The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is currently holding continuous sign-up for the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) with a first cutoff for ranking scheduled for September 30, 2009.  As part of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, Congress renamed and revamped the former Conservation Security Program completely to improve its availability and appeal to agricultural and forestry producers.  CSP is now being offered in all 50 states as well as other terrirtories with a maximum nationwide enrollment of nearly 12.8 million acres.

To apply for CSP, producers are encouraged to first use a self-screening checklist to determine if the new program is suitable for them or their operation. The checklist is available on www.oh.nrcs.usda.gov and at the NRCS office.  After the self-screening, the producers' current and proposed conservation activities are entered in the conservation management tool (CMT).  This tool estimates the level of environmental performance to be achieved by a producer implementing and maintaining conservation activities which will, in turn, be used to rank applications.

The Delaware County Flood Insurance Rate Maps have been updated and the new ones are now in affect.  For more information about the new maps and data, please see the following resources:

• Delaware County Code Compliance
  • Flood Damage Prevention Regulations - effective April 16, 2009
• Delaware County DALIS Project
  
  • interactive mapping - choose "Environment" button
  • download GIS data