Topic 2: Managing Pollutants from Nutrients
Posted on March 16th, 2010 - 11:35 AMExcess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous entering the nations waters create pollution that is hard to track, contain, and control. Nutrient pollution is as damaging to our waters as it is complex, so finding effective ways to address it is critical. EPA and State agencies have used various approaches to tackle the problem but much more is needed to protect water bodies from these pollutants.
• What critical elements need to be included in an effective nutrient strategy?
• How should the strategies differ for protecting healthy and functioning watersheds versus those that need to be significantly restored due to previous pollution?
• What has worked for your organization, state, or tribe in controlling nutrient pollution? What hasn’t?
For more detail about why and how conference participants will be approaching this topic, please see the Discussion Document at right.
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March 17th, 2010 at 10:01 am
As a global trade association, the Methanol Instiute highly recommends the use of methanol based denitrification to battle excess nitrogen and nutrient pollution in our nation’s waterways. Denitrification is a process involved in the treatment of wastewater. As wastewater is collected in a treatment facility, it contains high levels of ammonia. Through a bacterial degradation by facultative anerobes, the ammonia is converted into nitrate. Methanol’s strength is in its chemical makeup. Known as “wood alcohol,” methanol is a simple molecule (CH3OH) that serves as a carbon source for bacterial “bugs.” Accelerated by the addition of methanol, anaerobic bacteria rapidly convert the nitrate to harmless nitrogen gas, which is vented into the atmosphere. Methanol is readily degraded under anaerobic conditions, making it an ideal component of the denitrification system.
Today, nearly 200 wastewater treatment plants around the United States are using methanol in their denitrification process. One of the best success stories related to methanol denitrification is the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Facility. Blue Plains, which serves the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, releases nearly 370 million gallons of treated wastewater to the Potomac River each day. As a result of its size, the Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Facility is the single largest point source of nitrogen for the Bay, at 20 tons of nitrogen per day. With methanol denitrification, Blue Plains has continually met the EPA standard of 4.7 million pounds of nitrogen released per year, and has come in well below the standard on many occasions.
Nutrient pollution is certainly a problem plaguing our waterways, leading to algae plumes and the eutrophication of sensitive water bodies. Denitrification is the solution and methanol is the key component in this ingenious system. The Methanol Institute stands ready to assist the nation’s wastewater treatment community to adopt this clean water practice.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Even though most human waste is treated before being released into the environment, there are no requirements to reduce or eliminate pharmaceutical residues in our wastewater. As the US population relies more and more on pharmaceuticals for treatment, more and more residues will end up in our water environments. The effects on us and the environment need to be understood.
March 17th, 2010 at 11:12 am
I was thinking about wet scrubbers used to control air pollution control. Incinerators use packed tower and recirculate part of the wastewater. The packing material gives a surface area for collection and chemicals are used to control the pollutants. Packed towers do not take up alot of space. You could feed a contaminated pond to it. Packed Tower Aeration is a process for the removal of organic contaminants from groundwater. The groundwater flows downward inside a tower filled with materials (the packing) over a large surface area. Air is introduced at the bottom of the tower and is forced upward past the falling water. Individual organic contaminants are transferred from the water to the air, according to the gas and water equilibrium concentration
values of each contaminant.
Chemical precipitation processes are often used for the removal of heavy metals and phosphorus from water streams. Like air pollution adsorption processes, activated carbon is the most widely used adsorbent. Water may be passed through beds of granulated activated carbon (GAC), or powdered activated carbon (PAC) may be added in order to facilitate the removal of dissolved pollutants.
microorganisms consisting mainly of bacteria convert carbonaceous matter as well as cell tissue into gas.
I have seen literature for the removal of phosphorus from wastewater in an efficient packed bed contactor. Adsorption capacities are high, and kinetics rapid, such that a contact time of less than 5 min is sufficient for removal of 60―90% of the phosphorus, depending on the feed concentration and time in service.
March 17th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
There is an urgent need for EPA to define “propose to discharge” in the context of federal CAFO regulations. There needs to be more money for states to inspect CAFOs.
