2011

Warren Heilman is riveted by numbers, especially those that tell the story of how weather affects wildfires.

Heilman is a U.S. Forest Service meteorologist who conducts studies at the Northern Research Stations’ East Lansing, Mich. office. His work on how weather impacts fire behavior helps firefighters and fire managers better understand how fires spread across the landscape.

His research leads him down seemingly endless lists of questions for which answers are sometimes elusive.

The USDA Forest Service Woody Biomass Utilization Team promotes and guides the removal of woody biomass from national forests. Removal of woody biomass from forests provides a variety of critical benefits for rural economies from wood to energy projects to overall ecosystem health. Woody biomass is used in bioenergy facilities that use commercially proven technologies to produce thermal, electrical or liquid/gaseous bioenergy.

Because climate change is having profound and significant impacts on the nation’s forests and rangelands, demands for renewable energy and bio-based biofuels products is increasing exponentially. Forests also play an important role in sequestering carbon, thereby reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Earth Team volunteers have helped transform a neglected area at a county fairground into an attraction experts say will help boost tourism and the local economy in Mariposa, Calif.

Earth Team is the name given to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service volunteers. They work side by side with NRCS employees on conservation projects to improve their local environment.

When the First Lady kicked off the Let’s Move! initiative last year, she said that her primary goal is to end childhood obesity. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act gets to the heart of this effort by helping schools, parents, and communities make health and nutrition a priority for kids.  Among the law’s many reforms, schools that participate in the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) school lunch program will have to make drinking water available for free to students in the cafeteria during lunch.  With this change we want to make the healthy choice the easy choice for our kids.

Schools must also offer at least two choices of low fat or fat free milk.  These changes are consistent with what is recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, just updated earlier this year. The Dietary Guidelines are a set of science-based recommendations that include many tips for improving health and wellness.

To “flex” or not, that is a good question.  I own a flexible fuel vehicle and have for several years and as a Government Agency, Rural Development has government owned vehicles that accommodate flexible fuel.  As State Director, I travel throughout Missouri and even though I have the appropriate vehicle and even though there is an adequate supply of renewable fuels, there is an inadequate number of service stations that have flexible fuel pumps.  Compound this with the desire to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make our nation more environmentally clean, you can imagine my reaction when Rural Development announced a program as part of the solution to address these issues.

There was excitement in Jefferson City, Missouri’s State Capitol, when Judith Canales, Administrator for USDA Rural Development Rural Business-Cooperative Programs kicked off  Rural Development’s  Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) workshop on flex-fuel options.  Canales informed the 45 people in attendance that grants are available to provide fuel station owners with incentives to install flexible fuel pumps that will offer Americans more renewable energy options.

USDA employees and members of the public in Columbus, Ohio had the chance to hear Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan speak recently at the Columbus Federal Building as part of her one-day tour of the Buckeye state.

Merrigan’s first stop in the morning was at the Hoover plant in Glenwillow where she announced the USDA BioPreferred certifications bestowed on eleven new bio-based product initiatives. The products, which range from hand soaps to engine oils, are composed of agricultural ingredients and are certified to meet the standards for biobased content set by USDA.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today the publication and start of a 90-day comment period for the proposed Colorado Roadless Rule, developed collaboratively to address the needs of Colorado’s unique and precious roadless areas.

This proposed rule, in development since 2005, is the product of extensive public involvement that included more than 200,000 written comments and reflects local and national and concerns.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

On April 4^th I had the opportunity to join Illinois’ Senator Dick Durbin, the President and First Lady’s personal trainer and member of President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition Cornell McClellan and staff from USDA, the Department of Health and Human Services, Chicago Public Schools and Healthy Schools Campaign to kick off Minority Health Month.

Since schools offer an opportunity—and obligation—to promote and model good nutrition and physical fitness, Chicago’s McAuliffe Elementary was selected as the setting for the event.

Producers interested in offering land in an effort to protect millions of acres of topsoil from erosion and improve the nation’s natural resources, have until Friday, April 15, to do so. This is the second consecutive year that USDA has offered a general Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) sign-up.

On Friday, April 8th I had the opportunity to see first-hand the many ways USDA Rural Development programs are improving the lives of rural Americans when I visited a variety of USDA-funded projects in Anita, Logan and Woodbine in western Iowa.

In Anita, I met Duane Murphy, the local fire chief and all-around community champion.  He told me how the grant we are giving his community to assist with the purchase of a new fire truck will help keep the local residents safe. He also mentioned how his department will now be better equipped to provide rescue services to travelers along Interstate 80 and visitors to Lake Anita State Park.