In this section:

Overview

Authorized Activities

Legislative Authorities

Urban Objective – Promote sound urban and rural community
development

Means and Strategies

Wetland Objective – Maintain, restore or enhance wetland ecosystems
and fish and wildlife habitat

Means and Strategies

For Assistance

Overview

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is proud to be a partner in conservation with private land managers, conservation districts, state and local conservation agencies, rural communities, businesses and others. This partnership over the years has helped conserve natural resources, increase agricultural productivity, improve the environment, enhance the quality of life and develop a better understanding of our physical environment.

The NRCS is the lead federal agency for conservation on private land, and on the local level works primarily through the local Conservation Districts (i.e. Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District). An agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), NRCS serves the United States, its territories and commonwealths as well as tribal governments. In 1935, Congress established the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), the forerunner to NRCS, to carry out a continuing program of soil and water conservation on the Nation’s private and non-federal lands.

The NRCS, established by the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act of 1994 (7 U.S.C.6962), combines the authorities of the SCS and directs the establishment of additional financial or technical assistance programs for natural resource conservation and rural development.

NRCS provides conservation technical assistance through local conservation districts, which are units of government created by state law. NRCS, conservation districts, state conservation agencies, and RC&D councils represent a unique federal, state, and local partnership dedicated to natural resource conservation. The NRCS staff at the local level works in partnership with state and local conservation staff and volunteers to assist individuals and communities care for slowly renewable natural resources.

NRCS also develops technical information and provides guidance for conservation planning and land use management assistance. This technical guidance is based on sound science, tailored to local conditions.

Authorized Activities

NRCS employees provide technical, educational and financial assistance through field offices where they work directly with individuals, communities, state and local governments, and others. On the local level, by working through conservation districts, the NRCS specifically:

• Helps individual land users plan, apply, and maintain conservation systems that are site-specific and economically and environmentally sound. Assistance in applying conservation systems includes advice in the design, layout, construction, management, operation, maintenance, and evaluation of the systems in a conservation plan. Practices may be applied with cost-share assistance from USDA or other federal, state, or local programs or entirely with private funds. Planning and application of resource management systems help land users improve their resources and maintain their long-term productivity.

• Administers programs that provide financial incentives for protecting natural resources and environmental quality. These programs are implemented to obtain maximum natural resource and environmental benefits for the dollars expended. NRCS also administers financial assistance programs for activities such as watershed protection, farmland protection, and rural development.

• Helps units of government and community groups protect the environment, and improve the standard of living and quality of life for the people they represent. This includes providing information and technical assistance to local officials so that they can set standards and develops plans for resource management and development and providing technical training to employees of state, local, and federal agencies.

• Conducts inventories such as soil surveys, assesses natural resource conditions and trends, conducts basic and applied soil science research in support of soil survey, and makes this information available to individuals and communities for use in resource planning. NRCS monitors resource conditions through the National Resources Inventory (NRI) and conservation needs assessments. These science-based efforts present an unbiased look at the trend conditions of natural resources to assess if they are stable, declining, or improving.

• Develops conservation standards, specifications, and guidelines to ensure that conservation systems are technically sound. These technical standards ensure that conservation is based on sound and up-to-date science. NRCS technical guides are used by conservation partnership staff, as well as by private consultants and engineers, local, state and federal agencies, and others.

Legislative Authorities

Congress provides funds through appropriations and through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for NRCS to provide technical and financial assistance to individuals, communities, state and local governments, and other customers. The USDA-NRCS has its basis in the agricultural sector, but provides a number of beneficial services in urban centers, such as Louisville and nearby high growth outlying areas.

Urban Objective- Promote sound urban and rural community development

Three-fourths of the people in the United States live on 16 percent of the land. These areas face challenges to environmental quality, which include sedimentation, urban warming, soil compaction, increased runoff, flooding, water pollution, loss of open space, loss of wetlands, and disruption of plant and animal habitat. Some urban NRCS Field Offices, such as the one in Louisville, are undertaking projects related to urban/suburban sprawl and its impacts on the resource base.