March 17th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
In the city where I live, our surface waters have excess nutrients but agriculture is not the issue. The issue is human waste. The sanitary sewer is gravity-fed, so the lines run along the creeks and the manholes are oftentimes in the middle of the creek or in the riparian area. Our sewer is aging and regularly has overflows or breaks and only a portion of the city is on sewer. We regularly have bacterial and nutrient exceedences, indicating septic and sewer problems. Due to a budgetary crisis and high costs, the city can’t afford to repair and maintain the sewer adequately, let alone expand the sewer connection to non-sewered developments. The city no longer qualifies as “rural” for USDA Rural Development grants and loans. Therefore, federal grant or low-interest loan programs specifically aimed to improve, repair, and expand wastewater infrastructure would do wonders for surface waters in many areas. We can restore riparian buffers and implement BMPs all we want, but if the sewers and the septics continue to leak, we will never get on top of our nutrient issues.
March 17th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Develop and enforce a TMDL for every watershed.
Identify biological treatments to clean water without expense of customary water treatment.
Alter codes to allow grey water use. Require cisterns and use as flushing water and irrigation.
Mandate vertical growth vice horizontal sprawl. Eg. build a parking garage versus five acre parking lot.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
it seems we could improve greatly by doing relatively obvious and simple things such as:
1- better monitoring of, and better regulations for, the the storage of refuse from high density animal operations/feed lots, which too often is in an unprotected pile, just waiting to wash away in a hard rain
2- banning phosphates in detergents
3- requiring gardening stores to carry phosphate-free fertilizer and promote it for all lawn except those being newly established
March 18th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Any nutrient pollution policy must address non-point source pollution — agriculture. It is time to stop giving crop and livestock operations a pass. Voluntary measures haven’t worked.
Municipalities have wastewater systems and stormwater system (or combined systems) that treat wastewater to standards except in heavy precipitation events.
Why shouldn’t CAFOs treat their waste to the same level, and why shouldn’t crop operations be required to prevent runoff of chemicals?
March 18th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Requiring disclosure of location where manure is spread is essential. There are loop hole that allow for manure management plans to be a single line, “brokered to third party for distribution and utilization”, at facilities generating 200,000+ tons per year. There is no requirement for the distributor to report field location or soil test data of current nutrient levels. I am baffled that this can go on in watersheds that are receiving millions of dollars from the Conservation Reserve Program, and so are the farmers in my area.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Nutrient reduction is a problem that takes years to surface, and will take years to fix. EPA should focus on helping municipalities upgrade and improve existing sewer and wastewater treatment facilities. The current systems have been in place for decades and will only degrade further without significant improvements. Contnuing to focus money and efforts on non-point runoff, without these improvements, is like spending all your money on shoes andthen realizing you don’t have a dress for the dance.
Another significant problem is understanding what is attainable. Without natural background baseline data no realistic reduction goals can be set. At a recent meeting evaluating some USGS BMP’s, the presenter noted that after a period of time they only noticed a 30 percent reduction in phosphorus. When asked “How do you know that is not a huge reduction?” the presenter didn’t know how to respond. As it turns out, 30 percent was a significant reduction based on the naturally occuring organophosphate levels in the soils.
EPA should continue to workwith USDA to encourage the impliementation of BMP’s for agriculture and construction stormwater runoff. If the goal is improving water quality, we need to focus the majority of funds and efforts on the nations failing sewer and waste treatment facilities to get the biggest bang for our buck.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:30 am
I live in a state where the livestock industry means
$6 billion-plus to our economy. Our have a monumental
task – to feed the world!
I believe the EPA has done, and is doing a really good job (contrary to an above comment) in regulating CAFO’s
(Confined Animal Feeding Operations). Keep in mind that some comments that will appear on this page will be from folks who despise larger CAFO’s. However, these operations are very stringently controlled by both the EPA and state regulatory agencies. In the past few years, the EPA has stepped up it’s regulation and enforcement of these operations and I truly believe has been very successful in preventing runoff from these types of operations. The rules and regs are in place and are working for CAFO’s. Congratulations!!
In reading other comments on this site, it would appear there are real problems from human waste and the proper treatment and the regulation thereof. It seems that this is where perhaps some of our current problems lie. However, in all the discussion here, I hope the EPA will recognize the tremendous strides that have been accomplished in the past! When I was young, I recall a river back in Ohio that was on fire! Things definitely needed to change. And, they have!!
