Emergency Watershed Protection Program (EWP)

Providing technical and cost-sharing assistance to reduce threats to life and property in the wake of natural disasters; assistance includes establishment of vegetative cover, gully control, stream bank protection, debris removal, and levee stabilization

The Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program helps protect lives and property threatened by natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires. The program is administered by the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which provides technical and financial assistance to preserve life and property threatened by excessive erosion and flooding.

EWP funds such work as clearing debris from clogged waterways, restoring vegetation, and stabilizing riverbanks. The measures that are implemented must be environmentally and economically sound and generally benefit more than one property owner.

The Floodplain Easement Option—an option on agricultural land and authorized in the 1996 Farm Bill—gives producers the opportunity to offer their land for a floodplain easement. The easements provide permanent restoration of the natural floodplain hydrology as an alternative to traditional attempts to restore damaged levees, lands, and structures. The easement lands would be ineligible for future Federal disaster assistance.

Project Examples
EWP assistance has been used to:

Protect rural roads threatened by stream bank erosion
Reestablish stream channels that altered course because of debris accumulation
Buy floodplain easements on cropland frequently damaged by floodwaters

Application and Financial Information
The purpose of EWP is to help people recover from natural disasters where there are imminent threats to life and property as the result of an impairment to the watershed. EWP is not an individual assistance program. All projects undertaken, except for floodplain easements, must be sponsored by a political subdivision of the state, such as a city, county, general improvement district, or conservation district. The sponsor's application should be in the form of a letter signed by an official of the sponsoring organization. The letter should include information on the nature, location, and scope of the problem for which assistance is requested.

Information is available from NRCS offices to explain the eligibility requirements for the EWP program. Send applications for assistance to the local NRCS field office or the NRCS state office. Through the EWP Program, NRCS provides up to 75 percent of the funds needed to restore the natural function of a watershed. The community or local sponsor of the work pays the remaining 25 percent, which can be provided by cash or in-kind services.

Eligibility, Uses, and Restrictions
Owners, managers, and users of public, private, or tribal lands are eligible for EWP assistance if their watershed area has been damaged by a natural disaster. However, each EWP project, except for floodplain easements, requires a sponsor who applies for the assistance. A sponsor can be any legal subdivision of state or local government, including local officials of city, county, or state governments; Indian tribes; soil conservation districts; the USDA Forest Service; and watershed authorities. Sponsors are needed to obtain necessary permits, contribute funds or in-kind services, and maintain the completed emergency measures.

EWP work must reduce threats to life and property. Furthermore, it must be economically and environmentally defensible and sound from a technical standpoint. The work must represent the least expensive alternative.

EWP funds cannot be used to solve problems that existed before the disaster. EWP cannot improve the level of protection above that existing before the disaster. EWP cannot fund operation and maintenance work, or repair private or public transportation facilities or utilities. EWP work cannot adversely affect downstream water rights, and EWP funds cannot be used to install measures not essential to the reduction of hazards. In addition, EWP funds cannot be used to perform work on measures installed by another federal agency.

Contact
National EWP Program Leader
USDA/NRCS
Room 6019-S
P.O. Box 2890
Washington, DC 20013-2890
Phone: (202) 690-4575

Internet
www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/ewp/

Last Updated January 24, 2005