65 



TESTIMONY BEFORE THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



COMIVHTTEE ON AGRICULTURE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, 



CREDIT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT 



Ron Jones, Director and Larry C. Frarey, Policy Analyst 



Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research 



Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas 



Introduction 



Over the past 25 years, public support for prollution-control initiatives has grown to encompass 

 most major sectors of the United States economy. Currently, agriculture is under intense 

 pressure to do its part to prevent and abate degradation of the nation's water, air and land 

 resources. Agricultural nonpoint source pollution was not a high priority when Congress enacted 

 the Clean Water Act (CWA) amendments of 1972. At that time, the United States faced 

 dramatic levels of pollution from industrial and municipal point sources that appeared to threaten 

 the country's future. However, as point source controls have produced at least moderate water 

 quality amelioration, attention has turned to the ubiquitous complement to point source pollution: 

 nonpoint source pollution, particularly polluted runoff. 



Agriculture is responsible for a significant portion of total nonpoint source pollution in the 

 United States. This fact is not surprising since nonpoint source pollution occurs primarily as 

 storm runoff across millions of acres of land, and agricultural producers control and intensively 

 manage huge portions of that land. Appropriate land management is the key to controlling 

 nonpoint source pollution. 



Agricultural nonpoint source pollution affects the entire hydrologic cycle. Storm runoff from 

 agricultural land may transport sediment, dissolved nutrients, pesticides and other constituents 

 in amounts sufficient to cause significant impairment to the chemical, physical and biological 

 equilibrium of surface waters. Agricultural pollutant leaching—nonpoint source pollution that 

 moves toward groundwater reserves rather than to surface water— is of particular concern in rural 

 areas because rural America is highly dependent on groundwater for potable water. Finally, 

 some agricultural production activities, e.g., intensive livestock production, may produce 

 gaseous emissions that return to the land in the form of polluted precipitation, with obvious 

 implications for the land and surface water on which that precipitation falls. 



Because agriculture has only recently assumed center stage in the nation's ongoing environmental 

 debate, the agricultural community now finds itself at a significant disadvantage as it begins to 

 move toward environmental compliance. If agriculture had been a central player in the nation's 

 pollution control efforts throughout the 1970s and early 80s, prevailing pollution control policies, 

 institutions and compliance strategies would be far different-and more amenable to agricultural 

 interests— than at present. Moreover, because agriculture has faced strong environmental 

 compliance pressure for only a relatively short time, representatives of the agricultural 

 community now continually react to legislative proposals from the environmental community 

 rather than create alternative initiatives that include the perspectives of agricultural producers. 



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