I believe we already have enough rules and regulations in place to effectively manage water pollution. There are those however that hold standards so high they would be unachievable. Standards whereby the rivers and streams were NEVER so pristine, even before the United States was a country. Please keep this in mind as you discuss this issue. The pendulum has come back to the center and I fear it will keep traveling and our farmers and ranchers will be regulated out of business; leaving us to rely on only imported food. If you like being dependant on imported oil – YOU’LL LOVE BEING DEPENDANT UPON IMPORTED FOOD!! OUR FATE WOULD BE IN THE HANDS OF OTHER NATIONS.
March 18th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Our farmers and ranchers have a monumental task…
March 18th, 2010 at 11:36 am
As watershed conservationist for the northern 4 counties of Indiana I am forced to deal with two very large watersheds, Lake Michigan and Kankakee. Both suffer similar nutrient and sediment loading problems however focusing on the LM watershed solves many problems. Nutrient loadings from Indiana sanitary effluents into Lake Michigan look something like this.
N…10,500,000 lbs/yr
P… 2.300,000 lbs/yr
K… 2.300,000 lbs/yr all +/- 12%
These are biological loads not reflective of manufacturing or commercial type loads released into Lake Michigan. If we widen our perspective to include Illinois Wisconsin and Michigan, the nutrient numbers soar astronomically. Lake Michigan holds @ 1,180 cubic miles of water. At what point do we reach maximum load tolerance?
No one seems know. It seems reasonable that if we continue to allow these amounts of Nutrients into Lake Michigan at some point in the near future we will reach a cascade event that will evolve into dead water.
Considering the fact that our populations are still increasing it is logical to assume our nutrient loads will increase also. There is only one ZERO DISCHARGE program that I am aware of, that being proposed by the Center for the Transformation of Waste Technology for the Hammond Water Reuse Project. This is an extremely ambitious project based upon using effluent as a nutrient delivery medium for row crops and open spaces. Considering 40% of broadcast fertilizer winds up as run off and 2.5% of that enter into Lake Michigan, this seems to be an excellent answer to a huge problem. If anyone is aware of other systems or projects capable of removing this volume of nutrients please let me know as soon as possible
March 18th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
The two biggest challenges are funding and appropriate use of those funds. The Clean Water Act and associated grant programs from the 1970’s and 80’s have been good catalysts with regards to upgrading treatment from point sources. However, with the prodding of special interest groups (I hesitate to call them environmentalists), regulations have been blindly enforced and followed, sometimes with little of no benefit to the environment. For example, many municipal point sources were required to upgrade their facilities while neighboring private systems and agricultural activities, including lawn maintenence were allowed to continue to pollute. The net result is little improvement in stream quality, and the money spent on the improvements was essentially wasted. The technology to control nutrients is not a mystery. The question is societal, are we willing to pay $3, $4, $5 for a gallon of milk in order to fund pollution control measures at CAFO’s? or pay $10/1000 gallons of wastewater to replace aging infrastructure? You get the idea. Ballancing pollution with economy. We’ve all been quick to point the finger at certain groups and industries as polluters, but it is taking individual responsibility for our actions, either by changing our consumption habits and/or paying our fair share to manage the environmental by-products of those items we chose to use and consume.
March 18th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
In Connecticut there is an agricultural exemption, even one horse as a hobby is considered agriculture. As a result, nutrient loading into wetlands and watercourses does not fall under our jurisdiction.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Agriculture is the largest source of nutrient nonpoint pollution. Until we find a way to limit nutrient runoff from farms and feedlots, we will not have cleaner water. The major hurdle to controlling nutrient runoff from farms has always been that farming is very complicated, and farmers can use a wide variety of management practices to successfully limit runoff and leaching of N and P. Simple regulations and traditional enforcement are impossible – and unpopular.
USDA has developed a new farm environmental performance measurement tool that may be the answer we need. The Conservation Measurement Tool is a simple questionnaire that asks a farmer a variety of questions about what is grown, what farming practices are being used, and what the site is like. A numerical score is produced that reveals if the overall performance of that farm is successful at not degrading resources, and how well they are doing overall. Developed for the Conservation Stewardship Program by a wide array of scientists, this tool could be streamlined to focus on water quality. It finally offers the regulatory tool states have needed to implement a TMDL plan to reduce farm runoff of nutrients (and sediment and pesticides if they choose to.) With spot-checking and verification, society would get pollution reduction from agriculture without oppressive prescriptions for how to farm.
