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Ducks Unlimited for Playa Lakes with Stephen Rockwood · Conservation Stories

• 0:11
  Speaker A: Hey, friends, welcome back to conservation stories. This is your host, Tillery Timmins Sims. This is a podcast where we interview all kinds of interesting people and talk about all kinds of fascinating things that have to do with agriculture and conservation and food, food supply and all kinds of things. So today I'm excited because I have with me Steven Rockwood, prime.
• 0:35
  Speaker B: Great to be here.
• 0:35
  Speaker A: Ducks Unlimited, which was really exciting for me. I really like Ducks Unlimited. And probably a lot of people that are listening to us, that are in the hunting space may be familiar with Du. And I would love for you to give us a little background for people that don't know about Ducks Unlimited. What you do, what's the history kind of behind this organization, which is a huge conservation organization in the United States, at least I know that you're in the US. I don't know if you're international. And then we'll talk some about your history.
• 1:03
  Speaker B: Great. Yeah, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. So I guess I'll start off just a very general overview. DU was started back in the Dust bowl days, back in the thirties, and it is. We are a nonprofit conservation organization. Basically, our mission is to protect, conserve and manage, restore wetland habitat for the benefit of waterfowl. And when we talk about waterfowl, most people are less ducks, or it's basically ducks, or waterfowl is lumped into this group of birds that we call ducks, geese and swans. So it is international in the sense that we have ducks unlimited incorporated, which is ducks unlimited in continental us, and then we have du Canada, which is ducks unlimited Canada, and we also have du Mexico. So we are in the conservation work throughout North America, and we all work collaboratively. I'm trying to have a hard time saying that together in achieving conservation throughout North America, we're following the conservation and the migration of these birds. And so when we talk about conserving habitat for waterfowl, it also includes any associated upland habitat. Because when we think about birds, migratory birds, and we think about breeding habitat, we know that, yes, they do need wetlands because that's where they spend their life, but they breed in uplands. And when we talk about uplands, most of it's when we generally think about waterfowl. It's associated grasslands surrounding those wetlands.
• 2:43
  Speaker A: That's what you consider uplands.
• 2:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, in this case, uplands is a broad term, but the main focus being on grasslands associated with those uplands, because that's where most of the breeding occurs, and they need that dense upland, dense cover.
• 3:00
  Speaker A: So why in the world would somebody with wetlands be in west Texas, what are our wetlands?
• 3:06
  Speaker B: Well, that brings us to why we're actually here. Yeah, we talk about wetlands more specifically, if we look at ducks unlimited's impact in Texas, there are key focal points that we really try to hammer in on, and one of those is being the playa lakes. Playa Lakes is a very important migration, wintering habitat for waterfowl. And so when we think about protecting, restoring, managing habitat for ducks, playa Lakes is, they are on the map for us, and that's a critical area. But we also, we also think about, there's this term that we often use called ecosystem services. So when we're managing wetlands for waterfowl, we're also thinking about what are some of the other services that are a benefit of managing that? We think about water quality, water quantity, volumetric water, restoring, water supply for the Ogallala aquifer.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: That might be something important. Absolutely. So what's your background? I know from our conversations before that you grew up in Texas. Yes, ma'am. And then you got into conservation.
