by Tom Lutey
It looked like a scene right out of the Dust Bowl as fierce winds raised a curtain of Yellowstone River Valley topsoil high into the air, eclipsing everything in its path for more than 40 miles.
The horrendous blast on the final weekend in March that sparked wildfires from Columbus to Shepherd shut down the interstate and set a record for wind speed — 73 mph. It also devastated fields, piling up topsoil in drifts along barbed wire fences.
The farm damage may have been the worst consequence of the blustery day, simply because the topsoil is nearly impossible to recover. Much of the field work done before the storm was for naught. Natural Resources and Conservation Service agronomists, who have been working with farmers since the Dirty '30s to keep valuable topsoil in the field, were dismayed.
“Much of it was the result of the intensive tillage used in the irrigated crop systems of the Yellowstone, Big Horn and Clark’s Fork rivers,” said Susan Tallman, NRCS area agronomist. “Farmers in these river valleys have been tilling the soil for over 100 years.”
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Source: Billings Gazette