March 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Commenting on the pharma loads beginning to show up in our fresh water supplies… The rule of thumb stipulates that complex molecules ie; statins and certain biological hormones will break down after @ 40 days exposure to UV and other biological filters. Of course rules are made to be broken. The savior in waiting seems to be nano technology. Nano filters capable of filtration .001 microns>.01 filtering very low molecular weights. ie; multi valent ions, viruses and bacterias. Complex molecules will definately be filtered. Like any technology, cost is the key.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
There should be better control of fertilizers and weed control products that are used by the public. Education on their frugal use would improve the quality of stormwater runoff. It might even be necessary to place restrictions on their use.
March 19th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
For now the simplest things we can do are restrict phosphorous in lawn fertilizer, identify and get communities to address failing septic systems,
get the stubborn farmers to understand the value in small riparian buffers along side ditches and small tributaries, and locate and find all the small illicit pipes discharging small amounts of wastewater and grey water into streams in our Township. The big challenge will be dealing with all the new emergent pollutants , medications, and endocrine disruptors now accumulation in our rivers and streams.
March 19th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
The US needs to phase out land application of raw manure. One reason is the scale of CAFOs (in animal units, $, and lobbying influence) is overwhelming rural communities. But an equally good reason is that we need the energy that could be generated by manure digesters. Digesters have their own issues with effluent and biosolids, but we have technologies and standards to handle those materials.
The costs should be borne in food costs — milk and meat should be more expensive than they are today. US consumers have, and will continue to have, plenty of alternatives in a food system as productive and varied as we have in the US. Scaremongering about food shortages is ridiculous when we are talking about food production as inefficient with calories and nutrients as CAFO-derived meat/dairy.
CAFOs that apply raw manure to land are repeating history — a new industry looking to minimize responsibility for their pollution. They should be regulated by the same agencies in charge of other factories (not agriculture agencies). I live in an Ag state near the largest CAFO (we have only 2 cities that could beat it in fecal production), so I am not holding my breath about the last point (it is spring manure speading season — we have other reasons to hold my breath). Unlike another commenter who thought government regulators are on top of CAFOs, we have not seen or heard of any engagement or concerns by USEPA. That is why I think we need a more direct approach such as a federal ban on raw manure application.
March 19th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Thank you for taking stock of where we are in water pollution- comments so far are encouraging, and great progress is being made. EPA deserves much credit!
Some serious problems in groundwater and stream pollution deserve increased public and industry awareness, much as water conservation efforts by many communities are paying off, even though it has taken much effort. So should we shrug off stream polluters? We can and should go after fixing the things we now can and need to fix. It will take years and many contaminants may not be controllable-yet. Let the mindset begin; start with those things we can control but may not have tried yet. Or perhaps dismissed as too small to worry, or always been there naturally; Stormwater runoff can’t be prevented–etc.
Contaminants in streams threaten all down streamers and oceans and bays cling to them despite apparent dilution, to “within limits.”
Selecting one among many “fix it targets” FLOODS deserve more preventive attention than they get. National loss in flood claims exceeds $8.0BIL/year plus cleanup and deductibles that are not even tabulated by anyone (NWIS has best try). Considering that most of that flood water has left various levels of pollution in other ground water plus basements, fields, farms, businesses, schools, etc., its time has come. We set out to study just this area in two local counties and streams carry much potential pollution to the harbors and beyond.
We do not need to push geotextiles but they do offer a new solution to capturing large enough potential flood waters (which can now be better tracked or predicted). If we test, identify source, and tag basics with estimated volumes we could add an investigative tool at very low cost. Running down the smoking gun is a new threat to those who ignore regulation of polluting the environment presuming they will not leave a trail. We have patented a tool for this for other purposes like capture and fix streams, but in application it has to be looked at seriously because it will provide jobs that can pay for themselves. USACE will test this marvelous textile in June in Mississippi for another good purpose, and they started looking at it in 1989 so it is catching on as a strong new tool in water management. It has definite application in places like Florida which can be useful in infiltration of aquifer with high quality water, to attack a much polluted aquifer problem where reservoirs are too costly.
Fixing floods before they flood, and capturing significant amounts of polluted water so it can properly be treated (and returned or marketed) is now possible. It involves as many as eleven federal agencies to work together. And it is a project that will take time to do it right but will pay for itself with environmental dividends. Details are available.