• 4:24
  Speaker B: Did. I went to school at Stephen F. Austin State University, where graduated with an undergraduate in forestry wildlife management, went out and worked up in Montana for a while and came back, and I got a master's degree from Stephen F. Austin, and I did a waterfowl thesis on, in east Texas on Sam Rayburn reservoir. Shortly thereafter, with wife and kids in tow, we went to Florida. And I've worked with Florida Fish and Wildlife for about 32 years, 33 years before I retired. And my duration there in Florida was working on waterfowl, wetland habitat. And, and I was, stayed in the field for about 25 years and then went to our headquarters and was overseeing our wetlands program there for the agency. And during my career there, we did a lot of work. Florida worked head side by side with Ducks Unlimited. So when we think about states and state's ability to manage and restore habitats, we often work with partners like Ducks Unlimited. Ducks Unlimited is kind of unique. Unique in the sense that they have their own engineering staff, they have their own surveying staff, biological staff, so they're kind of serve in. This is an overly simplistic form, but it's kind of as a wetland contractor. So when states are trying to implement projects and trying to do constructions on their wetlands, they often go to somebody like ducks unlimited because they've just kind of a one stop shop fits all. And because they're not 501 nonprofit corporation and because they often bring in funding as a match to those programs, it's very beneficial for states and other entities to work with somebody like ducks Unlimited. And so it was a natural thing that they, when they found out I was retiring, they were, you know, it was interested in going to work for them, and I was fortunate enough to land a job with ducks unlimited when I was coming back to Texas.
• 6:35
  Speaker A: That's awesome.
• 6:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker A: Well, and I think one of the things that is unique about ducks unlimited as a conservation organization is that when I think of du, I think of hunters, and, you know, a lot of times when people think about conservation in our area, you know, it's. It's kind of had a rough history and a rough go here, you know, and there's a little bit of trepidation and, you know, things that have happened in the past that have not been so great, but Du doesn't have that, you know, because they share a lot of the same values, you know, as we do in rural America, you know, and a lot of us, you know, have that background and are interested in hunting, and interested. Most. Most hunters are interested in conservation.
• 7:17
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, you bet.
• 7:20
  Speaker A: So we got connected with you guys through Heather Johnson, Texas Ply Lakes, the conservation initiative, which is like a collaboration of the joint venture, Texas Lake Texas, or Ply Lake Lakes joint venture, which is ply lakes across the entire North America. Correct.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: Well, the playa Lakes joint venture is kind of unique to the Playa Lakes region. So it's basically Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Texas, and a little bit of eastern New Mexico.
• 7:51
  Speaker A: Right. And they kind of all. They kind of put together, help put together something for Texas, and Heather's the one that kind of runs the Texas part of that. And you guys are part of that.
• 8:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. So it's. That's right. It's a collaborative park, Texas Parks, a wildlife playa Lakes joint venture, and Ducks Unlimited. And, in fact, we've. Ducks Unlimited has been trying to hire a position up here for the last several years, and we just hired on somebody just recently, Taven Dotson. So Tavern's gonna be working side by side with Heather on that?
• 8:24
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, he's a great asset. I'm really glad you're able to.
• 8:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's a good guy. I'm glad we got him on our team. And so it's a great asset having tavern here. And prior to that, it was a tough go to find a good fit for that position. And that's, in fact, how I got to know Heather, is. So I currently live in drip in springs, Texas, and one of my niches, I guess, working with ducks I'm living in here in Texas, is looking at the conservation side of things in terms of land conservation and land protection, and what can we do? You know, we have a team of biologists out of the Rosenberg office. It includes Todd Mirandino, who's our conservation manager for Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. And we have a team of biologists, including Kevin Harkey, Michaela Greeter, and Taylor Absher. And those folks all work down in the southeastern Texas coastal area and do a lot of work. And beyond that, Michaela heads up our Prairies prairie, Texas Prairie Wetlands project, which has been a longstanding, very successful program working in the indicated prairie area. And then, so when I started working with Du, I was trying to look at some of the ways that we can protect and restore habitat. And one of the things that I started was working with a natural Resources conservation service and some of their grant opportunity programs, and this is more specifically their agricultural conservation easement program. And I wrote what they call a Rep, a WRP, which stands for Wetland Enhancement Partnership program. And we wrote a grant to do some conservation easements in the mid coast area. And it was a pretty good program. It's been very successful. And so when we looking to expand on that, we were thinking about some of the critical areas up here in the panhandle, which got my focus turned towards playa lakes and thinking about what can we do in the Playa Lakes area? And, of course, learning about our Texas Playa conservation initiative program and talking with Heather and finding out what the needs are and what can we do up here. Decided to put together a grant for the Playa Lakes under the rep program. And so we were fortunate enough to land that rep, and we started on that rep last year.
