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to nonpoint source pollution which directly impacts private proper- 

 ty rights in a whole host of different areas. 



Focusing just for a minute on agriculture, is there a specific plan 

 to compensate the farmer for taking out of production some of his 

 agricultural land for the purpose of preserving the rivers or the 

 watershed? Now, I understand we have the swampbuster program, 

 and there is a whole host of other Federal programs that if farmers 

 comply with them, they can be a part of Federal insurance and 

 crop insurance and set-aside programs and things of that nature. 

 Do you see the agricultural industry and the timber industry to a 

 certain extent, especially on private lands, being successful in their 

 resistance to a nationwide watershed management program per- 

 haps by the Department of the Interior? 



Mr. HiGGiNS. First of all, no man has got the right to mass waste 

 his soil capital even if he owns fee title, and if we would vary from 

 that principle, civilization has fallen on that one, and that is what 

 is happening in the Pacific Northwest. If we keep doing that for 

 100 years or 500 years, we won't grow trees because we won't have 

 the dirt. 



Insofar as it goes on private land, I believe that there are bene- 

 fits for the farmer and that it is stewardship that is lacking here, 

 they have a short-term perspective on private land riparian 

 zones — if you degrade your riparian and then you get a flood and 

 you don't have anj^hing armoring your banks, it eats your fields. 

 You lose tremendous amounts of valuable agricultural land. So it is 

 in the farmer's best interest to restore those riparian zones for his 

 own interest to maintain a soil capital. 



Secondly, if you remove your riparian zones in many areas, the 

 stream downcuts. That drops the water table, and then you reduce 

 the productivity of the lands adjacent to that stream, and often- 

 times when you restore those riparian zones, you can put in drop 

 structures and restore that water table, and the areas away from 

 the riparian zone become more productive agricultural lands, and 

 they require less irrigation water. So it is in the farmer's best in- 

 terest, I would argue, in almost every case to be a better steward of 

 those riparian zones and that in many cases there is an offsetting 

 beneficial value to restoring those riparian zones for the productivi- 

 ty of his lands outside the riparian that offset the losses that they 

 would accrue in terms of what they lose for grazing in those ripari- 

 an areas. 



And, you know, everybody has got a public trust responsibility. If 

 you denude your riparian zones and then that soil washes into the 

 stream and collectively the river becomes 90 degrees and also the 

 cows' direct access to these streams when you have warm water 

 temperatures, the increased biological oxygen demand from the 

 waste products, it befouls the river. The Shasta River's got 2.4 

 parts per million dissolved oxygen, and it is lethal to fish and so 

 there is a collective responsibility. One guy's cows might not do it, 

 but collectively all their cows have befouled the river to the point 

 where no one swims in it, no one would drink it, and the fish are 

 dying. 



And so we have got to work together, and so everybody has got 

 to give a little bit, the same as the budget. And if everybody has 

 got to be compensated for every increment that they participate. 