March 19th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
It is well-known that about 95% of phosphorus (P) in rivers is on soil particles, so keeping soil in place must be a very high priority. Most of the problem of (P) in estuaries and rivers is due to dams being demolished and legacy sediment being washed downstream, and other dams loaded with silt so that any new silt added to rivers is forced to go over the remaining dams as well. We need to make sure that our computer models estimating damage to ecosystems are not flawed, and that costs of “cleanup” do not exceed benefits.
The Lancaster County PA Conservation District and the Lancaster County Farm Bureau have developed a “Fence ‘Em Out” plan that encourages fencing livestock out of streams similar to the “flexible fencing” program of the Shenandoah Valley, VA which can be replicated widely.
No-till and limited-till plans are growing in popularity nationwide and can be encouraged further.
Educational materials on holding nutrients in place on soil can be disseminated widely. No one wants valuable nutrients to be wasted or washed away, but figuring out how to keep them where they belong despite the vagaries of nature can be costly. More progress is made with a carrot than with a stick.
March 20th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
I have been involved with water issues in my state for the last 9 years. Mainly because of a cafo issue in my community. Resulting in dealings with multiple state & federal agencies for about 3 to 4 years. The issue was resolved with an estimated 2 to 3 square mile area contamintion plume in a alluvial aquifer. Pollution was nitrates later confirmed to be animal by radio isotope testing. The issues that was noticed by myself and others is lack of funding for inspectors at both levels state and federal levels and then after a case is resolved fines are not realistic. Especially dealing with bad actors. My recommendations are this, more funding for state and federal agencies. Better communication between the agencies state and federal. Creation of a joint taskforce for dealing with Bad actors. More help for communties when dealing with the agencies, an omsbudman if i spelled that correctly (in our case it took 4 to 5 weeks to properly identify the agency we had to contact and then another 3 or 4 weeks to get an appointment to meet with them.) That is what we have learned in our journey in that water issue we had before us and we are still learning. Here is a true saying in my neck of the woods whiskey is for deinking and water is for fighting for.
March 21st, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Spreading sewage sludge as fertilizer is increasing pharma loads, heavy metals and other contaminants in our groundwater. Since sludge was spread in our community, wells have been contaminated and nitrate levels have spiked. The EPA’s own testing at water treatment plants shows unacceptable levels of toxins in sludge. Start protecting our water supply by prohibiting the spreading of sludge.
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:53 am
Agriculture is a large problem with nutrient loading. However, another issue facing some states is what the state above them is doing about nutrient loading. A state can enforce all the NPDES limits it wants within its jurisdiction, but if what is entering into their state via the waterways already exceeds the limit, there is no way they can meet the limits EPA is proposing for nitrogen and phosporous. More broad-based plans and enforcement may be needed for states to get interstate cooperation for nutrient reduction.
March 22nd, 2010 at 11:08 am
The Clark Fork River just completed a 10-year Voluntary Nutrient Reduction Program that was a successful means of lowering N and P levels in the river, and a partnership between several cities and point-source dischargers (industries) in Montana and Idaho. While the program went a long way to improving water quality, the main culprit of nutrient pollution in much of the upper river in this 22,000 square mile watershed is non-point source pollution from agriculture.
Voluntary approaches work well, but only if coupled with a nutrient standard or other regulatory limit that sets the “goal” for how and why folks should participate in voluntary approaches.
We also believe that the Northern Rockies watersheds would benefit from an established framework for an incentive-based “pollution mitigation credits” that allows landowners, cities, and businesses to “offset” their pollution–both point and non-point source–similar to approaches underway in the Midwest.
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Having read through the comments, one essential component of a strategy for abating nutrient enrichment appears to be consistently unrecognized. Specifically, the link between the hydrologic cycle and habitat quality should be a cornerstone for managing nutrients from nonpoint sources. A comprehensive strategy in this regard would involve restoring soil quality (especially with respect to soil carbon) through crop management, mimicking a natural nutrient cycle between the soil, crops, and nutrient amendments, changing the way tile drainage is practiced to include both controlled drainage and directing outlets to created/restored wetlands, expanding riparian zones for processing and assimilation nutrients, and restoring the physical habitat quality to ditched streams, again, for greater assimilative capacity, but also for a host of other benefits.
