95 



TESTIMONY 



by 



Norman A. Berg, Washington Representative 



Soil and Water Conservation Society 



before the 



Subcommittee on Environment, Credit, and Rural Development 



Agriculture Committee 



United State House of Representatives 



March 23, 1994 



Dear Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee: 



On behalf of the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS), I welcome this 

 opportunity to share with you some thoughts on water quality improvement and wetland 

 protection issues, particularly the control of nonpoint-source water pollution. SWCS is 

 an international organization of 11,000 professionals in natural resources management 

 who advocate the conservation of soil, water, and related natural resources. We will 

 have vigorously pursued this mission for 50 years, come 1995. 



Public discussion of nonpoint-source water pollution problems and their solution 

 is, by no means, new. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, in the foreword to the 

 1955 yearbook of agriculture, which was titled Water , wrote: "I have little need to 

 remind you that water has become one of our major national concerns. Farmers know 

 only too well the hazards of pollution, and the deficiencies of good water for house, 

 stock, gardens, and crops. They've suffered the fury of floods, of droughts, and the 

 worries of soil erosion. Losses in life, security, productivity, and money have been great." 



In 1972, I was asked by officials of the International Joint Commission (IJC) to 

 co-chair, with a Canadian colleague, a reference group that examined the impacts of 

 various land uses, including agriculture, on water quality in the Great Lakes system. Our 

 1978 report to the IJC highlighted control of nonpoint sources of pollution as a 

 basinwide problem needing much higher priority. 



In 1985, as the Congress was about to enact the Food Security Act with its 

 innovative Conservation Title, a national conference was held on nonpoint-source 

 pollution. That conference sought to bring together those from agriculture, forestry, 

 mining, construction, and other sectors of our economy that either were considered as 

 contributing to the problem or wanting to solve it. 



Then, in 1988, more than 80 public agencies and private organizations created the 

 Water Quality 2000 initiative, a four-phase effort to develop an integrated national policy 

 on surface water and groundwater quality. Numerous meetings and special studies 

 resulted in a report, A National Water Agenda for the 21st Centurv . Controlling runoff 

 from rural and urban land was among the 12 challenges identified in the report, which 

 also suggested that water quality and quantity problems both be planned and managed 

 on a watershed basis. 



