A July 18 article incorrectly said that Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) did not return telephone calls seeking comment on a federal farm program. Cochran's office returned a call early in the preparation of the article but did not return a subsequent one before publication.
| Page 4 of 5 < > |
No Drought Required For Federal Drought Aid
Then, on Feb. 1, 2003, the shuttle exploded. To ensure recovery of the debris and pay for emergency costs, President Bush issued a federal disaster declaration. As an unintended result, most of East Texas was then eligible for livestock funds. Denton County's livestock owners collected $433,000, records show.
"Speaking personally, I didn't think it was necessary at that point in time," said Calvin Peterson, an 81-year-old rancher who heads the local farm committee. "It might have been more political than anything."
| ||||||||||||||||||||
In Henderson County, about 100 miles southeast of Dallas, Nico de Boer felt the same way. When he arrived from the Netherlands 17 years ago, de Boer had 90 acres, a house, one barn and fewer than 200 cows. Today, he has 1,000 acres, multiple cow barns and sheds, 650 cows that produce 3 million pounds of milk monthly, a BMW in the driveway, a swimming pool, and two more farms in neighboring counties.
The rolling hills surrounding his sprawling farm receive a generous average of 40 inches of rain annually. When the shuttle exploded, pastures were full and there hadn't been a drought or any other type of weather disaster in years, records show. But after the presidential disaster declaration, John Reeves of the local USDA office informed livestock owners in Henderson County they were eligible. They eventually collected $751,083 despite no shuttle damage.
Reeves said he had no choice but to write the checks. "Congress passed legislation and approved us for that Livestock Compensation Program, and that's what it was," he said.
"The closest debris I heard about was 10 to 20 miles away. There wasn't anything here," de Boer said. "Believe me, we would be better off if the government got out of the business and limited the payments to those who really need them."
Distant Earthquake
On Feb. 28, 2001, the 6.8-magnitude Nisqually earthquake hit near Olympia, Wash., collapsing brick facades of businesses and leaving cracks in several state office buildings. About 170 miles away from the epicenter, in Whatcom County, near the Canadian border, residents felt some of the aftershocks but experienced little damage.
"We registered about a 3 [magnitude] or something," said Don Boyd, a local emergency management official. "We had some minor shaking, some cracks in the chimneys, that sort of thing."
USDA officials didn't check for damage because none of the local dairy farmers complained.
Yet in 2003 more than 200 livestock owners in Whatcom County collected $1.6 million under the Livestock Compensation Program -- one of the largest payouts for a county nationwide -- for the same earthquake.
A 2001 presidential disaster declaration for the Nisqually earthquake had named 22 counties, including Whatcom. Dairy farmers and ranchers in Washington state collected nearly $4 million in livestock funds, according to records analyzed by The Post.
"Don't blame us," said Gary M. West, chief administrator for the USDA's Farm Service Agency in Washington state. "We don't get to choose which programs we implement. We have to work with what Congress gives us."