• 11:00
  Speaker A: I have gone and looked at a couple of playas with you.
• 11:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 11:04
  Speaker A: On that. And, you know, easements. When you start talking about easements here, you know, people, I think, you know, it brings about a little bit of concern. But I recently, when I was with in tall, the Texas ag leadership program, which I'll bring that up all the time, because I went to a lot of places over the course of two years in that program, and in Maryland and in Long island are two places where we talked a lot about easements. And, you know, we, I think, haven't thought we need them in Texas because we're huge. We have all this land, and it's true, we do. But we have a lot of people moving to Texas people don't recognize, I think, sometimes, like, the value of some of these easements that can help people be able to do something that they might want to do, but might not financially be able to do. I mean, these are incentives that can really help people. And I'd love for you to talk about, you know, what you're looking for in those. For those easements. And, you know, so that way, if people have kind of a good understanding of what you're looking for, it might be something that's in there, you know, on their back 40, you know.
• 12:15
  Speaker B: Well, so this particular program that we're running up here is, again, it's. It's what we refer to as a Pliel Lakes conservation program. And it is a program that, that we are actually, we are administering, in a sense, we're administering this program for the Natural Resources conservation Service. And I say we, it's ducks Unlimited, the playa Lakes joint venture in Texas parks and wildlife. And we're providing funds, matching funds to USDA dollars to implement this program. And the point is, or the purpose is to protect the conservation easements, protect playas and associated grasslands surrounding those playas, and put those in a conservation easement. And the particular, you know, NRCS has lots of different easement programs that they're offering, but this particular easement program is what they refer to as a wetland reserve easement or a wre easement of, um. You know, when we think about conservation easements, there are. There are lots of different types of conservation easements. They're like cars. You know, you go out shopping for a car, you're shopping for conservation easements. There are lots of different easements, and they all pay. The pay for those conservation easement varies. And it depends on, you know, when we think about conservation easement, it's, you know, when you own a piece of property, we've always taught in school, ownership of land is a bundle of rights. You have a right to farm it, you have a right to put cows on it, you have a right to develop it. You can do whatever you want with it. When we think about a conservation easement, we are coming in and purchasing some of those rights. When we think about conservation in general, we're really focused on purchasing the rights to prevent the owners from developing that property so it doesn't become concrete.
• 14:17
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:17
  Speaker B: And some of those, how those easement languages are worded depends on what rights we're actually purchasing. So on a wetland reserve easement, we are purchasing the rights to prevent that land from ever being farmed again. Intensively farmed, row crop farming. Now, under certain situations, a landowner or producer would be allowed to graze cattle on those easements, and that would require what they call a compatible use authorization. It's a five year authorization, but a wre easement is probably one of the most restrictive of the conservation easements. So it's restrictive in the sense that we're purchasing those land development rights. The landowner still retains ownership of the property. He has the right to hunting and fishing, quiet enjoyment. But in terms of farming, that's a no no. That would not be permitted under this particular type of conservation. But because it is so restrictive, it also pays 80% of the appraised value of the land. Yeah. And so when we think about land ownership up here and what some of the. Based on some of the appraisals on easements that we are. Are working on currently under this program, we've got. We've gotten two appraisals. And if it's non irrigated lands, irrigated lands are paying about $2,000 an acre. Right. So if you think about $2,000 an acre, and if we're going to pay you 80% of that, well, that's about $1,600 is what we're able to pay the landowner for non irrigated lands.
• 16:04
  Speaker A: For non irrigated or irrigated.
• 16:06
  Speaker B: Non irrigated.
• 16:07
  Speaker A: $1600 an acre.
• 16:08
  Speaker B: $1,600 an acre.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: For non irrigated land.
