Wind Erosion Adds to Drought Damage

WASHINGTON —  Wind erosion over the winter inflicted its worst damage in three decades on the Great Plains, ripping away topsoil on over 14.3 million acres, the Agriculture Department said.

“The big reason for the increase is the drought,” soil conservation service chief Wilson Scaling said Monday. “Not only was it dry but it meant we went into the wind erosion season with inadequate vegetative cover and little residue to protect the soil from blowing.”

He said the last time the May-November wind erosion season wrought so much damage on the Great Plains was when 15 million acres were damaged in 1954-55, when the department first began to keep such records.

In the worst day of the season, winds of up to 80 m.p.h. swooped through Kansas on March 14, damaging 4.8 million acres. Kansas was the hardest-hit state, with a total of more than 5 million acres damaged. It was a record for the state. North Dakota was second with 2.3 million acres harmed and Texas followed with almost 2 million acres damaged.