water

For over a year, Mississippi retirees Percy and Emma Brown traveled 50 miles roundtrip three times a week from their home in Vicksburg, Miss. to their farm in Port Gibson in order to water their cattle. It was a time consuming process that involved filling up eight barrels with many gallons of water...

Arsenic is poisonous. It is also just about everywhere, but it is especially prevalent in the groundwater of the Southwest. In the economically challenged City of Freer, Texas, citizens rely on the Freer Water Control and Improvement District (FWCID) to draw water from the underground Catahoula...

Two chapters of the Navajo Nation in Utah are getting new livestock wells, thanks to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. Members of the Teec Nos Pos and Red Mesa Chapters use wells drilled deep into the desert floor to water their 1,000 or so cattle. (A chapter is both a rural community...

Sorry Mr. Wolfe. As it turns out, you actually CAN go home again…and John Padalino recently did. Padalino is the Administrator for the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a branch of USDA Rural Development. Born in south Tucson, Padalino grew up along the border where his father was a customs agent...

Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to participate in the National Congress of American Indian’s (NCAI) mid-year meeting in Reno, Nevada. The NCAI meeting was a warm and familiar place for me, as I recently left a position as NCAI’s Director of Economic Development to assume my current...

Rural Utilities Administrator John Padalino visited Indiana last month to promote electrical, energy efficiency, broadband and water programs provided to communities by USDA. Padalino and Indiana Rural Development State Director Philip Lehmkuhler traveled to Mexico, Indiana to celebrate the...

USDA Rural Development and Iowa’s Xenia Rural Water District earlier this spring announced an agreement that will set the rural water utility on a path to financial viability, while continuing to provide clean water for its 9,400 customers in 11 counties in central and north central Iowa. During the...

Sigurd, Utah, located on the border of Fishlake National Forest, is a town of 435 and varying elevations. The highs and lows of Sigurd’s landscape make it a beautiful place to live, but with an outdated water system, the location caused problems for the residents. For years, the town coped with a...

After two decades in the making, 71 households in rural Jefferson County, Illinois have begun to see the benefit of hard work and perseverance. And the end result is as simple as turning on the faucet! Moores Prairie Township Water Company celebrated last month as a project they’ve dreamed of for 23...

For months, South Texas ranchers have been struggling to keep cattle fed and watered through extraordinary drought conditions. Water wells and stock tanks have run dry, and some ranchers are left with no alternative but to truck water in to cattle.