• 16:11
  Speaker B: For non irrigated land. And that's based on an. That's based on a perpetual easement. So there's two types of conservation easements under this program. Again, we're talking about a wetland. Wetland reserve, Wetland reserve easement program. It's the most restrictive, and it pays 80% of the appraised value. And when we're talking about appraised value, we're talking about fee title acquisition. That's actual appraisal for highest and best use of the property. So we can pay 80% for a perpetual easement. When I mean a perpetual easement, it's recorded on the deed. And even if the landowner decides to sell the property, he's selling it, and then the buyer's buying it knowing that there's.
• 16:53
  Speaker A: The easement goes with. Yeah.
• 16:56
  Speaker B: Right. So under a perpetual easement, we pay 80% and we pay 100% of the restoration cost. And if fencing is required, we pay fencing and we pay survey, we pay for the appraisal. All of that work is covered by. Under the cost of the program. The landowner is. There's no additional cost required from the landowner for closing or any of that.
• 17:22
  Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
• 17:23
  Speaker B: So the other type is a. Is a 30 year easement in which case, under a 30 year easement program, we pay about 60% of the appraised value, and the landowner is responsible for paying 25% of the restoration cost.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: So if it's. If it's. You're saying if it's non aggregated land, the appraisals that you're getting in this area.
• 17:47
  Speaker B: Right.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Are $1,600 an acre. That's 80%.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: 1600 represents 80%. So there we had two appraisals that were conducted just this summer, spring. We started this program. Last year. We had. We had two projects come in that we decided to move forward with. Both of those projects were non irrigated lands. So anyhow, both of those were non irrigated, and they were running about $2,000 for the fee, title acquisition. And so we take 80% of that, it's about $1,600. Irrigated land can bring in as much as $3,500.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: Okay. That's really good to know because that's not inconsequential.
• 18:35
  Speaker B: So for those producers who are out there who are interested in learning more about the program. So one of the things that when we, you know, I mentioned we pay 100% of the restoration costs just to get an idea of what we're looking at is. So we're focusing on those playas that have been impacted. And when I talk about plies that have impacted, if it's got any. Any pits in it or around the plyde, oftentimes, folks put in pits to concentrate water for, we call them cow wells or for irrigation or if there's any ditching. If those playas have been impacted at all, they lose their. Their functionality and they lose their ability to recharge aquifer. And so one of the purposes of this program is to. Is to restore the functionality of those pliers. So we will do any earthwork that's required to fill in those pits or those ditches.
• 19:37
  Speaker A: Right. And that's something that's different from the program, particularly that Heather runs, because sometimes when there's that much dirt work that needs to be done, there's maybe not enough money in that program to cover the restoration cost of that playa.
• 19:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:51
  Speaker A: You know, and so that's something, I think, that is unique about what you're doing. Is that the money, if you've got a play, that that really is going to require a lot of work. It's something that could still happen if you're interested in easement.
• 20:03
  Speaker B: Right. And, yeah. And so one of, I think, the biggest issues that Heather faces is if they do do a restoration on a playa, oftentimes that material is still there where they dig it out. And they. Yes, you know, they just mount it on the side of the pit. But if there's. If the. If there's no material on site, then we have to truck it out, because.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: You need, you need to bring in that specific soil that needs to be in that clay, that needs to be in the bottom of that pine.
• 20:33
  Speaker B: So you need to source it and you need to truck it in, and that's where the price gets really, really high to figure that out. So anyhow, under this program, so when we talk about restoration, it includes restoring a playa so that they function naturally and we get the recharge that we're looking for into the aquifer. And the other thing would be, if it's been previously farmed or up against the Playa, then we would go back in and to clarify this program. So we take on a playa, but we also like to take on the surrounding grassland around the play because it needs a buffer.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: It's got to have a grassland buffer.
