NRCS chief promises wetland solution for frustrated Red River Valley farmers
May 2, 2012 at 2:30 am in Grand Forks Herald
The head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service promised by September to come up with a just solution for wetland determination backlogs when he spoke Monday at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds here. Continue Reading
I always was mystified why NRCS went its own way compared to the USFWS. National Wetland Inventory (NWI) data has been available since the late 1980′s for most of the prairie pothole region and is available on line. The article says nothing about this dataset. The process that NOAA is supposedly going to use is almost identical to the process USFWS and NWI decided upon years ago re: water conditions based on a “normal” years precipitation including snowfall and the water level in May. For larger seasonal, semi permanent and permanent wetlands, a majority of wetlands also exist on NRCS soil survey maps (another source of information not quoted in the article). Lastly, once one leaves the red river valley, soil types, draw down and dry down rates changes dramatically so one setback distance in the valley would most assuredly NOT work in the drift plain or coteau. There are lots of sources of other data not mentioned in the article and it sure looks like to me that the USDA is reinventing the wheel again.
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