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Managing nutrient and other pollutants requires knowledge of loads by load source and the efficacy of BMPs aiming to reduce those loads. With that knowledge one can create a “pollutant load reduction efficiency matrix” for a given BMP. This matrix tells the amount of load reduction possible from implementing a given practice (say, a riparian forest buffer) on a given site (say, down-gradient from a field of row-crops). At a fixed price per unit pollutant reduced, one simply multiplies a given cell in this matrix by the fixed price and, in this way, one will have optimally targeted load reduction at current technology. Potential adopters can then know the value of various BMPs for reducing pollutant loads and, will be likely to choose those that bring them the highest net return — which will be precisely the practice that, technically speaking, we would like to have them implement.
This would require a fundamental shift away from “per acre” pricing for pollutant load reduction BMPs to a “unit reduced” pricing system.
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 pm
I propose a green infrastructure solution that PREVENTS sources of agricultural water pollution. It addresses not only ways to prevent water pollution but stems from a means that will make our nation energy independent from a renewable fuel, increase the food supply and improve it’s quality to enhance human health and reduce health care cost, and create millions of jobs in rural communities to solve our nationwide unemployment problem.
The solution is to create thousands of small to medium sized, permaculturally designed farms growing food for both human consumption and as feedstock to produce ethanol. The ethanol production process generates by-products that are naturally nutrient rich. These by-products are then used as fertilizer and pesticide for the next crop, as healthy feed for livestock, and in many other productive and sustainable ways. When these by-products are used as fertilizer and herbicides, they produce outstanding yields, even higher than what has been achieved from chemical based fertilizers and herbicides.
Chemical based fertilizers, while contributing for years to supplying the US and many other nations with food, are a major source of groundwater pollution that has created an 8000 square mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi where fish go to flounder and die. Using the nutrient rich by-products as fertilizer and herbicides from thousands of small to medium sized ethanol producion facilities on family farms throughout our nation will eliminate the groundwater pollution caused by chemical fertilizers and over time heal the dead zone in the Gulf.
Using the ethanol to fuel our vehicles instead of gasoline will take advantage of ethanol’s superior combustion properties versus gasoline to significantly reduce our nation’s air pollution also.
The organic foods grown on these farms will be locally available, fresh, taste better, and improve the health of the community residents. This, coupled with the excellent exercise millions will receive by working at these numerous facilities, will decrease health care cost and make unemployment a thing of the past.
Also, a specific green solution to reduce the chemical pollution caused by our nations thousands of water treatment facilities is to use cattail marshes to soak up the nutrients in sewage that the current polluting chemicals are trying to neutralize. The cattails can then be used as a terrific ethanol feedstock with yields that are 33 times greater than corn on a per acre basis.
Based on his 35 years of worldwide research and his successful application of these sustainable solutions, David Blume has written books and numerous articles with infinite detail on how to transform these solutions into a nationwide reality.
I am strong proponent of solving our nation’s problems in creative ways that encourages and empowers individual citizens and gives them hope. The United States has evolved into a society where misdirected capitalism and a misplaced desire to regulate and control has created national companies and a national government that have both grown too big to best meet the needs of individual citizens, especially in rural areas.
My comment to the EPA would be to spend less time trying to regulate us to solve problems and use your authority to gather facts about the sustainable techniques listed above and educate and incentive citizens to adopt them into a business to make a meaningful living and in so doing solve the problems of pollution, foreign oil addition, poor health, and unemployment that effect us all.
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Nonpoint source pollution is the largest source of N and P to major rivers, and most lakes, and most N and P come from agriculture. End-of-field measures are doomed to failure, especially for P, because they will eventually become saturated with P.
The only long-term solution is to balance inputs with “deliberate” outputs (e.g, crops and animal products). This requires some refinement in regulation: for example, land application of manure is generally based on uptake of N, not P, which means that a farmer would always be overapplying P relative to crop needs, by a factor of 3-4. P-based manure limits would restrict the size of feedlot agriculture, because more land would be needed to apply manure, but it would greatly reduce P in runoff.
Beyond this, probably the best approach is to assist farmers within a watershed by conducting farm and watershed nutrient balances and providing feedback in an adaptive management framework. Most farmers would probably participate voluntarily, and would learn from early adopters. For animal ag, much of the focus should be on N and P inputs, seeking greater efficiency of utilization. The advantage to farmers would be more efficient utilization, and hence greater profits. Small farmers would benefit the most; large farms the least, because they already know this. Government agencies should track net P accumulation and seek to reduce it. Over time, this will result in lower stream concentrations.
