Department of Agriculture

Emergency Watershed Protection Program

Implementing recovery measures to relieve imminent hazards to life or property created by a .

United States Department of Agriculture USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

February 2020 The program can include purchasing floodplain easements. These easements restore, protect, maintain, and enhance the functions and values of the floodplain, including associated wetlands and Tornado Devastation riparian areas. They also conserve natural values including fish and wildlife habitat, The EWP Program is a recovery effort water quality, water retention Before After aimed at relieving imminent hazards and ground water recharge, as well as to life and property caused by , safeguard lives and property from floods, fires, windstorms, and other natural drought, and the results of erosion. disasters. All projects undertaken, Sponsor’s Obligations Disaster The U.S. Department of except for the purchase of floodplain EWP work is not limited to any one set of Sponsors are responsible for: prescribed measures. NRCS completes a Assistance Agriculture’s Natural easements, must have a project sponsor. NRCS may bear up to 75 percent of the Damage Survey Report which provides • providing land rights to implement repair work, Programs and Resources Conservation eligible construction cost of emergency a site-by-site investigation of the work • securing all necessary permits, services available necessary to repair or protect a site Service (NRCS) administers measures (90 percent within limited- • furnishing the local cost share, through the the Emergency Watershed resource areas as identified by the U.S. and protect life and property. NRCS will Natural Census data). The remaining costs must only provide funding for work that is • accomplishing the installation of work, and Resources Protection Program come from local sources and can be necessary to reduce applicable threats. • performing any necessary operation and maintenance. Conservation (EWPP) which responds to in the form of cash or in-kind services. Should sponsors want to increase the Service Funding for the program is provided level of protection, the sponsor will be created by Criteria for Assistance through congressional appropriations. responsible for paying 100 percent of the natural disasters. It is not costs of the upgrade and additional work. All EWP work must reduce threat to life and property; be necessary for a national economically, environmentally, and socially defensible; and be Type of Work Authorized emergency to be declared Eligibility technically sound. EWP is designed for installation of Public and private landowners are for an area to be eligible for recovery measures to safeguard life and eligible for assistance but must be assistance. property as a result of a natural disaster. represented by a project sponsor. Threats that the EWP Program addresses are termed watershed impairments. Sponsors include legal subdivisions of These include, but are not limited to: the State, such as a city, county, general • debris-clogged waterways, improvement district, conservation • unstable streambanks, district, or any Native American tribe or • severe erosion jeopardizing public tribal organization as defined in section 4 infrastructure of the Self-Determination and Education • wind-borne debris removal, and Assistance Act. • damaged upland sites stripped of protective vegetation by fire or drought.

Wildfire Devastation

Due to extreme rainfall on December How Do I Obtain Assistance? 28, 2019, Tillatoba Creek in the Town of Charleston, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, If your land has suffered severe damage that may qualify had extensive flood flows which caused for the EWP Program, you should contact your local bank sloughing that endangered the main authorities and request assistance. City, county, state and access road to the local hospital and other governments, flood and water control districts, and soil associated infrastructure. and water conservation districts are the most common sponsors of EWP projects. More information is available After EWP repairs, the road shoulder was from NRCS offices throughout the United States and the restored and the streambank stabilized to Caribbean and Pacific Islands areas. prevent further sloughing and danger to the traveling public on the hospital road. Contact Information Contact your local USDA Service Center for more Stabilized streambank along main access road in Charleston, Mississippi. information or: www.nrcs.usda.gov