Area Three - 2007 Summary of Accomplishments

Updated 08/05/2008

Robert L. Bradley, Assistant State Conservationist - Field Operations
Area 3 Office

This year has been very challenging and rewarding for me. For which, I’m proud to have had you as a member of the Area 3 Team.

Jerry Adams, Billy Ratliff and I appreciate the hard work and efforts you put forth while marketing Natural Resources Conservation Services and other State and Local programs. Your individual marketing strategy contributed towards Area 3’s success in meeting all assigned resource goals. This year you managed to enroll a total of 194 contracts in EQIP, CRP and WHIP. Area 3 field offices managed to install over 4,700 conservation practices with Federal, Local and State Cost-Share programs. I feel confident that you will exert similar efforts this year.

Each year we will be faced with innovative challenges involving technology. It will be our charge to embrace current and future technology as our agency strives to stay in mainstream America. I applaud each of you for your positive attitude while carrying out Area 3’s field office mandated restructuring changes. Remember, change is the one constant we shall face over our career with NRCS. Although, it is sometimes uncomfortable, it is the inevitable.

I understand the many demands that the agency has ask of you year-after-year. Such demands have significantly increased with fewer staff to carry them out. This year is no different; the agency will depend on you to signup more applicants for various programs, implement more land resource treatment measures, and achieve more progress for various environmental resource concerns. As before, I’m confident that you will accomplish each of the tasks you are charged with. I understand your charges and devote myself and the area staff towards working closer with each of you to ensure all charges is met.

Finally, I’m asking each of you to do your best job while reaching out to your customers. I want every landowner/operator in the area to be aware of the services that are available through NRCS.

Again, thank you for the hard work and strong commitment that each of you put forth implementing Kentucky’s NRCS mission during FY 2007.
 

AREA OUTREACH FIELD DAY    “How Conservation Pays”

Field Day at the Godman Farm
Sponsored by Harrison and Pendleton County

On Saturday July 28, 2007 the Harrison County and Pendleton County Conservation Districts held a field day at the farm of Randy and Lisa Godman in Pendleton County. A crowd of more than 100 farmers made it out to take part in the field day. Among the crowd were people from all over Central Kentucky and Southern Ohio. Agency personnel from Natural Resource Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, Harrison County Conservation District, Pendleton County Conservation District, Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife, University of Kentucky Extension Service, and Harrison County Beef Cattle Association discussed several Federal, State and Local cost share programs offered to Landowners and Operators.

The morning began at the Morgan farm with a welcome from Robert Jones and Leslie Herbst, Facilitators from the Pendleton County Conservation District. Randy Godman gave a quick overview of his farm operations which includes hundreds of acres devoted to corn and soybean crops and the rest to conservation programs.

Practices such as field borders, riparian forest buffers and use exclusion are used to protect streams and stream banks while restoring lost habitat for wildlife. Other counties that conducted Field Days in Area 3 during the year were: Bath, Bell, Bourbon, Boyd(3), Bracken, Carter(3), Elliott, Estill, Floyd, Harlan, Jackson, Johnson, Lawrence, Magoffin, Mason(2), Menifee, Morgan(2), Pendleton(2), Powell, and Whitley(3).
 

SUCCESSFUL GRAZING LAND DEMONSTRATION AND REPERCUSSIONS

Sometimes things just come together to make a project extra special. This is especially true when a farm demonstration not only helps the cooperator but also results in other farmers implementing some of the same good management practices. This has been the case with the Grazing Land Demonstration held on September 18, 2007 and sponsored by Big Sandy RC&D of the USDA-NRCS on the Myron Evans Farm at Franks Creek in Johnson County, Kentucky.

SOUTHEAST COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROJECT 2007

see pictures on next page

MILL BRANCH STREAM RESTORATION PROJECT

Brian Jones, Rodney Hendrickson, Cumberland Valley RC&D, Knox County Conservation District Board, along with other NRCS partners secured funding to start working on the Mill Branch Stream Restoration Project. The project is designed to protect one of the nation's Threatened and Endangered species, the “Blackside Dace.”

This small fish is noted to be located in a few natural streams in Kentucky and Tennessee, and nowhere else in the world. It is thought to have originated in the Mill Branch Stream located in Knox County, Kentucky. Funding for the project estimated at $1,300,000. Phase I of the project will require a 20-year cooperative agreement with the landowners.
 

AREA 3 CONSERVATION PROGRAMS

It is true that not all Areas are created equally, and this is certainly evident in Kentucky. Area 1 is primarily characterized by wetlands and cropland, while Area 2 is characterized by rolling pastures. Area 3 on the other hand represents a little bit of everything that Kentucky has to offer.

Although Area 3 employees are limited in the amount of cropable farmland within the area, they certainly are not without workload. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, Area 3 reported more than 30 percent of the state workload in Forest Stand Improvement, Livestock Waste Utilizing and Wildlife Watering Facilities. Further, Area 3 reported 96% or greater for all but one Goaled Performance Measure and applied over 1,128 conservation systems of which accounted for over one-third of the state’s planned acres on Forestry, and completed 36 WHIP contracts for 1,219 acres. The area represented more than 20% of practice installations for Stream bank and Shoreline Protection, Pipeline, Pond and Spring Development.

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INCENTIVES PROGRAM (EQIP) SUCCESS STORY

by Jacquelyn Drake, District Conservationist, Lewis County

     Click here for EQIP success stories in Lewis County

Click here for Area Three Pictures

Click here for more success stories by Area Three counties

< Back to Kentucky Home...