Washington, May 17, 2005 -

Today the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Agriculture passed their appropriations bill for FY ‘06. The bill included a request by U.S. Representative John R. Carter (TX-31, Round Rock ) for $500,000 for Range Revegetation Pilot Project at Ft. Hood.

"I am glad to see the ag appropriators decided to continue funding this range revegetation project.

It will continue renovation of Ft. Hood training areas and protect and enhance water quality conditions of the two local watersheds."

The range revegetation is a joint project between the Texas Water Resources Institute and Fort Hood to revegetate with native grasses 30,000 acres where heavy artillery traffic has disturbed soils and left the land largely without vegetation. This project has the added benefit of removing substantial amounts of composted dairy manure from the North Bosque River watershed, as required by the total maximum daily load implementation plan for the basin. This is the fourth year the project has received funding.

The bill will now await markup by the full House Appropriations Committee before going to the floor of the House.