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Memo To: All Arkansas Conservation District Employees

From: Johnny G. Belew
Executive Vice President
Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts

Subject: NACD Spring Legislative Conference

Date: April 1, 1999

Last week, I along with several members of Arkansas’ Conservation Partnership attended the NACD Spring Legislative Conference in Washington DC. We had an extremely busy week highlighted by visits with five members of the Arkansas Congressional Delegation. Considering the volatility of the situation in Eastern Europe, we were extremely lucky to get in to actually see five out of six members.

Our main focus during each meeting was a request for increased funding for NRCS.

We carried the message to support efforts to maintain sound science and technical assistance provided to landowners by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. The lawmakers were reminded that NRCS is the only federal agency that is focused entirely on natural resource conservation.

While the climate in Washington is not good when it comes to asking for conservation program support and more money for those programs, we did not hesitate to call on our elected officials to support sound conservation programs that are a natural resource legacy for future generations to come.

Another key message we carried to the legislators was the need to support legislation to help rehabilitate aging watershed structures created under the Small Watershed Program. Of the 15,000 structures created over the past 50 years, it is estimated that 2,000 will need significant rehabilitation work by the year 2000.

Now is the time for District Board Members to get involved by creating the awareness and political pressure that will be necessary to accomplish our conservation objectives. Elsewhere in this letter you will find information on where to contact your Representative and Senators. A call or letter from each of the 375 District Directors in Arkansas would be an impressive way to call attention to our needs.

Messages should focus on the following:

The President’s FY2000 conservation technical assistance budget proposal will severely weaken our ability to provide technical assistance to farmers, ranchers, and other landowners.

If Congress is serious about conserving natural resources and addressing nonpoint source pollution, they need to increase NRCS’s conservation technical assistance program budget by $300 million.

EQIP should be funded at $300 million.

As always, if I can ever be of assistance, please do not hesitate to give me a call at (501) 734-8133.

CC: AACD Board Members