nrcs

Eric Moore had a vision to grow a garden outside his office window. Moore, an employee of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Idaho, works at the USDA Service Center in Gooding.

Disaster struck northern New Mexico on June 12, 2011, as the human-caused “Track Fire” exploded north of Raton, in Colfax County. Within 72 hours, 27,790 acres were scorched in New Mexico and Colorado. Luckily, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) was able to begin the restoration of the Lake Maloya watershed area almost immediately through its Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program.

Business is blooming for Sarahlee Lawrence and her organic food-and-flower-growing operation, Rainshadow Organics, in the Central Oregon high desert. The 28-year old organic pioneer is proud of her venture and credits USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) as a key component to her success.

The White House has called upon all federal agencies to “keep it simple” when it comes to writing. Here at USDA, we are committed to communicating clearly so that we can provide you with the most useful information possible.   As Secretary Tom Vilsack has said, “Using plain writing is indispensable to achieving our goals of providing first-class customer service and ensuring access to our programs.”

Officially implemented this past fall, the Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires all federal agencies to write “clear, concise, well-organized” documents “that the public can understand and use." This is a part of the Obama Administration’s larger effort to create a transparent government that promotes public participation. To ensure that USDA meets our obligations, we are training our employees on writing techniques that avoid the complicated language that can confuse and frustrate the public we serve.

Employees of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) work every day to help private landowners improve environmental quality on their properties. So when staff at the NRCS East Remote Sensing Lab (ERSL) in Greensboro, N.C. noticed a stream near their building had become a dumping ground, they took it upon themselves to address the problem.

In the middle of Nevada, miles from anywhere, eight Native American young adults spent their summer working to improve sagebrush habitat for the greater sage-grouse. Habitat for this ground-dwelling bird, native to much of the American West, has been dwindling in recent years, due to fencing, wildfires and invasive species.

A special Earth Team volunteer group was recently formed to benefit Ross Barnett Reservoir, in central Mississippi. Keep the Rez Beautiful was created by an NRCS employee in late 2010 to promote conservation and water quality in the reservoir.

Earth Team is the volunteer workforce for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Earth Team volunteers help get conservation on the ground on private lands across the nation, and the Ross Barnett Reservoir group will help further NRCS’ work in this critical waterway.

A Northwest nonprofit organization has been using Conservation Innovation Grants it was awarded in 2010 and 2011 by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to expand efforts to improve the health of the local salmon population.

For Kiln, Miss. resident David Koch, there’s a lot of truth to the expression “everything runs downstream.” Koch’s land borders Rotten Bayou, and he has made great strides to ensure no pollutants wash off his land and into the bayou, which feeds the Gulf of Mexico.

Texas landowners and producers could never have predicted the severe drought conditions this year, which have impacted small and large operations alike. USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is helping many of these ranchers and farmers survive the ongoing drought—including Stuart Fisher, a rancher in Ellis County.