• 21:11
  Speaker B: It is absolutely right. And that's critical. So we work with the producer or the landowner, and we try to take as much grassland around that ply as we can. Oftentimes that could be as much as two to one, three to one, or even four to one acres, you know, so if it's a 20 acre playa, if we can get 80 acres of grassland around that playa, yeah, you'd love that. That would be great. And so part of that restoration of the upland grassland would be going back in and reseeding that so that we get to natural grassland back in there. Awesome. Some producers out there may have a question about CRP. Well, what if my grasslands in CRP, and, you know, when you do a CRP, that's an agreement that you're signing with FSA, and you're agreeing under certain conditions under this program. Because the wre program is an approved conservation program under the USDA, we are able to enroll this program, the WRE program, onto acreage that is in CRP. So normally, if you break a CRP contract. Right, you have to pay punitive damages.
• 22:24
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yes.
• 22:24
  Speaker B: But because this is an approved NRCS program, what will happen is when we close on the easement, the day we close on the easement will notify FSA, and what will happen is the CRP payments will cease and desist as of closing date, and then the landowner will get their income from the conservation easement.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 22:47
  Speaker B: So no punitive damages. They'll just stop. Let's see. Our punishment just stops at that point.
• 23:06
  Speaker C: Hello, friends. This is Tillery Timmons Sims. I want to take a moment to talk to you about an initiative that we are collaborating on with milestone environmental services. So, milestone made us aware of some proposed regulations that are before the Railroad commission. So, in Texas, the railroad commission, even though the name doesn't match, regulates the energy sector and our laws. Our regulations for energy waste have not been updated since the 1980s. Time for some common sense improvements in those regulations, and those are right now waiting for you to go and comment on. So in order to protect our soil and our groundwater, this is really important. So if landowners have not negotiated a great surface agreement with the oil company, then they are open to having waste dumped on their land. So we really appreciate your effort. So you can go to Sara Dash conservation.com, you can go to initiatives and click on that. And the Dropbox that will come down, you'll want to click on energy waste disposal. It's going to be really clear and really simple. Thanks for your time, friends. Appreciate it.
• 24:19
  Speaker A: Bye. So a lot of people here have base on their land, like their cotton base is there. Or one thing that was kind of unique to peanut farming is we have peanut quota. And so I know in particular, you know, there's peanut quota on some of these places. What happens to. Does it impact that payment?
• 24:45
  Speaker B: I would. You know what? That's a good question. That's a question for FSA. And I could certainly look into that and find out, but I would suspect it would be something similar to what. What we're doing under the CRP program.
• 24:59
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 25:00
  Speaker B: Under the p. Mint peanut. Under the peanut base, just like the cotton base. I'm sure the producer is getting funding from FSA under this program, essentially not to grow peanuts. Right. Because there's a surplus of peanuts. And so if they choose to enroll that land in an easement, then those base payments would cease at the time that easement closes.
• 25:33
  Speaker A: Okay. That's probably about right. Yeah. And that's something that people would have to like, but I don't know, think through. Yeah. How much are they, you know, and that varies year to year with peanuts. You know, how much they're making on that and what the value is versus, you know, the value of that. So, interesting idea. Yeah. I'm excited that you're here and that, you know, it's an opportunity for landowners. I'm well acquainted with what you call bundle of rocks. We call bundle sticks. You know, sure. Yeah. You know, and in the energy business, you know, people, you know, forever have sold off a mineral, you know, if it's not part of their minerals, it might be, you know, the speculation on sometime I might have, you know, some kind of, you know, payment from this. And so then you can buy part of, you're not going to own my mineral interest, but you can get part of, you know, a speculation on, you know, any income that I might have, you know. And so people have been really creative on how they sell off pieces and parts of their land. And to me, the more, the more bundle sticks you have in your bundle, the more valuable your property is and the more that's just more opportunities for you to have another market.
