarded under the fiscal year 2024 notice of funding opportunity. This will allow partners to more quickly begin implementation of their RCPP projects. 
• Entrusting program management and negotiation to the State Conservationists, who lead NRCS programs in each state, further encouraging the locally led process and ensuring the necessary technical needs and costs were realized before project proposal submission. 
• Establishing parameters and expectations for easement negotiations, including availability of easement deed templates and established program processes to reduce partnership agreement negotiation and implementation timeframes. 
• Improving RCPP guidance and training, ensuring RCPP policies and procedures are communicated in a uniform and consistent manner. 
• Enhancing existing business tools to improve the user experience while beginning development of new business tools that, through integration and automation, will reduce the time required for agreement negotiation, processing obligations and making payments to partners. 

For the full list of RCPP improvements NRCS has identified for future implementation, visit our website.

Once improvements have been implemented, NRCS estimated that the negotiation time of RCPP agreements with U.S.-held easement activities will be reduced from 15 months to three months, and from 19 months to three months with entity-held easement activities.

The RCPP improvements are coming at a critical time, as they will strengthen NRCS’ ability to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided $4.95 billion in additional funding for the program over five years. 

Unprecedented RCPP Funding
The Farm Bill and Inflation Reduction Act provided funding for this year’s RCPP projects. 

With this $1.1 billion investment, NRCS has more than doubled the initial allocation for 2023 to capitalize on the unprecedented demand for RCPP and ensure project partners have the maximum amount of time to successfully implement conservation activities before funds expire in fiscal year 2031. Nationwide, there are: 

• 77 climate-focused projects ($1.02 billion in funding).  
• Twenty-two projects focused on water quantity and conservation (more than $338 million in funding).  
• Three RCPP Classic projects are led by Tribes (more than $58 million in funding).  
• Sixteen projects support the protection and restoration of wildlife corridors ($216 million in funding).  
• Ten projects focus on urban agriculture ($123 million in funding).

For a full list of selected projects visit our website.

Since inception, RCPP has made 717 awards involving over 4,000 partner organizations. 

Inflation Reduction Act Boosts Voluntary Conservation Programs
Through the Inflation Reduction Act, USDA has enrolled more farmers and more acres in voluntary conservation programs than at any point in history, following a backlog that has existed for years. In 2023, USDA enrolled nearly 5,300 additional producers in conservation programs across all 50 states (above what otherwise would have been possible through Farm Bill and appropriations funding), which will provide significant climate mitigation benefits. This includes:

• $100 million through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP);
• $250 million through the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); and
• $250 million through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

More Information
In total, the Inflation Reduction Act provides $19.5 billion over five years to support USDA’s oversubscribed conservation programs, and it represents the single largest investment in climate and clean energy solutions in American history.