Excerpt
THERE is little doubt that today's intensive agricultural practices have degraded surface waters and groundwater. In 1988, Barari and associates (7) attributed escalating nitrate levels in South Dakota's most important aquifer to agricultural sources. Parsons and Witt (4) documented extensive pesticide finds throughout the United States. Agriculture holds the smoking gun. No other segment of the U.S. population is applying pesticides and nutrients in the concentrations that agriculture does and in such close proximity to water supplies.
Nonpoint-source pollution is a complex problem. But even more complex is the question: How do we balance intensive agronomic productivity against the maintenance of groundwater and surface water quality? The answer is twofold. First, we must determine which water resources are both vulnerable to contamination and valued by society to the point that protection is necessary. Second, we must increase management intensity (not to be confused with farming intensity) on land that constitutes the recharge area to those valued and vulnerable water resources.
Estimating the value of a specific water resource and the extent to which it must be protected are political questions to be addressed by city, county, state, and regional officials. Implementing management …
Footnotes
C. Gregg Carlson is an associate professor in the Department of Plant Science at South Dakota State University, Brookings, 57006. Roger Dean is a non-point pollution coordinator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 999 8th Street, Suite 500, Denver Colorado, 80202. Gary Lemme, formerly a professor at South Dakota State University, is assistant dean of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, 96822. This article is a contribution from South Dakota State University Agricultural Experiment Station, Journal No. 2447.
- Copyright 1990 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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