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$50 Million Gulf Restoration Plan Includes North Escambia Initiative
December 6, 2011
A portion of a $50 million Gulf Coast restoration initiative announced Monday by the Obama administration will be funneled into the North Escambia area to improve water quality in the Escambia River and the Gulf of Mexico.
The $50 million will spent over three years in conservation assistance to farmers and ranchers in priority areas along seven major rivers in five states that drain into the Gulf.
In both Escambia counties in both Florida and Alabama, funds will be focused on the Canoe Creek watershed and the Sandy Hollow-Pine Barren Creek watershed in the Escambia River basin. Also, in North Escambia, funds will provide conservation assistance in the Little Pine Barren Creek Watershed in the Escambia River Basin.
USDA will work with a team of local, state and federal partners to deliver this project. Through this effort, North Escambia farmers and ranchers will invest in voluntary conservation to provide cleaner water and more abundant wildlife for their neighbors and communities.
The money will be used for conservation practices for any agriculture producers wanting to install conservation and will probably pay a higher cost-share rate than standard EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) or WHIP (Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program),” said Cam Johnson, communications coordinator for Escambia County (Fla.) “We don’t have a handle of how much money this county will receive, since we have not been given full details of the program.”
“The conservation partnership is taking proactive steps to improve the health of the Gulf of Mexico,” said USDA Under Secretary Harris Sherman. “This initiative is a powerful example of how government can collaborate with private citizens, communities, and private organizations. Together, we can identify challenges, leverage each other’s resources and capabilities, and make a difference for both the environment and our quality of life.”
The funds will not go directly to Escambia County; rather, the money will be administered through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service office in Molino. Once program details are finalized, NorthEscambia.com will publish application information.
Pictured top: The Highway 4 bridge over the Escambia River at Century. Pictured below: The Escambia River at Molino. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Comments
14 Responses to “$50 Million Gulf Restoration Plan Includes North Escambia Initiative”
Cleaning out log jam want do any good if the river isn’t widened, dredged, and maintained. Won’t never happen. Waste of time and money.
well another program for the well to do farmers. you peapatchers need not apply.
Hello River Life. I find it difficult to believe you were threatened, for having a chainsaw sitting in the bottom of your boat.
Fact check on comments referencing federal deficit spending.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gulf Restoration Funds are NOT sourced from taxpayer dollars or from federal deficit spending.
The source? BP, you know, a/k/a Macondo well/Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010. $500 million was provided to the federal government to restore the ecosystems of the Gulf and tributaries to the Gulf, and $50 million is being sent into Escambia County, Florida.
Put in at pollard go up river tell me what you smell. Its not the plant its the water . The second thing needs to be done is remove the logs and log jams to ensure safer boat navigation up and down the river. The removal of the the log jams will increase flow therefore lower the river level. My suggestion is to place a dam around the sandy landing area to maintain the river level. I spend my childhood years hunting and fishing on the Escambia river, you can’t hunt because of ivan and can’t fish because low water level. Local fishermen are trying to cut logs out of the river but guess what it’s illegal. I had a game warden tell me he would right me a ticket if he saw another chainsaw in a boat. When I was a kid the river was full of people hunting and fishing, go to any landing this past summer and tell how many boat trailers you saw. Its not because the water is clean or not, its because you can’t navigate up or down the river. I’m very pride of fisher landing but what good is a landing if you can’t go around the next bend.
ratcan’cut t
According to the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Gulf restoration funds are sourced from $500 million that came from BP, NOT from federal borrowing.
They want to improve the water quality on escambia River. They can start with Georgia-Pacific located on hwy 31 South of Brewton Al. If you want to see what they are doing then pull up an arial view of the river where they dump into it. The arial shot will tell all, except for the smell of the river.
Carolyn/Char you are worrying about that deficit, a thing that has grown beyond the grasp of mortal man. I suggest you leave it to the Lord, as the impossible is his realm.
Your right Carolyn….there is no money except what they borrowed
at a high rate of interest. It is debt on all of us, our children and
grand children and sometime somewhere we will all have to
pay the pipper.
Everything going out and nothing comming in is called bankruptcy and
we just keep on borrowing???????
Let me pose a question here. If all the log jams were removed, would that have unintended consequences. The river being reduced to a trickle. Like pulling the plug on the bathtub, allowing a great volume of water to drain fast thereby reducing overall water level. Would it? I don’t know
What fifty million dollars? More printed debt.
All the more reason to block the dump site planned in Escambia Cty AL.
It sure would be good if the log jam above Cotton Lake could be cleaned out with some of these funds. Then the volume of river flow would greatly be improved.
These log jams around here are bad. we need to get the young and unemployed working in a CCC type program, such as the one that constructed Little River State Park, and clear them. A few friends and myself try to cut enough to get the boats through. I find it difficult to weave though these narrow cuts, in swift current. We have a few jams, that I am of the opinion, require a blasting expert (certified), and a lot of explosives. Something needs to be done.