Finally, it is past time to eliminate farm subsidies, because these encourage greater yields than market conditions dictate, and compel farmers to overapply nutrients to achieve artificially high (in an economics sense) yields.
Weirdly, the best farmers know all this, but government agencies persist in supporting end-of-field practices rather than watershed-scale nutrient balances (esp. P). I think this is a cultural carryover from wastewater treatment, which worked very well for municipal sewage. The proof is in the pudding: this hasn’t worked.
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I am a watershed professional working in the heart of Pennsylvania’s agricultural region, in the Chesapeake bay. I have noticed a lot of comments regarding agricultural NPS pollution, and they have all been addressing CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations). Pennsylvania has some of the most stringent agricultural pollution regulations in the country. That being said, most of these regulations are not only not enforced, they are more commonly not even known about within agriculture.
When I look at Concentrated Animal Operations (CAOs) and CAFOs in PA, which are heavily regulated and enforced, I see very clean farms with good management and properly handled manure. All farms will have NPS pollution, forever. This is a fact of agriculture and the environment, even sustainable agriculture.
However, the 44,000 or so small farms in Pennsylvania are not equally under the same careful scrutiny that CAOs and CAFOs are. This is not to say that none are scrutinized, but that by percentage it is night and day. PA has regulations in place that require farmers to have and follow a Manure Management Plan, an Agriculture Erosion and Sedimentation Plan, and a PA clean streams law to enforce gross pollution issues. Not being an expert in other state’s programs, I cannot speak for others, however I would suspect that there are similar regulations and/or guidance out there
Providing funding for the education, development, and implementation to state Environmental Protection Agencies and County Conservation Districts for these practices by the EPA will reduce nonpoint source pollution tremendously. The best part of this approach is that no new regulations need to be developed, which means less enforcement.
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:58 pm
As a drinking water professional (now retired), I’m concerned about the aquifers becoming polluted -mainly by nutrient runoff from ag fields or by percolation of liquid manures into the shallower aquifers or into drain tiles, then into creeks. Manures from CAFO’s frequently contain antibiotics or heavy metals, and worsen the effects.
Karstic substrates must be a limiting factor, and should actually prohibit CAFO’s. In those areas without karst, regulations should increase land spreading requirements per animal unit. States have limited funds to enforce regulations, and, if it is a federal reg, the feds should fund the extra inspectors.
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I believe that if you get the waste water treatment facilities to clean the water better so that there are less(hopefully none) chemicals, pharmacuticals, hospital, industrial etc. wastes being discharged into our waterways that will be a major change and a big help. Then , of course the sewage sludge will be even more toxic than it is now. We need to stop Land applying the sludge as there is no scientific proceedure to remove the toxins from the sludge. Use the sludge to produce energy and put the smaller by product in a safe landfill or other area.
March 24th, 2010 at 7:51 am
In two watersheds of our area of the state, Missouri, we have over 190 million chickens raised each year. They use about 7 gallons of water per chicker per day. Think about the effects on the groundwater table. A large percentage of these go overseas along with the nutrients from corn, soybeans and other sources. Corn and soybeans need irrigation to prosper. Soil fertility is going to suffer as will our aquifer from these drawdowns. I propose putting a one cent tax-tariff-oversight cost to each chicken for environmental monitoring and soil testing. This in reality amounts to a mere 1/6th of cent per pound levy against chicken meat. Foreign countries are receiving our product and with it taking our vital water and nutrients used for food production. Worse of all we are using aircraft to transport these animals to China and other spots. We scream about the cost of oil and the amounts imported and yet we fly chickens to other countries, does anyone see the irony of the situation?
The tax or whatever you want to call it will be used to monitor and control all litter movement within or outside the state boundries in a rational and ecological manner. Soil testing will be free to land owners wanting to receive the litter for soil enrichment. Haulers will be certified and be given coordinates for application, timing and amounts to be applied per acre. GPS locators will be used to monitor application sites to insure proper setbacks, slope of applied sites and timing of application. We need to insure that over application and improper placement is monitored and prevented.
These are corporate farms and not family farms that are destroying our waterways and lakes with irresponsible litter placement.
Another method would be to burn it for energy production as done in Minnesota with turkey litter.
