PURPOSE: This rule establishes criteria and methods of application for persons desiring funds from the Missouri Soil and Water Conservation Cost- Share Program.

1. (1) Establishing Practice Eligibility. The commission shall establish a list of eligible practices for which cost-share funds should be utilized and annually shall affirm or modify the list as it considers appropriate. The participating districts shall develop annual priority listings of preferred practices from the commission eligibility list upon which they will base their considerations for costsharing. Landowners shall be eligible for cost-share funds only for the types of prac- 10 CSR 70-5

tices designated as eligible for these purposes by the Soil and Water Districts Commission and by the participating districts. No eligible practices are available to treat flood scouring problems.

1. (2) Application for Assistance. To be eligible for assistance from the Cost-Share Program, a landowner must make application on forms provided by the commission. Copies of these forms shall be available at district offices. The district’s board will act upon only those applications for cost-sharing from landowners who have a conservation plan as approved by the district, except as provided in sections

2. (7) and (8), and for eligible practices on which construction or implementation has not yet begun. In commission-approved Special Area Land Treatment (SALT) program projects, the district board of supervisors may approve SALT cost-share applications at the date of the conservation plan approval or at the approval date of the SALT project, whichever is later. However, governmental agencies, political subdivisions and public institutions are excluded from participation in the Cost-Share Program. As a further stipulation for receiving cost-sharing assistance, the land upon which the practice is to be implemented or constructed must be eroding at rates greater than tolerable soil loss limits or be experiencing active gully erosion, except that cost-sharing assistance also may be available in the following instances when excessive erosion is not necessarily occurring:

   1. (A) For eligible practices to prevent gully erosion when needed to complete a water disposal system;
   2. (B) For the establishment of permanent forest cover on marginal or riparian lands;
   3. (C) For the exclusion of domestic livestock grazing from existing woodlands on marginal or riparian soils;
   4. (D) For a no-till practice for forage conversions;
   5. (E) For grade stabilization structures that are greater than ten (10) years old when the principal pipe has failed;
   6. (F) For a no-till practice to improve the vegetative cover of pasture and rangeland to provide continued erosion prevention; and
   7. (G) For a practice to demonstrate benefits of a planned grazing system.
3. (3) Funding Determination and Limits. It shall be the responsibility and duty of the board of supervisors to determine the actual dollar amount of cost-sharing on individual applications. State cost-share rates shall not exceed the limits established in 10 CSR 70- 5.040(1). In the event that the landowner wishes to construct or implement practices over and above the size or scope determined by a qualified technician to be of minimum and necessary need for soil and water conservation, the board shall provide cost-share assistance on only that part of the practice necessary for soil and water conservation purposes.
4. (4) Availability of Federal Funds. Applications for cost-sharing assistance may be approved by the district board of supervisors when it determines that federal funds are unavailable to that applicant for the proposed practice. State cost-sharing assistance also is available for practice units applied for but not approved by the federal program, if those additional units constitute a complete structure, conservation measure or operation in and of themselves. State cost-sharing assistance may supplement federal cost-sharing on an individual practice, within limits set forth in section (3), and only upon practice components cost-shared by the federal program, when the estimated cost-share portion of the practice exceeds the national program allowable dollar figure from the federal program. Special area land treatment project areas approved by the commission are exempt from the provisions of this rule.
5. (5) Multiyear Contracts. State cost-share funds shall not be provided to a landowner for practices which are included in a multiyear contract or agreement executed by the landowner in accordance with a federal costsharing program.
6. (6) Compliance with Applicable Law. In the installation of any eligible practices, the landowner solely shall be responsible for assuring compliance with any applicable federal, state or local laws, ordinances and regulations. The landowner also is solely responsible for obtaining all permits, licenses or other instruments of permission required before the installation of the proposed practice.
7. (7) Group Projects. Landowners may cooperate with other landowners in the event that the most appropriate solution to the needs addressed in the Act requires eligible practices to be located on or across property lines of different landowners. In these cases, an agreement between or among cooperating landowners must be prepared by or on behalf of the group stipulating and providing for, but not limited to, the divisions of unshared costs, maintenance, an easements as necessary to accomplish the installation, operation and maintenance of the practice and the sharing of rights and benefits over and above the public benefits which might accrue from the installation of the practice. This agreement and a group conservation plan shall be submitted to the district(s) within which the land included in the plan lies. Upon approval of the group conservation plan by the district, the individual landowners are eligible to apply for cost-sharing assistance under this rule. The group conservation plan may serve in lieu of the individual landowner conservation plan as stipulated in section (2). All other requirements for application and cost-sharing assistance remain in effect.
8. (8) Special Projects. Upon notification to a district(s) of a fund availability for special critical-needs projects so designated by the commission, the board shall make all reasonable efforts to contact landowners of land within the special project area which lies within the district boundaries, to inform the landowners of the availability of the special cost-share funds and to encourage the landowners to cooperate in the special critical-needs projects. Each landowner within the project boundaries shall then be eligible to apply for the special cost-sharing assistance on practices specified as eligible by the commission in its project plan. Application shall be made at the local district office in the manner of application for general state costsharing assistance to landowners, but action on applications by the board as set forth in 10 CSR 70-5.050(2) shall not be taken unless applications from landowners covering seventy-five percent (75%) of the land to be treated are made. In special critical-needs project cooperation, the landowner requirement of a conservation plan as approved by the district, under section (2), is waived. All other landowner requirements and obligations here named shall remain in effect. Cooperation in these special projects is entirely voluntary on the part of the landowner.
9. (9) Termination Date. All applications shall specify a termination date which shall not exceed twelve (12) months from the date the landowner’s application is approved by the board. In commission-approved SALT projects, the district board of supervisors may set the termination date to be anytime during the lifetime of the SALT project. Claims for payment received after the termination date shall not be honored unless an amendment for an extension is approved by the board. Amendments for extensions can be authorized for an adequate period of time determined by the board to be reasonable and fair to the landowner. An amendment for an extension must be approved prior to the termination date of the original application and only when the implementation or construction has begun on the practice.
10. (10) Application Amendments. A copy of any amendment will be furnished to each party receiving a copy of the original application and the board shall approve each amendment before it shall become effective. An amendment to a cost-share application shall not be appropriate in the event that the construction or implementation of a practice has begun, except as provided in subsections (10)(A),

