Agricultural News
Positive Federal and State Developments Shore up Oklahoma Conservation Efforts, Clay Pope Says
Fri, 03 May 2013 16:47:59 CDT
Two developments, one on the federal level and one on the state level gave conservationists something to cheer about this week. On the federal level, Senator Jim Inhofe took a stand to protect maintenance funding for refurbishing aging flood control structures across Oklahoma. On the state level, state lawmakers approved funding for emergency drought relief to be made available if the drought continues.
Clay Pope with the Oklahoma Association of Conservation Districts spoke with Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays about these developments.
"Oklahoma has over 2,100 upstream flood-control dams, more than any other state in the union. One of the challenges we've seen with some of the numbers from sequestration and some of the budget cuts over the last few years to try to get our federal house in order, one of the things that's happened is that they've consistently ratcheted down the money that's available to match with the state to rehabilitate these dams.
"When you think about the costs, it's well over $2 million a dam to rehabilitate these structures. With over 2,100 we've got over 1,000 in the next five years that are going to be past their design life. There's no way the state can take up that responsibility on its own. This is actually a program that Congressman Lucas was the father of a few years ago to set up a matching program between the federal government and the state to do this.
"Senator Inhofe has been very concerned about the reduction in the funding for the rehabilitation program. He sent a strongly-worded letter to the ag appropriators this last week asking them to continue funding that at least at the $15 million level that we saw last year, hopefully seeing a little bit of an increase."
Pope says the dam rehabilitation funding dollars are a wise investment, saving the country more than $2 billion in flood damages each year.
"We're proud of Senator Inhofe. We're extremely happy he took this stand because it is important for the lives and property of all Oklahomans."
A state budget agreement released Thursday allocated $3 million for an emergency drought package. Pope said the funding won't be used if the precipitation we've seen lately continues to fall.
"But," he said, "it does give us some resources if we do go back into a drought pattern. If we have a real hot, dry June like there's some concern we might, it at least gives us some additional resources to work with. It's also going to be tied in with the Drought Task Force.
"What will happen is if the governor declares a drought emergency, the head of the Conservation Commission, the head of the Water Resources Board, and the Secretary of Agriculture will come together to form a Drought Task Force that will advise the governor during the drought emergency and all the other state agencies. And then any money that's in that fund, they will determine how it will be spent. And it's not just for agriculture. It's for infrastructure and municipalities."
Pope said that two big items that could be funded during a drought emergency are water for livestock and rural fire protection.
"There are a lot of things that could be done with those resources. The governor will approve the plan and then those guys would stay together and see what we can do as a state to try and deal with a drought emergency."
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