Rural Development News-February 1995

Water Symposium Spurs
Agricultural Pollution Discussion

Members of the agricultural and environmental communities met at a symposium in Washington, D.C. on October 23-26, 1994, to discuss possible solutions to surface water and ground water pollution problems.

The symposium, titled Protecting Rural America's Water Resources: Partnerships for Pollution Solutions, brought together leaders in the agriculture industry, producer groups, public agencies and environmental groups. Nineteen organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Ground Water Protection Council, and the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, sponsored the symposium.

Discussions held during the symposium stressed the fact that state and federal agencies and the regulated community needed to work together as partners in order to keep water supplies safe from agricultural pollution. Thomas Hebert, deputy assistant secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA, noted that the symposium was an indication of progress that had been made in recent times when it comes to protecting rural water supplies.

"We must get beyond our institutional and cultural differences," Hebert said. "No single agency, business or stakeholder has all the skills, tools and resources available to design effective solutions to our water quality problems. This must be a team effort."

U.S. EPA's administrative counsel Dana Minerva noted to symposium attendees that EPA attempts to do more than propose regulations, adding that the Agency likes "to work with the public to protect the environment, too."

However, some farmers believe that regulatory agencies only want them involved when problems occur, but not as involved in preventing the problems from occurring in the first place.

Richard Coombe, an independent farmer and chairman of the farmer-led Watershed Agricultural Council Inc., said that farmers have never been challenged to prevent pollution to secure a high quality water supply. In the past, he noted, farmers have been asked to remediate problems, not prevent them.

"Yes, the farmer is involved in protecting water quality," Coombe said. "But are we empowered? Are we given the responsibility? No. Agencies need to empower the farmer."

Coombe added that many agencies and governments simply want to purchase land in the area to prevent farming from occurring. This, Coombe said, is not the answer. "We must not only protect the watershed and water supply, but also the economic viability of agriculture to keep that landscape that is so important," he said.

Ray Brownfield, president of Capital Agricultural Property Services, told attendees that further regulation of the farmer or the use of scare tactics by special interest groups is not a real answer to the problem. According to Brownfield, partnership alliances in irrigation of best management practices in the entire eco-system on a voluntary basis will make the difference in vastly improving water quality.

Hebert said that the USDA will "do a better job" of using partnerships and working with all of those whose skills and experience can help solve these problems. These are the words symposium organizers wanted to hear, and these are the words organizers want to announce.

USDA extension service coordinator Gary Jackson, whose group was a principal sponsor of the symposium, said that this is not being looked at as a one-time operation. "The national symposium is a way of gathering information which is intended then to be used in a series of multistate workshops across the country," he said.

Jackson added that the workshops will enable the parties involved to actively work in building partnerships and in turn benefit from the sharing of information.

For more information about the symposium or the future workshops, call Ben Grunewald of the Ground Water Protection Council at 1-800-762-0190.