USDA Announces Farm Payments Scheduled to Resume

MILC, SURE, and NAP will restart on May 8

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2013 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Juan M. Garcia announced today that farm payments, which had been temporarily suspended due to sequestration, are scheduled to resume today, May 8. This includes payments for the 2011 Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments Program (SURE), the Noninsured Crop Assistance Program (NAP) and the Milk Income Loss Contract Program (MILC).

“I’m pleased to announce that farmers and ranchers can expect to begin receiving their payments beginning today, May 8,” said Garcia. “We appreciate the producers’ patience during the delay.  We’re working diligently to get these payments out as quickly as possible.”

Ready for Bye Bye!

Cast and crew have been putting in countless hours and plenty of late nights in preparation for this weekend's dual performances of Bye Bye Birdie.

Performances will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 28.

Be sure to catch one, if not both!

Noisy, but legal

Wind towers: Noisy, but not illegal

See our first story on this issue HERE

By Will Bublitz

While the hundreds of wind turbine towers planted across northern Lincoln County may grate upon the nerves of some local residents, the sound generated by them does not exceed the state- or county-mandated levels.

That was the conclusion of an acoustics, noise and sound engineer hired by the Lincoln County Commissioners. Jeff Kwolkoski, president of Wave Engineering of Littleton, presented his 12-page report accompanied with photos and acoustic graphs to the board at its Thursday, April 18 meeting.
“There was no case where the noise level generated by the turbine was louder than your regulation,” Kwolkoski said.

Kwolkoski’s study was prompted after the commissioners heard complaints in January from landowner Gary Withington whose family home on Highway 109 is near the Limon I and II wind farms owned by the NextEra Energy Resources. He told them the noise from the tower nearest his home was  unbearable to his family and had to exceed the 60-decibel limit set by the county’s regulations for noise levels.

The Lincoln County Zoning Resolution, dated April 18, 2002, states that commercial or light industrial activity is permitted so long as “the volume of sound generated does not exceed 60 decibels at the boundary line of the property.” This  60-decibel limit for the county regulation is identical to the State of Colorado’s regulation.

STOP CISPA

Libertarian Party: Kill CISPA and repeal Patriot Act, NDAA

Republican and Democratic politicians are once again attacking Internet freedom and Americans’ privacy rights. This time, it's the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

CISPA makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, CISPA “would allow companies to bypass all existing privacy law to spy on communications and pass sensitive user data to the government.”

While news media was focused on the dramatic events of last week, the U.S. House of Representatives quietly approved CISPA, with a vote of 288 to 127.

MVEA Also opposes SB-252

The Colorado Legislative Leadership has introduced a bill that will prove to be detrimental to Mountain View Electric Association, Inc. (MVEA) and costly to the MVEA membership. SB 13-252 was introduced in the General Assembly with requirements for MVEA and our wholesale power supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission (Tri-State), to increase the amount of renewable energy sources from the current requirement of 10 percent to 25 percent in six and one-half years.

This bill more than doubles the existing mandate in less than HALF the time that was allowed under the existing law. This measure will cost rural Coloradoans billions of dollars to comply. You can read SB 13-252 on the Colorado Legislative website by visiting http://www.leg.state.co.us.

KC Electric Opposes SB 252

All Hands on Deck!  We Need to Quickly Stop SB 13-252

By Timothy J. Power
General Manager
KC Electric Association

Why are special interests in Denver collaborating with primarily urban legislators to ram through legislation to tell us how to live in rural Colorado? Senate Bill 13-252 imposes draconian renewable energy mandates on Colorado’s electric cooperatives (including KC Electric) that will raise their members’ electric rates.

It is sponsored by Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs), Senator Gail Schwartz (D-Snowmass), Speaker of the House Mark Ferrandino (D-Denver) and Representative Crisanta Duran (D-Denver). The bill was introduced April 3 and had its first committee hearing April 8, only five days later. In contrast, SB 13-001, a much less controversial bill on tax credits for working families, was introduced January 9 and had its first hearing three months later.

9 county Disaster

WASHINGTON, DC – Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet announced last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated nine Colorado counties as contiguous natural disaster areas due to persistent drought conditions.

The designations make farmers and ranchers eligible for assistance from the Farm Service Agency.
The nine Colorado counties include: Jackson, Larimer, Logan, Moffat, Phillips, Routt, Sedgwick, Weld and Yuma.