In
1972, Congress fortified clean water legislation in response to
growing public concern over serious and widespread water pollution.
The resultant Clean Water Act now safeguards our Nation's rivers,
streams, lakes, and coastal areas, with a goal of fishable and swimmable
waters. Its pollution control programs and wetland restoration efforts
have brought about a demonstrable improvement in the quality of
our water. In October
2002, the Clean Water Act turns 30 and will be up for congressional
reauthorization. ERS joins the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and several nongovernment
sponsors in recommitting to this worthy goal. http://www.yearofcleanwater.org/.Agricultural
pollution (such as sediment and nutrient runoff) is a prime contributor
to the Nation's remaining water quality problems. ERS routinely
surveys producers' choices of water, nutrient, pest, and soil management
practices to address such problems. Especially urgent is work on
the water quality effects of animal waste from confined feeding
operations that have grown larger and more geographically concentrated
in recent years. ERS is investigating how livestock operations contribute
to this damage, having already examined the balance between cropland
conversion and wetland conservation and restoration.
Following
is selected ERS research especially relevant to the smooth functioning
of the Clean Water Act:
Despite the fact that
information necessary to design economically efficient pollution
control policies is almost always lacking, policies can be designed
to achieve specific environmental goals at least cost, accounting
for transaction costs and any other political, legal, or informational
constraints. Economics of Water
Quality Protection from Nonpoint Sources: Theory and Practice outlines the economic characteristics of five instruments that can
be used to reduce agricultural nonpoint-source pollution (economic
incentives, standards, education, liability, and research) and discusses
empirical research related to the use of these instruments.
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Confined
Animal Production and Manure Nutrients estimates manure nutrient
production and the capacity of cropland and pastureland to assimilate
nutrients. Most farms (78 percent for nitrogen and 69 percent for
phosphorus) have adequate land on which it is physically feasible
to apply the manure produced onfarm at agronomic rates. However,
manure produced on operations that cannot fully apply it to their
own land at agronomic rates accounts for 60 percent of the Nation's
manure nitrogen and 70 percent of the manure phosphorus. In these
cases, most counties with farms that produce "excess"
nutrients have adequate crop acres not associated with animal operations,
but within the county.
Two chapters of the ERS
handbook Agricultural
Resources and Environmental Indicators, 2006 Edition discuss agricultural
impacts on water quality, trends in managing farm resources to mitigate
these impacts, and programs to guide this effort:
2.2 Water Quality: Impacts of Agriculture - Agricultural production releases residuals, like sediment and pesticides, that may degrade the quality of water resources and impose costs on water users. Agriculture is the leading source of impairments in the Nation's rivers and lakes and a major source of impairments to estuaries. However, the extent and magnitude of this degradation is difficult to assess because of its nonpoint nature.
5.7 Federal Laws Protecting Environmental Quality - Federal environmental laws can influence farmers' decisions about production practices or input use. These laws use a variety of mechanisms for protecting the environment, ranging from voluntary incentives to regulatory approaches.
Both public
and private benefits from improving water quality are signficant,
but measuring the off-farm benefits and costs of changes in water
quality is difficult. Many of the values placed on these resources
are not measured in traditional ways through market prices. Benefits
of Protecting Rural Water Quality: An Empirical Analysis explores
the use of nonmarket valuation methods to estimate the benefits
of protecting or improving rural water quality. Two case studies
show how these valuation methods can be used to include water-quality
benefits estimates in economic analyses of specific policies to
prevent or reduce water pollution.
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Society
has recently increased the value it places on the services that
wetlands provide, including water quality improvements, flood control,
wildlife habitat, and recreation. However, owners of wetlands are
often unable to profit from these services because the benefits
created are freely enjoyed by many. Wetlands
and Agriculture: Private Interests and Public Benefits examines
differences between public and private incentives regarding wetlands.
Federal wetland policy has shifted in recent decades--from encouraging
wetland conversion to encouraging wetland protection and restoration--in
an effort to balance public and private objectives.
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