Eagle Pass, Texas, March 13, 2015


    USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) District Conservationist Serafin M. Aguirre announces applications for funding opportunities with the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) are currently being accepted at the NRCS offices located at 2210 N. Veterans Blvd., Suite 130 in Eagle Pass.
    NRCS in Texas has received its EQIP funding for Fiscal Year 2015 and will begin ranking and obligating contracts after April 17, 2015. All agriculture producers interested in submitting a contract application for 2015 should do so before this ranking deadline.
    EQIP — one of the largest programs in the Farm Bill — is a voluntary conservation program that promotes environmental quality and assists producers to meet local, state and federal regulations.
    "EQIP is a valuable tool to help Maverick County’s agricultural producers implement conservation practices that provide environmental benefits to help sustain agricultural operations," says Aguirre.
    EQIP is a continuous sign-up programs that allow landowners or operators to apply for
financial and technical assistance for the application of specific conservation practices; but the deadline for the first 2015 funding allocation is April 17, 2015. Contracts are offered periodically depending on budgetary allocations. Applications made after the deadline will be
considered in the next funding cycle. Higher priority will be given to those applications that
address national, state and local priorities and provide higher cost efficiency.
    EQIP offers technical and financial help to install or implement structural, vegetative, and management practices that can benefit the soil, water, air, plants, livestock, and wildlife.  Each county in the state is funded yearly to assist producers financially with these land management practices.
    Last year, NRCS in Texas funded over 3,400 EQIP contracts with $82 million to accomplish conservation practices such as irrigation efficiency, minimum tillage, brush management and more on 1.8 million acres across the entire state.
    In addition to helping our environment, Farm Bill conservation program funds support rural communities. In Texas, it is estimated that each dollar of NRCS and private matching expenditures on NRCS conservation programs generates an additional $2.54 in sales of goods and services locally.
    For more information, including eligibility requirements, call the USDA Service Center office in Eagle Pass at (830) 773-2518. Service center locations and program information can be found on the Texas NRCS Web site at www.tx.nrcs.usda.gov.

Helping People Help the Land

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DSHS News Release

    The FDA today issued a consumer advisory about certain Blue Bell ice cream products made in Texas. The notice was issued after several confirmed cases of Listeriosis in Kansas were linked to products made on a single production line at the Blue Bell Creameries plant in Brenham.
    Blue Bell has stopped production and distribution of ice cream products from that line and has removed them from stores and any other retail outlets. The advisory does not include Blue Bell cups, pints or half gallons. The affected products include the following novelty items made on the line:
     Chocolate Chip Country Cookie
    •    Great Divide Bar
    •    Sour Pop Green Apple Bar
    •    Cotton Candy Bar
    •    Scoops
    •    Vanilla Stick Slices
    •    Almond Bar
    •    No Sugar Added Mooo Bar (regular Mooo Bars are not included)
 
    Consumers should not eat these items and should discard any of these products they may have in their freezers.
    Recent laboratory tests of three ice cream products from the Brenham production line – Country Cookie, Great Divide and Scoops – indicated the presence of Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that can cause severe illness. The company is calling back additional ice cream items because they were made on the same production line.
    Symptoms of Listeriosis can include fever, muscle aches, diarrhea and vomiting. People with these symptoms should consult a physician. Symptoms typically occur three to 70 days after exposure. The disease affects primarily older people, pregnant women, newborns and people with weakened immune systems.
    Listeriosis is required to be reported in Texas. No Texas cases have been reported in connection to any Blue Bell products. In 2014, Texas had 19 confirmed cases of Listeriosis. Texas has had two reported cases so far this year.
    Blue Bell, headquartered in Brenham, has been licensed in Texas as a frozen dessert manufacturer since 1981, when the state enacted the frozen dessert licensing requirement. Texas inspects these facility types monthly. No enforcement action has been taken against the facility, and it is operating in compliance with food safety laws.
    Texas continues to work closely with the FDA and with Blue Bell Creameries to gather additional information and ensure the items have been removed from stores.
    FDA advisory: http://www.fda.gov/Food/RecallsOutbreaksEmergencies/Outbreaks/ucm438104.htm

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) --
    An American healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in a Sierra Leone treatment unit is in serious condition after arriving at the National Institutes of Health's hospital near Washington, officials said Friday.
    Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was checking on people in Sierra Leone, including other Americans, who had contact with the NIH patient and may have been exposed to the virus.
    One of those people was traveling Friday on a chartered airplane to the Atlanta area to be near Emory University Hospital, where several patients have been treated for the disease, according to a CDC statement. That person has shown no symptoms, is not diagnosed with Ebola and is expected to "voluntarily self-isolate" for a 21-day incubation period.

DAVID WARREN, Associated Press
    Detectives in the East Texas town of Longview found the body of a 21-year-old man riddled with gunshots along a residential street pockmarked by forlorn homes.
    A few blocks away, they had earlier investigated the killing of a 30-year-old man. Nearby, another shooting left a man dead.
    In the first two months of 2015, the city of 81,000 has had six homicides — more than it had all of last year. The recent spasm of violence has startled residents of the small oil-and-gas town and focused more attention on a police department already under scrutiny for the death of a 17-year-old with a history of mental illness.
    The girl, Kristiana Coignard, was fatally shot after charging officers in the lobby of the police station while carrying a knife, police said. Her death, captured in a widely circulated video, is still under investigation and not included in the police department's official homicide count.
    The local newspaper, the Longview News-Journal, noted that the rate of killings this year has already exceeded the national yearly average of 5.3 for homicides per 100,000 people. Last year, the city had five homicides.
    This week, a local church helped organize a march to bring attention to the slayings.
    "We're letting the neighborhood know this is an alert and we're going to take a stand and not be silent anymore," said LaDarian McGee, youth director for Bethel Temple of Longview.
    McGee said the march drew upward of 100 people. Some wore T-shirts displaying the broad smile of Da'Coreyan Blankenship, the 21-year-old who was shot several times on March 3, his body left behind in the street.
    "When you saw D, he was the kind of person who would walk into a room and just light it up," said McGee, who mentored Blankenship.
    Most of the killings have occurred in a low-income area south of downtown, and all but one of the victims was a minority. The neighborhood is marred by old, dilapidated homes that are now shelters for drug dealers and their customers.
    "Longview is no different from a lot of communities," Mayor Jay Dean said. "A lot of these problems stem from the drug trade."
    City leaders are working to increase the number of police officers, from about 150 now to 172.
    At a recent news conference, officials announced a multi-layered effort to curtail violent crime. Police are boosting patrols in the area and officers are charged with getting out of their patrol cars and shaking the hands of residents not used to seeing officers as allies.
    Officials also want to use city and state laws to wipe away abandoned, blighted buildings while cracking down on landlords whose properties have become a haven for crime. Dean noted that landlords now have to be cited numerous times for violations before police become involved.
    He hopes the effort will attract businesses and provide residents more opportunities to earn an honest living.
    "We have all the incentive in the world to try to reduce crime," Dean said.