Ivan and FEMA—bad news for farmers

By TOM KANE

RIVER VALLEY — Local farmers who suffered big storm losses have gotten no real help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“All FEMA will give me is a low-interest loan and I don’t need another loan,” said dairy farmer Jack Diehl of Kenoza Lake. “I’ve got enough loans already.

“It’s a long process and you only get 50 cents on the dollar that’s reimbursable,” Diehl said.

Organic farmers Neal Fitzgerald and John Gorzynski, both of Cochecton, NY, and dairyman Andy Weist of Honesdale, PA, all said about the same thing.

In addition, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been slow to allow the farmers access into the streams to clear debris that can sometimes change the course of the flow and erode their fields.

Permits that allow limited access to streams are being distributed now.

“DEC is more concerned with the entire watershed and not with just a section of it,” Gorzynski said.

Diehl lost half of the hay he would have used for feed during the winter. “I’m going to have to buy hay,” he said.

Over 300 bales of hay wrapped in white plastic went floating down the Callicoon Creek, which borders his farm. The rest was ruined by water rot.

“Soil and Water [of Sullivan County] will help but it may take a year,” Diehl said. “If it goes through, I’ll only get 50 cents on the dollar.”

In all, Diehl lost about $25,000 to $30,000, he said.

Fitzgerald, who operates an organic farm on the Delaware River flats in Cochecton, said the flood drastically shortened his selling season. He sells at the Liberty and the Callicoon farmers’ markets.

“My biggest problem is repairing the eroded banks of the Mitchell Pond Creek that flows through my farm,” he said. “The water could reach my road and wash it out. It’s the only entrance into my land.”

One buttress of a small bridge that provides entrance into a neighboring field is ready to collapse, he said. “If I can’t get to my field, my losses will be a lot bigger.”

FEMA will give him little help, he said. “This flood didn’t put us out of business, but it’ll be hard to overcome.”

Gorzynski, whose organic farm is on Route 52 in Cochecton Center along the Ten Mile River, lost his entire winter crop of beets, potatoes, onions, carrots, radishes, cabbage, turnips and rutabagas.

Flooding on his farm was caused by a blockage in the river a half-mile north of his farm.

“DEC says it’s an act of God and nature and won’t allow you to get in the stream to correct it,” he said.

Gorzynski complained of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs for farmers who lose money as a result of floods. “They’re more concerned about the big agri-businesses than about us small farmers,” he said. “They keep talking about ‘efficiencies of scale,’ which means the big guys.”

In the 2000 flood, Gorzynski said he lost about $400,000. “Between the two floods this year in August and Ivan in September, I lost about the same amount,” he said.

As with the others, FEMA was of no use to him.

Weist in Wayne County lost a crop of corn on a field of 38 acres that he rents along Route 191 in Dyberry, PA.

“We lost about $20,000,” he said. “But the thing about it is that we lost the same crop last year in a storm.”

He said he was waiting for crop insurance from USDA to kick in. “I don’t know when I’ll hear from them,” he said.

FEMA’s low interest loan didn’t interest him.

“I have a lot of money tied up in the ground now,” he said.

Michael Deeman, chief external officer for FEMA in Washington, D.C. said that his agency was forbidden by law to offer any other assistance than the loans.

“If they lost their house or barn, we could assist with that, but not with loss of crops or erosion of soil.”

He said the assistance of this kind had to come from the USDA.

All representatives of the USDA in Sullivan County were attending a training session and could not be reached.

USDA staff in Washington, in charge of assisting flooded farmers, could not be reached at press time.