Letter to Vilsack, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture - Continue Supporting Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project

Letter

We are writing to request that the Department of Agriculture continue to provide support to the Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project (White River Irrigation District) and the Bayou Meto Water Management Project (Bayou Meto Water Management District). Both projects are supported in the administration's FY2014 budget proposal and through the FY14 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill. Furthermore, the Administration committed to an RUS loan to ensure the projects could be built. Recently, USDA Rural Development has insisted on a cost-share program. To help move the project forward and in addition to previous direct support, the State of Arkansas is prepared to front-fund a debt service reserve account in order to provide significant protection from risk exposure to local and federal taxpayers. We believe that the backing of the State of Arkansas is sufficient to ensure a wise investment for USDA and we ask that you continue to work on achieving the end goal of completing work on the Grand Prairie and Bayou Meto Projects.

A series of studies by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and the State of Arkansas have confirmed the critical nature

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