11. (C) and (F). An amendment to an application for cost-sharing assistance shall be appropriate for any of the following reasons:

    1. (A) To increase the quantities of eligible components needed on the practice;
    2. (B) To comply with an amended conservation plan;
    3. (C) To extend the termination date indicated on the original application consistent with section (9);
    4. (D) To cancel the application or agreement by mutual consent;
    5. (E) To increase the obligation to the landowner for the proposed practice; or
    6. (F) To reflect the added costs to the landowner when physical conditions at the practice site which require design changes are encountered.

AUTHORITY: sections 278.070.4 and 278.110.8, RSMo (1994) and 278.080.1 and 278.080.5(8), RSMo (Supp. 1995).* Original rule filed Aug. 12, 1980, effective Jan. 1, 1981. Amended: Filed Dec. 14, 1982, effective April 11, 1983. Amended: Filed Oct. 13, 1983, effective Feb. 13, 1984. Amended: Filed Sept. 4, 1985, effective Feb. 13, 1986. Amended: Filed Jan. 15, 1986, effective April 25, 1986. Amended: Filed Aug. 25, 1986, effective Jan. 30, 1987. Amended: Filed Oct. 2, 1986, effective Jan. 30, 1987. Amended: Filed Feb. 24, 1987, effective July 23, 1987. Amended: Filed July 31, 1987, effective Dec. 1, 1987. Amended: Filed Jan. 25, 1988, effective April 28, 1988. Amended: Filed April 1, 1988, effective July 11, 1988. Amended: Filed June 28, 1996, effective Feb. 28, 1997.

*Original authority: 278.070, RSMo (1943), amended 1961, 1969, 1980; 278.080, RSMo (1943), amended 1961, 1980, 1986, 1995; and 278.110, RSMo (1943), amended 1961, 1980.