Governor Polis, the USDA and FSA recently designated Ouray County as as a primary natural disaster area due to recent drought.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (see
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/), Ouray county suffered from a drought intensity value during the growing season of
I) D2 Drought-Severe for 8 or more consecutive weeks or
2) D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.
Per section 32 l(a) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, additional areas of Colorado are named as contiguous disaster counties.
Other counties in Colorado may have already been designated as natural disaster counties if they had previously met the requirements found under 7 CFR 759.S(a) for the current crop year.
A Secretarial disaster designation makes farm operators in primary counties and those counties contiguous to such primary counties eligible to be considered for Farm Service Agency (FSA) emergency loan assistance, provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have 8 months from the date of a Secretarial disaster declaration to apply for emergency loans. FSA considers each emergency loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of production losses on the farm and the security and repayment ability of the operator.
The Supplemental Disaster Relief Program provides disaster relief payments to eligible producers who suffered revenue, quality, or production losses to crops, trees, bushes, or vines due to qualifying disaster events.
Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool