Ron Jones, TIAER

Government is now taking on issues that were left unresolved thirty years ago by authors of the Clean Water Act. These issues are steeped in complexity, they challenge value systems held by many landowners, and they have the potential to create division between urban and rural residents. New environmental programs directed to agriculture have expanded the focus from point source discharges by concentrated animal feeding operations to polluted runoff from manure disposal fields associated with small animal feeding operations—operations that look much like millions of other agricultural enterprises across the country. Solutions to runoff problems will rest squarely on the manner in which privately held agricultural lands are used and managed.

Over the next decade, short of a downturn in our economy or another significant event that adversely affects us, Congress will make important decisions about land management controls that EPA will exert over agricultural lands. If the agricultural industry is to have a voice in shaping environmental programs, it must proactively develop policy options that can be supported by its members, then get them adopted as laws that solve the problem. Water quality issues associated with agriculture that are allowed to grow to the point that they become an overriding interest to an urban-suburban constituency, may result in agriculture having little to say about policy outcomes.

Congress listens to its urban constituency, a constituency with understandably different attitudes toward agricultural land than rural residents. Over 200 years of an abundant supply of cheap food has conditioned urban residents to expect food supplies to continue to be cheap and abundant. In addition to food, rural America provides a variety of natural resources that meet the needs of an urban society, including drinking water and recreational activities.

Early in my career, I was employed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. I quickly gained insight into the expectations of urbanites when they visit state parks—they want nothing to go wrong! State park visitors view their trips as a means to escape the stress associated with everyday life and, as such, they are often intolerant of problems that could impair their experience, such as barking dogs, rough roads, or loud music.

This attitude spills outside our parks into rural America, as urbanites leave the city with its attendant problems and travel into agriculture’s work area to retire, vacation at weekend or summer homes, attend summer camps, or participate in other recreational activities. City dwellers want nothing to interfere with the quality of their leisure time activities. The underlying tension stems from the idea that "this is my time, I have paid dearly for it, I have a short supply of it, and therefore I want nothing to hinder my high expectations." For example, in 1989 the Texas Water Commission issued enforcement penalties totaling $500,000 to nine dairy producers in the Erath county area of Texas for noncompliance with state water quality laws. While there were indeed legitimate water quality problems, much of the outside media interest that spun the issue out of control could be traced to the activities of a former CEO of a major corporation in Dallas who had purchased a retirement ranch in Erath county.

As genuine environmental problems arise in rural America, agriculture should step forward with proposed solutions. Successful solutions will most likely come from a new worldview. Not only are the problems different, but attitudes in rural America toward the environment are changing. Clean Water Act programs, designed 30 years ago for municipal and industrial point sources, offer little hope for successfully dealing with polluted runoff. If new ideas about people and process are not adopted, the same can be said for many of USDA's voluntary programs. As programs are developed to address rainfall runoff associated with animal feeding operations, care should be taken not to establish inappropriate precedents for the rest of production agriculture.

The agricultural community, recognizing the current opportunity to promote a "rethinking process", may want to take the lead in proposing new initiatives. Newly designed and funded community-based programs built around watersheds, featuring peer pressure and a combination of voluntary and regulatory programs, provide significant hope for correcting water quality problems in agriculture without direct government regulation of private lands. New levels and methods of funding for USDA and its state partners will be needed to achieve these changes.

In the future, NRCS could receive funding to design, demonstrate, and promote new programs to achieve Clean Water Act objectives on privately held agricultural lands. Farm Bill funding could also be directed to states in the form of block grants. State conservation agencies and local conservation districts, NRCS' historical state partners, will face significant changes if they are to be effective in implementing environmental programs. Expanding the focus of conservation districts to include state environmental programs where there is regulatory backup will require:

• Careful articulation of a new vision
• Model legislation
• Funding for capacity development

Bend in the South Bosque River, Texas

Successful abatement and control of runoff pollution has eluded government since the inception of the Clean Water Act. The issues are incredibly complex and loaded with cultural values that drive people's emotions. Some of the issues that led Congress to defer tackling widespread landscape-based pollution have nevertheless matured. Nationally, there is a growing awareness and momentum within the public and private sectors to act. Federal agencies and their state partners require clear direction to complete the work already begun to deal with polluted runoff. Congress, after a thirty-year interlude, has the opportunity to revisit issues that, with good reason, have been left unaddressed until now.

Rural America needs an effective voice in encouraging congressional activities. Without a proactive stance, about the best that agriculture can expect from new legislative initiatives is a compromise on ideas developed by other interest groups. The end product of such negotiations is often half of a bad idea. There has never been a significant debate about agriculture and the environment. It is time to face the challenge, have the debate, then move forward in tailoring programs appropriate for agriculture that solve nonpoint source problems.

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