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• Fifth, our experience shows that solutions which come from the bottom up, rather than 

 the top down, work best. Local solutions and local controls, with appropriate Federal 

 and State backup, are preferable. 



• Sixth, use a watershed approach and target our public resources to areas where there is 

 identified need. This is the preferred of two options that President Clinton's Clean Water 

 Act proposal offers to states. 



The nonpoint-source problem is considerable. Since 1972, this country has achieved 

 considerable success in substantially reducing the discharge of pollutants in our lakes, 

 rivers, estuaries, wetiands and coastal waters, primarily through the control of point 

 sources of pollution. While point source discharges continue to present an environmental 

 threat in some areas, our Nation's waters are endangered by many other activities that are 

 not associated with point sources. Evidence of these problems can be seen in the decline of 

 the salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest and the oyster stock in the Chesapeake 

 Bay, in ongoing contaminated fish problems in the Great Lakes, in the declining health of 

 the Everglades and the coral reef systems in Southern Florida. 



The potential causes of impairment of a waterbody are as varied as human activity itself. 

 Aquatic ecosystems may be threatened by discharges from industrial or municipal sources, 

 from urban, agricultural or other forms of polluted runoff, from habitat disturbances and 

 hydromodification, discharge of contaminated ground water to surface water, from 

 overharvesting of fish and other organisms, from the introduction of exotic species, and 

 even from deposition of pollutants originally emitted into the atmosphere. 



Preliminary estimates by EPA show that it would cost $8.8 billion over 20 years to control 

 agricultural and silvicultural nonpoint sources on all lands. We have not yet estimated the 



