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lines and are not positioned to internalize environmental compliance costs for deferred 

 recoupment in the marketplace. Further, many producers are subject to highly regulated markets 

 which tend to limit the application of the "polluter pays" principle. Milk producers and many 

 farm commodity producers fall within this category. Absent significant government cost-sharing 

 or innovative strategies to manipulate government-controlled markets, these agricultural 

 producers view investments in pollution control technologies and management practices as 

 unrecoverable expenses. 



Agricultural producers differ from traditional point sources of pollution in yet another respect: 

 they have at their disposal a unique and extensive web of government farm-services and 

 conservation agencies. This network begins with local conservation districts which are relatively 

 uniform, legislatively created institutions existing in virtually every county in the United States. 

 These districts were established throughout the 1930s and 40s to control soil and water erosion. 

 District members democratically elect a local governing board. Districts in over half of the 

 states have remarkable, albeit seldom invoked, ordinance-making power to control inappropriate 

 private land use within the districts. 



State conservation agencies coordinate the activities of local conservation districts and help link 

 the districts to federal assistance programs. Federal agencies like the United States Department 

 of Agriculture's (USDA's) Soil Conservation Service (SCS), Agricultural Stabilization and 

 Conservation Service (ASCS) and the Extension Service maintain agreements and memoranda 

 of understanding with both state conservation agencies and local conservation districts for the 

 provision of financial, technical and educational services to agricultural producers. For several 

 decades, producers have accessed these federal agricultural assistance programs on a voluntary 

 basis through local conservation districts. 



Beyond the social and economic distinctions between agricultural operations and other production 

 sectors of the economy, nonpoint source pollution does not lend itself to the command-and- 

 control strategies developed for point sources of pollution. While point source pollution is often 

 characterized as "end of the pipe," nonpoint source pollution is by definition a diffuse 

 phenomenon. Site inspection like that employed for point sources will simply not work to 

 control nonpoint source pollution since the required number of inspectors and associated costs 

 is clearly prohibitive. No regulatory agency can dispatch sufficient inspection personnel to even 

 a fraction of existing agricultural fields during storm events. Moreover, EPA and state 

 environmental regulatory agencies enjoy neither a local presence nor a close working relationship 

 with most agricultural producers. One Northeastern dairy operator recently commented to the 

 media that the state environmental regulatory agency "lacks understanding of farmers in 

 general." 



"Planned Intervention": An Alternative Institutional Approach 



Given the inadequacies of command-and-control regulation in dealing with agricultural nonpoint 

 source pollution, as well as the existence of an extensive network of conservation agencies 

 accustomed to providing technical, financial arid educational services to producers, an alternative 

 institutional approach for controlling agricultural nonpoint source pollution becomes readily 



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