The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service says it will add $5 million to California’s air quality resources. With the grant, California has received a total of $20.9 million from NRCS to help farmers and ranchers reduce air quality emissions from off-road mobile or stationary agricultural sources.

The primary goal of this new portion of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program is to help farmers and ranchers attain the standards set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Producers in the 36 California counties that are currently not in compliance with one or more of these standards are eligible for the program.

“These funds should help California producers comply with local and state regulations,” Dave White, chief of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, said in a statement. “We believe agriculture can be on the leading edge of setting a cleaner, greener example for protecting the air we all breathe. We’re doing what we can to help in that pursuit — technically and financially.”

White was named chief of NRCS in March. With approximately 12,000 employees and an annual budget in excess of $3 billion, NRCS is the nation’s leading agency in conserving natural resources on private lands.

White announced the new funding program while in California to chair the national Agricultural Air Quality Task Force meeting in Fresno. The funds help pay for practices that have been shown to reduce ozone precursors, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), particulate matter and fine emissions from agricultural sources. The agency says applications will be ranked and funded based on the amount of emission reductions achieved in the proposed plan.

The 36 eligible counties are: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Marin, Mariposa, Merced, Mono, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tulare, Tuolumne, Ventura and Yolo. Interested applicants in eligible counties should contact their local NRCS service center.

Applications are being taken until June 26, 2009

SOURCE USDA – Natural Resources Conservation Service

SANTA CLARA, CA — You have probably considered a hybrid car. Why not a hybrid bicycle or scooter? The market for electric two-wheel transportation is growing faster than the one for cars and trucks.

“The thing that’s really changed electric bikes and scooters is the battery technology,” says Doug Schwartz, “the fact that you can now get a lithium-ion battery that’s small, it’s lightweight.”

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Rainwater: It comes to us clean, “green” and free; literally a gift from heaven. The fountain of life.

And yet, we haven’t done a great job of conserving it. We Westerners, in particular, let billions of gallons of rainwater wash away, sliding off our concrete surfaces and roofs into storm sewers with every downpour. Some of us, however, are waking up to that drumbeat on our roof and reviving the ancient practice of capturing rainwater, though not in shallow pools like our forebears, but by connecting barrels to our suburban home downspouts. Cutting edge rainwater advocates are installing large steel tanks to store captured water for irrigation, washing clothes, bathing, even drinking.

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With droughts hitting vast areas of the earth every year, population stresses on the planet and water sanitation becoming increasingly difficult, it makes sense to adjust our thinking about water. Here’s a finite resource, like oil or coal, that people gulp almost without restraint. The logical solution: Rainwater capture.

Michael Fladmark of Tool, Texas started thinking about rainwater as he planned a new “green” house near Cedar Creek Lake. He wanted the house – where he and his wife expect to spend their retirement years – to be built for the ages with the most efficient heating and cooling systems, the best use of light and the most earth-friendly materials. It naturally made sense to also install a mechanism for catching and storing rainwater.

An oil and gas industry engineer, Fladmark noodled over his house ideas, including the rainwater system, for many months. At first he envisioned eight 55-gallon barrels collecting the water that would roll off the metal roof; eventually he realized that was underplaying his opportunity. He hired rainwater catchment expert Greg Whitfield, of The Rainwell, to install two 1,000-gallon rain catchment tanks.

Together they designed the above-ground, gravity-propelled system. Fladmark chose the visible tanks over buried tanks because he sees his house as a demonstration in eco-friendly practices and didn’t mind their appearance. Whitfield installed the system, hooking it into the house downspouts. Ironically, it was a “difficult install” because of extensive rainfall last December, Fladmark said. But going large was the right decision, he says. Since moving into the house earlier this spring, he’s been amazed to watch the tanks fill up.

Melanie Grimes, another customer of Whitfield’s, had a similar experience after she and home co-owner Mychele Lord, installed first a couple of 80-gallon rain barrels, then added three 300-gallon cisterns, tucked under the eaves and disguised by shrubbery, and finally, a 2,500 gallon cistern (behind the garage) at their 1950s-vintage home in East Dallas. The collection units just kept filling up with rainwater – Grimes estimates they will collect some 30,000 gallons a year — and with the help of a few hoses and a $120 pump, it easily supplies water for the home’s large lawn and various gardens.