• 26:45
  Speaker B: Well, that's great. That's right. And you and your husband have helped us because we had that piece of property that we were closing on and we're working with down in that project. That was another issue when we put these conservation easements, we have to look at all the tidal work and all the title exceptions and power lines and gas lines and transmission lines, all those things. Right?
• 27:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. And oil and gas pipelines around here, for sure.
• 27:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:14
  Speaker B: Oh, and trust me, it's like spider veins coming out from down in south Texas because there's so many refineries. But, yeah, so this is, we, you know, when we put this grant together for the, for the playa lakes, I wish we had asked for more money, but Heather cautioned me that, you know, let's just start easy. Let's go slow. And so we've got enough funding this year. We, like I said, we started last year. We probably have enough funding this year to take on another four, five, maybe 600 acres, depending on whether to go perpetual easements or 30 year easements. But I'm not anticipating going into a third year. So like we did last year, we will take applications up till about probably, maybe mid November. Yeah, last year. I think we had to get all the applications in by November 15 or something like that.
• 28:17
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:18
  Speaker B: I'm suspecting that it'll be very similar to that sometime this fall. If we have producers out there who are interested in learning more about the program, I can. My contact information is 772-532-5172 that's my cell phone. They can reach me anytime they want to try by email. I'm at Srockwood, just like it sounds. Rockwood@ducks.org. dot.
• 28:51
  Speaker A: That's pretty easy. And we'll put that in the show notes. So, and it doesn't even you know, producers, but also there's, you know, people that own land that, you know, may not be farming it anymore, you know?
• 29:02
  Speaker B: Right. Oh, that's great.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: You know, that they might want to consider as well.
• 29:06
  Speaker B: And so another thing I would add to that is when we talk with landowners, they're just a little bit gun shy about how. Tell me about the program. And. And one of the things that, you know, I want to emphasize is at any time during this process of contacting us and we come out and look at your property, or we evaluate your property, and the landowner is not committed at all until we actually come to you with an appraisal and say, this is what your plan, your land is appraising at. Are you interested? And at that point, they'll have to make a decision. But submitting an application and getting all the information in and we can, we'll walk. Walk them through that process. We have all the forms, and it's basically, it's filling. And these guys are all familiar with this. They know NRCs and they know FSA, so they have their FSA number. We just need to make sure they're eligible, which requires updating your, your forms every year. They all know about that.
• 30:07
  Speaker A: That won't be a problem.
• 30:08
  Speaker B: We just have a couple of forms that they'll need to fill out. And again, it doesn't commit them to anything. And I say, well, if you're not sure, put your name in the hat and let's just see how things roll.
• 30:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. Just see if it happens. But you have how many up in this area? How many do you have around Lubbock in the program? Did you get in the program?
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Oh, well, we've only got two.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: Only two. Okay.
• 30:27
  Speaker B: And that's, uh, both of these. You know, when we came up with the program, we were hoping we can get eight to 800 to maybe a thousand acres in the program. Last year, we picked up about 420 acres, and we probably have enough to pick up another four or 500 acres this year or so.
• 30:45
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 30:46
  Speaker B: How we do this is we work with the landowners in the area. We take all the applications, and then we rank them and score them. Obviously. It's like we take the cream off the top. We're going to take the best of the best. When I say the best of the best, it's really the worst of the best.
• 31:02
  Speaker A: The worst of the worst.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: We're looking for those pliers that have.
• 31:05
  Speaker A: Been impacted and are you wanting them to be? You want bigger ones or do you care?
• 31:09
  Speaker B: We don't care.
• 31:10
  Speaker A: You don't care.
• 31:12
  Speaker B: It's a focus of the program. Obviously, when we think about restoring plies, it's about water recharge. And so if you're close to municipal wells or if you're close to municipal boundaries, those would be probably float up a little bit higher on the list.
• 31:28
  Speaker A: Because it's because of that.
• 31:30
  Speaker B: Because of that, yeah.
