03/10/08 Dairy disaster sign up; Wild Horse CRM grazing

Washington Ag March 10, 2008 After several postponements for the Dairy Disaster Assistance Program sign up for the program has resumed at local Farm Service Agency offices. FSA's John Johnson says the sign up will run for a couple of months. Johnson: "Probably until sometime in the early part of May. At that time we will have to calculate the total amount of applications we received and see how they fit within the 16-million dollars that Congress appropriated for this program. If we have more than 16-million dollars worth in approved applications then we will have to apply a factor in distributing the payments." The program covers dairy natural disaster losses in 2005, 2006 or 2007. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says it is withdrawing its existing proposal to graze 84-hundred acres in the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area in Kittitas County. The department says the reason is so that it can conduct a broader environmental review that will include 94-hundred additional acres the agency has acquired. While the broader environmental review is under way, the WDFW will continue to permit limited livestock grazing this spring on up to five department-owned pastures within the Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management area where grazing has occurred in recent years. I'm Bob Hoff.