15 Washington Co EQIP

Washington County 2015 EQIP Program

Executive Summary

The USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Washington County, Alabama, will hold a sign-up for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) for the 2015 Fiscal Year. Signup is countywide and is continuous. This program is a voluntary program designed to provide technical and financial assistance to address resource concerns or problems on cropland, pastureland, hayland or forestland.  

Applications are taken at:

The final date for accepting applications to meet the first batching period for ranking and prioritizing applications will be October 17, 2014. Additional batching periods will be held as needed to obligate available funding. Applicants must ensure that they meet USDA program eligibility requirements through the Farm Service Agency by the close of the ranking period. Practices may not begin until you have been notified of approval.

All applications will be ranked and approved based on an environmental ranking worksheet that has been adjusted to meet local resource concerns. Applications with the highest point totals generated from this worksheet will be ranked higher in consideration to receive financial assistance than those applications with lower points within each resource concern. As funds are allocated to each resource concern, the top applicant within each concern will receive funding first in the order of priority listed below before additional applicants within each resource concern are considered.  The remaining funding will be allocated among the resource concerns to ensure that most of the county’s level funding is exhausted and the least is turned back to the state level.  In the event of a tie in points, these applications will be funded in the order of earlier application date.

Local resource concerns in priority order are:

1. Cropland Erosion/Soil Quality
2. Pasture-Grazing  Lands
3. Water Quality/Animal Waste
4. Irrigation Water Management
5. Woodland-Forestry/Wildlife Health

Applications not funded during FY 2015 may be deferred per the applicant’s request to the following year’s program sign-up; however, they may be subject to program guideline modifications prior to the following sign-up’s first batching period.

The Alabama NRCS state payment rates and list of practices and restrictions will be used as the eligible EQIP payment rates and practices for Washington County.

Written leases must be provided for the length of the contract where applicants installing practices are not the current landowner(s). Structural practices installed must have prior written approval of landowner(s).

Limited Resource Farmers, Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and New/Beginner Farmers will be paid at an increased payment rate.

Limitations

• Prescribed burning no more than $5,000 per operation per contract.
• Invasive species control no more than $3,000 per operation per contract per year-2years.
• Tree planting no more than $8,000 per operation per contract all practices combined to include firebreak, prescribe burning, site preparation, tree and shrub establishment and chemical release.
• Forage and Biomass planting no more than $5,000 per contract.
• Fencing no more than $5,000 per contract.
• Waste storage facility codes (313) and (367) no more than $20,000 per contract.  

Additional information is available on the National NRCS EQIP website.