• 31:32
  Speaker A: And that's it. There's a lot of those, yeah. If you're listening and you live south of Lubbock. West of Lubbock, yeah, anywhere around Lubbock.
• 31:42
  Speaker B: And it doesn't have to be a great idea. Right. Doesn't have to be plies. We can also look at saline wetlands because that is a very critical source for migrating birds.
• 31:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 31:53
  Speaker B: But, yeah. So plies and or saline wetlands.
• 31:56
  Speaker A: That is amazing. That's great. Saline wetlands.
• 31:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: They're very rare. It's kind of a unique thing for this part of the world.
• 32:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. So are they like, you know, like Salt Lake? We've got like Salt Lake out here and Cedar Lake and those kind of places is what you're talk. Looking for. Okay, well, that. I know where. I know where those are lived out in that area for quite a while.
• 32:21
  Speaker B: Some folks like to just do their own research. You can Google Natural Resources Conservation service, wetland reserve program or Wetland reserve easement program. You can get a whole slew of information. Probably way more information than you want out there on the Internet through USDA. They got confusing website out there on it or have them contact me.
• 32:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I say people probably just be best to contact you directly because I've learned more just talking from, you know, to you. There is stuff on, on USD's website, but sometimes it's like there's too much.
• 32:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:56
  Speaker A: And it just is like information overload and you don't even know what language they're speaking. You know, it's so. It's helpful to be able to visit with you. So. Okay, well, thank you so much. This has been super helpful. And I also would be happy to be available if anybody needs to contact me and get you in touch with Steven. I'm happy to do that as well. And our producer will put that in the show notes as well for you and friends. Thanks again for joining us. I hope that this has been helpful information to you and maybe timely in this year when we do not know how this crop is going to turn out. See, that's one more question. I'm thinking how long, beginning to end, how long is it going to take for a farmer to say, I definitely want to do this. I need to do this financially. It makes sense. I need this this year. How long is it going to take?
• 33:45
  Speaker B: So if we start, so if we take applications this summer and fall, we will have our rankings and we will know which projects we're going to go with. Probably. Bye. Say the new year calendar new year, because we'll come out and look at it and rank it and score it. And USDA will send a team of folks out there and they'll look at it.
• 34:05
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:06
  Speaker B: And once we get those scoring and rankings done, and we will have a pretty good idea of who we want to go with. So we'll start with a tentative offer.
• 34:16
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 34:17
  Speaker B: And what that tentative offer will entail is, again, no commitment at this point, but it basically gives us the authority to do an appraisal on the property. And once we get the appraisal done, then we'll reach back out to the landowner and then we'll come to them with an official offer. And that will probably take place sometime in the spring.
• 34:41
  Speaker A: Okay. Wow, that's pretty quick.
• 34:43
  Speaker B: So spring or summer, we will come to them with the offer. And once they agree, and that's when the wheels start growing, then we order title work, we do a survey work, and we start working towards closing. And. Okay, at that point, it's probably, we're looking at a year, maybe 1416 months at most from that point on, so.
• 35:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:07
  Speaker B: Yeah. But I would say by the springtime we'll.
• 35:10
  Speaker A: You would know. But before somebody, it closes. We were talking about a good two years from this summer, probably.
• 35:15
  Speaker B: Yeah. Right.
• 35:16
  Speaker A: Okay. All right, well, thanks for being here.
• 35:18
  Speaker B: Appreciate it. Happy to be. Thanks for having me.
• 35:21
  Speaker A: Well, Stephen, this has been a great conversation, and I would really like to see if you might hang around a little bit. And let's record another episode about the climate smart grant that Du is doing with rice producers. Because you and I had a conversation about that. I found it really interesting. I thought people around here might like to see how that one was developed. You got time to stay with us?
• 35:45
  Speaker B: You bet.
• 35:47
  Speaker A: All right, folks, well, we'll record another podcast and it will be in the lineup right after this one, so y'all look for it.