Small firm drought impact loans available

Businesses are eligible in every Nevada county, including the consolidated Carson City, and several counties in neighboring states for federal drought disaster loans.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) said small, non-farm firms in the Silver State’s 17 counties, along with some in Arizona, California, Idaho and Oregon, are now eligible to apply for low-interest federal disaster loans from the agency to offset losses. The economic losses covered are those caused by the drought in the counties that began as of Sept. 1, 2014, as SBA put it in a news release.

Tanya Garfield, director of SBA’s disaster filed operations center for the west, identified the primary Nevada counties as Carson, Churchill, Clark, Douglas, Esmeralda, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing and Washoe, but also named the neighboring Silver State counties of Elko, Eureka, Lincoln, Storey and White Pine.

Others are Mohave in Arizona, Owyhee in Idaho, Harney, Lake and Malheur in Oregon and these in California: Alpine; El Dorado; Inyo; Lassen; Modoc; Mono; Nevada; Placer; San Bernadino, and Sierra.

“SBA eligibility covers both the economic impacts on businesses dependent on farmers and ranchers that have suffered agricultural production losses caused by the disaster,” said Garfield, “and businesses directly impacted by the disaster.” Contact online is at https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela; the SBA field office address is at P.O. Box 419004, Sacramento, Calif., 95841. The application deadline is Oct. 5.