KDSN Radio

The president has declared Woodbury County a major disaster area and residents in the county are now eligible for FEMA's individual assistance program. The federal assistance was previously activated for residents in eight other counties hit by severe weather and flooding in June. (Those counties are Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Emmet, Lyon, O’Brien, Plymouth, and Sioux.)

FARMERS in Dickinson ad Clay Counties may apply for help from the U-S-D-A's Emergency Conservation Program -- or E-C-P -- to deal with flood damage to farmland. Lisa Forburger is the Farm Service Agency director for Emmet and Palo Alto Counties. She's asking farmers in those counties to call with estimates of agland damage, so she can compile the data and see if either county would qualify for the Emergency Conservation Program.

"ECP participants may implement the emergency conservation practices such as removing debris from farmland," she says. "That would include clean up of wind or water deposited debris, such as woody material, sand, rock or trash on cropland or pasture."

If rushing water changed the terrain, farmers could use program benefits to reshape or level the land.

"That would be like filling gullies," she says, "...(or) incorporating sand and silt."

Forburger says farmers who'd qualify for the program may get help installing boundary fences and cattle gates.

"And then to restore conservation structures, such as waterways and terraces," Forburger says. The Emergency Conservation Program does NOT cover the loss of crops like corn and soybeans. The E-C-P is only for restoration of farmland damaged by natural disasters.