Cost-effective targeting of agricultural nonpoint-source pollution controls

Excerpt

INVESTIGATIONS conducted under the Clean Water Act and the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act found agriculture to be the most significant contributor of nonpoint-source pollutants to the nation's waters. Eroded sediment, nutrients, pesticides, oxygen-demanding wastes, and bacteria continue to cause water quality problems despite the fact a great deal is known about these pollutants and how to reduce their loading. The challenge facing the agricultural and water quality management communities now is to alter policies to implement more cost-effective clean-up measures.

Interagency, cooperative programs must be targeted to pollution hot spots in watersheds with priority water quality problems if Clean Water Act goals are to be attained. Nonpoint pollution is not only a serious environmental quality problem—with irreversible damage being done to sensitive waterbodies, such as lakes and estuaries-but also a significant drain on the nation's economy. It makes sound fiscal sense to cost-effectively reduce nonpoint inputs rather than to continue spending billions of dollars each year to treat symptoms of the problems.

Water quality impacts.

Recent surveys of state water pollution control administrators identified nonpoint sources as the principal cause of water pollution today and agriculture as …