Excerpt
As we enter the final decade of the 20th century, environmental quality is a dominant item on the public policy agenda at local, state, federal, and international levels. Globally, it is an issue with profound consequences for economic, political, and social relationships among the world's nations. Within the narrower focus of rural groundwater quality in the United States, the issue remains quite complex, with implications for agricultural practices and the nature of life in rural America, which will affect far more than the 65 million citizens who now reside in rural areas.
While city dwellers confront the challenges of managing mountains of solid waste and rebuilding aging infrastructures for sewage treatment and water service, rural America faces the issue of protecting its vital groundwater supplies and, in some cases, providing corrective measures for past mistakes associated with this critical resource. An estimated 90 percent of rural citizens depend upon groundwater for drinking water. Thus, the future of rural America is inherently tied to the quality and quantity of this natural resource.
A public policy dilemma
Groundwater protection is an area of public policy that is particularly difficult for legislators and regulators because they are besieged by widely divergent …
Footnotes
Dennis Murphey is director of environmental and public affairs for the National Fertilizer Solutions Association, 339 Consort Drive, Manchester, Missouri 63011.
- Copyright 1990 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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