12/10/08 You can provide input to the Drought Impact Reporter

Farm and Ranch December 10, 2008 When you experience drought and want to make sure government policy makers know how it's impacting you, get on to the Drought Impact Reporter website. That is a tool utilized by the National Drought Mitigation Center and Mellissa Widhalm, who is responsible for it, wants to see reporters from the Pacific Northwest. Widhalm: "One of the unique features of the drought impact reports is that we have a form where anybody in the general public can come in and submit about the ways that drought is affecting them. We really try to encourage people to come in and submit that information, otherwise we have to rely on other sources, but who knows your situation better than you." Another feature that is going to be available at the Drought Impact Reporter site is a map of federally declared disaster areas. Widhalm: "That information is often available in press releases. It is not available in map form. So it is really difficult to compare where the drought is occurring, who is getting relief, or am I eligible for relief. It is really hard to put that together unless it is in map form. So what we are trying to do is convert all those press releases into a database so we can then map and display them in a very user friendly way so you can come in and see what kind of help is maybe available for you." The Drought Impact Reporter is at http://droughtreporter.unl.edu I'm Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.