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USDA provides $19.8 million to control salinity in Colorado River Basin
Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman announced recently that Colorado, Utah and Wyoming received $19.8 million to control salinity in the Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River Basin is the primary domestic water supply source for 27 million residents in seven states and is a source of irrigation water for more than 3.5 million acres of farmland.
"These funds will help control salinity on private lands and improve the water quality in the basin so that millions of people can have a safer domestic water supply," Veneman said.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming will use this funding from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to provide technical and financial assistance to eligible producers. Colorado and Utah each will receive nearly $9.6 million and Wyoming will receive $675,000. Colorado's three projects have 703 active contracts; Utah's two projects have 495 active contracts; and Wyoming's one project has 12 active contracts. Only these three states have approved USDA salinity control projects in the Colorado River Basin.
USDA provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers who voluntarily implement land management and irrigation improvement practices that reduce salinity by preventing salts from dissolving and mixing with the river's flow. Improved irrigation systems reduce leaching in the soil, which, in turn, reduces the amount of salt that moves through the soil into the water table. The end result is that less salt ends up in the Colorado River.
Since 1996, USDA has funded Colorado River Basin salinity control activities through EQIP. Annual funding in EQIP has increased from $5.1 million in FY 2000 to $19.8 million in FY 2004. This increase occurred after President Bush signed the 2002 farm bill, which authorized a $17.1 billion increase for conservation programs over 10 years. EQIP and the Colorado River Basin salinity control activities are benefiting from this increased funding for conservation programs.
USDA partners with the Bureau of Reclamation (BR) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to carry out Colorado River Basin salinity control activities. USDA's partnership with BR yields additional funds for this program by leveraging EQIP salinity control funds. In FY 1997, BR began on-farm cost sharing from the basin states funds that would parallel and supplement EQIP.
For every dollar of EQIP funds allocated to salinity control in the authorized project areas, 43 cents is made available from accounts in BR's basin states for on-farm financial and technical assistance.
USDA aims to reduce the salt loading by 705,000 tons by the year 2020. So far, agricultural producers have reduced 369,000 tons of salt, or nearly 52 percent of the USDA goal. The overall goal for USDA, BR, and BLM is to reduce 1.8 million tons of salt annually by the year 2020.
The Colorado River Basin encompasses portions of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The river flows more than 1,400 miles from its headwaters in Wyoming and Colorado to the Gulf of California in the Republic of Mexico.
Additional information about USDA's Colorado River Basin salinity control activities can be obtained at www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/salinity/index.html. To learn more about the Colorado, Utah and Wyoming programs go to www.co.nrcs.usda.gov, www.ut.nrcs.usda.gov and www.wy.nrcs.usda.gov.
Date: 4/7/04
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