The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development is Washington’s chief tool to promote economic growth in rural counties — providing funding for everything from renovating old hospitals to providing faster internet service.
Sometimes the agency sweeps in to clean up an urgent mess.
For instance, last year in Dunklin County, in Missouri’s Bootheel, a sewer system failure sent raw sewage churning up out of residents’ toilets, into their homes and flowing through their yards.
“We had to get this issue taken care of, and within a few weeks, we had a million-dollar emergency grant for that wastewater plant that was run in part by the county and in a city down there so they could start fixing that as quickly as possible,” Kyle Wilkens said.