The Faded Lands Community Board is asking the Office of Resource and Civil Management (ORCM) to provide aid to the farmers of the strip. We are asking for monetary relief to carry the families whose crop has failed through to the next planting, for clean seed for the ground that will still take it, and for someone from the office to conduct a formal investigation to figure out what is happening to our fields. The board also asks for a state of emergency to be declared, so the other regions can become aware, as the Board thinks this may happen in other regions as well. The ground here has been worked longer than any of us have been alive, and it is dying starting from the south road and crawling inward.

We likely know how the office will answer. We have all read the same sentences about matters under review and the things it does not comment on. Yet, we are asking anyway, and we are asking formally, so that whatever ORCM chooses to do, or chooses not to do, will be on the record. The strip has fed this region a long time, and we are simply asking for a little help.