• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- The South Dakota Agriculture Department has set up a website that lets farmers notify pesticide applicators that they grow crops or livestock that are sensitive to pesticide drift.
• The South Dakota Sensitive Site Registry allows producers of crops that are sensitive to pesticides to register, enter contact information and identify the crop on an online map. Pesticide applicators can use the map to identify any areas sensitive to pesticides.
• When a producer registers an area as sensitive to pesticides, an email is sent to

all applicators who have registered and indicated they provide service in that area.
• The Agriculture Department reports that it investigated 308 reported incidents of pesticide drift from 2007 to 2011.
• The registry is available at the website of the Agriculture Department's Office of Agricultural Services.
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• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to hire eight additional staff members at the Sioux Falls VA Health Care System as part of a nationwide effort to boost mental health staff for veterans.
• Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki has announced that the department will add approximately 1,600 mental health clinicians and 300 support staff. In Sioux Falls, the eight new staffers will be made up of six clinicians and two support personnel.
• The VA says that with each new mental health care provider, a facility could potentially reach hundreds of additional veterans battling mental illness.
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• BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Teachers from four states are headed to North Dakota coal country.
• The Lignite Energy Council says more than 130 elementary and secondary teachers from the Dakotas, Minnesota and Montana are slated to attend a seminar this week on how the coal known as lignite is mined and used to produce energy in the four-state region.
• The seminar includes a tour of a mine, power plant and the Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah.

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