Agricultural nonpoint pollution control: An assessment

Excerpt

CONGRESS announced in 1972 the goal to eliminate all water pollutant discharges by 1985. That target date has now been reached, but the nation's streams, rivers, lakes, and aquifers are far from the pristine state that Congress proclaimed as the national goal.

From the standpoint of agriculture, it is an appropriate time to ask: How much progress has been made? What obstacles have arisen? What have we learned?

Agriculture and water pollution

Links between agriculture and water quality are both obvious and elusive. Nearly one billion acres are cultivated or used for grazing in the United States (19). Much of this land, only sparsely vegetated during all but three or four months each year, is exposed to wind and water. Soil particles are washed or blown into drainage channels, ponds, and reservoirs. Chemical pollutants are conveyed by the soil particles or enter surface water or aquifers in solution. The consequences are sediment-clogged stream channels and reservoirs, unpleasant algal growth in lakes, degradation of aquatic ecosystems, increased water treatment costs, contaminated groundwater, and so forth (30).

According to the 1977 National Water Quality Inventory prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), agricultural nonpoint sources of pollution …