Down on the farm?

One of the components of a USDA Rural Development Environmental Report is to make sure your project is not impacting prime farmland. Some may find that as an interesting twist to these reports. Environmental reports for USDA Rural Development want to be clear you are...

How wet is a wetland?

One of the reasons for creating an Environmental Report for USDA Rural Development projects is to get clearance that your project is not distrubing a wetland. Wetlands are definded as a spot where water covers the soil and that water can be easily seen or it could be...

What’s a SHPO?

Is it some kind of sheep? No! Government loves acronyms and a SHPO is the State Historic Preservation Officer. This is the person who is typically appointed by a commission, the governor or a board of some sorts to oversee the historic preservation efforts in their...

Don’t Let the Critters Get You

One of the components in doing Environmental Reports for USDA Rural Development is making sure other federal agencies agree that your project is not violating environmental standards they must enforce. One example is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS). USFWS...

Environmental Reporting For All

Back when I had more hair and fewer chins, I served as USDA Rural Development State Director in my home state of Mississippi. One of the fun parts of the position was giving out “the big checks” for worthy projects like the one pictured here in the town of...