The Louisville Field Office provides assistance to planners, governmental units, community groups, homeowners and individuals in: identifying natural resource limitations; evaluation of natural resource problems and concerns; and helps communities, groups, individuals and other decision makers address these areas. The benchmark of service to the urban constituents is the one-on-one assistance provided through NRCS.

Means and Strategies

NRCS will work with the conservation partnership to:

• Ensure that designated, trained staffs are available to provide conservation assistance to communities on soil erosion prevention and control, land use planning, engineering support, open space conservation, floodplain protection, stormwater management, soil survey, and natural resource inventories.

• Develop specialized training, guidance, and practices for employees and partners.

• Develop new non-traditional urban and suburban partners to assist in developing strategies to address locally identified natural resource problems.

• Enhance efforts in urban and suburban areas (particularly newly developing areas) to undertake comprehensive watershed planning that addresses the potential offsite impacts of development.

• Work with long-standing and new partners to promote technologies and improved practice standards for reducing runoff of nutrients, pesticides, and sediment from rural and urban residential and community facility sites.

• Promote conservation activities that can help address air quality problems in non-attainment areas. Intensify efforts to reduce non-point sources of nutrients and other contaminants in urban areas.

• Use appropriate communication strategies to educate the public, landowners, land managers, and government entities about the benefits of conservation for urban and suburban areas.

• Help individuals and communities (through the locally led process) identify resource concerns, and develop and implement watershed-based plans to ensure that their quality of life is protected.

• Assist state and local governments; non-government organizations; communities; and others to protect their locally important lands through a variety of approaches, including easements and other growth management strategies.

• Use appropriate communication strategies to educate the public, landowners, land managers and government entities about the natural resource and agricultural production benefits of conserving rural land and other green space.

Wetland Objective – Maintain, restore or enhance wetland ecosystems and fish and wildlife habitat

For more than a century, wetlands on private lands have been modified or eliminated to grow crops, raise livestock, harvest timber, support development and build infrastructure. Habitat fragmentation in wetland and forest ecosystems is a major factor affecting the movement and dislocation of wildlife populations.

Means and Strategies

The NRCS staff will work with the conservation partners to promote the wise use and enhancement of wetland ecosystems and wildlife habitat. We will:

• Work with partners, state agencies, other federal agencies, and private conservation organizations to identify priority wetlands that could benefit from application of conservation practices in the surrounding landscape to improve wetland habitat and wetland-landscape habitat linkages.

• Work through the locally led process to identify community goals for fish and wildlife and wetland conservation. Engage partners in identification of 1) lands in need of conservation practices to eliminate and reduce degradation processes, and 2) regionally important wetlands potentially threatened by degradation processes originating on private lands.

• Conduct functional assessments on wetlands before and after conservation treatment to validate conservation practice effects in support of outcome measurement. Strive for functional condition in wetlands affected by land use practices on private lands.

• Integrate multiple use planning in wetland and wildlife conservation approaches that consider recreation and other non-consumptive uses of resources in conservation planning.

• Provide needed technical assistance for delineation of wetland areas on agricultural acres and ensure continued compliance with Swampbuster requirements.

• Provide coordinated assistance to promote conservation in watersheds with important wildlife populations. Identify geographic areas of greatest need and opportunities for conservation. Integrate wildlife conservation with other conservation priorities such as water quality goals and wetland conservation.

• Work with partners and private groups to enhance habitat for important game species.

• Develop and use adapted native plant materials for wetland restoration and improved wildlife habitat.

• Use appropriate communication strategies to promote the value and benefits of healthy wetlands and fish and wildlife habitat. Use targeted communications to educate the public, landowners, land managers, and government entities about the availability of assistance to restore and enhance habitat and wetlands.

For Assistance

Assistance is available to the public by contacting the local USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Office or Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District at this address:
4233 Bardstown Road

Suite 100-A

Louisville, KY 40218

The office telephone is (502) 499-1900, fax (502) 499-1748.

If you wish to send an Email, the address is kmason@ky.nrcs.usda.gov