I also suggest that it be a national law for the health of the citizen that waterways, streams and lakes be labelled with a sign that show impairment for whatever reason. In our counties a vast majority of the streams are on the impaired list for bacteria and yet citizens are allowed to swim and recreate in these streams. Why doesn’t the Feds place the burden on state Health Agencies to post these streams with permanent signs notifying the citizens of this threat. At this time it is left up to county agencies to test and alert citizens of a possible threat. They receive no Federal, state or additional funding to provide for this expensive testing and notification work.
Finally, all states with a significant number of CAFO’s, regardless of type or animal, need to limit their numbers of animal units based on the ability of the land mass to safely confine those numbers. Base this on water availability, litter placement or needs, environmental problems(odor, chemicals etc) caused by CAFO and the determint to land values of cities and homeowners.
It has been shown in Oklahoma that the arsenic used in chicken feed has found its way into ground water, surface water and homes from the application of litter. What other states that cannot or will not test for these pollutants have similar problems? Grow up and get real it is not going to get any better.
Many of these solutions can be said to be a “state rights issue”, but the states are not going to step on any toes or have ignored the problem for too long. Being adult means doing the right thing at the right time before it gets any further out of hand.
March 24th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
As a certified crop adviser and a fourth generation family farmer I feel that farmers get a bad rap and are under appreciated for their environmental stewardship. A farmer makes their living off of the land and it makes absolutely no sense for them to not take care of that land so it will continue to be productive for them and future generations. I work to ensure that the land I farm stays productive and will be that way for my son if he decided to pursue my profession. Farmers continue to show they are good environmental stewards by continually adapting and developing new technologies and farming practices. Through the adoption of no-till farming practices in my area the amount of soil erosion has greatly reduced, along with it the run-off of nutrients and pesticides. Also, the quick adoption of new technologies in varieties (many of which are highly criticized by those outside of the agriculture industry) such as Bt corn and Round-Up Ready soybeans has greatly reduced the use of pesticides. Furthermore, the adoption of new precision ag technologies that allow for automatic boom section control, auto-steering, etc have allowed us to reduce over application of nutrients and chemicals and place them exactly where they are needed. The many farmers I work with as an adviser continue to adopt new technologies that help them be better environmental stewards. They pull soil samples and use university research and recommendations to apply the proper rates of nutrients and pesticides. Farmers invest to much money in nutrients and chemicals to not be good stewards of these products and accurately place them so that they stay where they are needed. Farmers have more to gain or lose by being good or bad environmental stewards than anyone else. The land is where we live, where we grew up, where we raise our families, and make our living.
March 24th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
In my rural area we have CAFO’s. We have a spills in the past that turned a local creek PINK. They are allowed to stockpile, which should not be allowed due to strong odors, flies and runoff in to streams and creeks. The use of center pivots should be looked at alot closer also. There are three in my area and there is a stream by each one. Somehow that does not calculate as a smart thing to do. These CAFO’s use a lot of water not just for animals to drink but for washing eggs. And that water stinks. Our WELLS are at risk. I believe the CLEAN WATER ACT was to protect. I hope the USEPA stands-up for little guy.
March 24th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Topic 2: Managing Pollutants from Nutrients
________________________________________
Excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous entering the nations waters create pollution that is hard to track, contain, and control. Nutrient pollution is as damaging to our waters as it is complex, so finding effective ways to address it is critical. EPA and State agencies have used various approaches to tackle the problem but much more is needed to protect water bodies from these pollutants.
• What critical elements need to be included in an effective nutrient strategy?
Response: Reading the 27 August 2009 EPA Report of the State-EPA Nutrient Innovation Task Group it seems quite obvious that the group has identified the greater “Root Causes” of nutrient pollution sources. If I understand the question I believe the most critical element for an effective nutrient strategy is Full Enforcement of current laws on the books against the perpetrators. Education seems to be a popular term. A program of education should be offered with emphasis on clearly communicating the known root causes, effective Elimination (not merely undefined minimization) techniques, and finally, the penalty structure for violations. The program should be plainly advertised publicly – not the small print in a public notice – and attendance should be voluntary. Polluters who choose not to be educated take the full risk of fine assessment.
• How should the strategies differ for protecting healthy and functioning watersheds versus those that need to be significantly restored due to previous pollution?
Response: The only strategic difference should be that, for those watersheds already in trouble, the polluting entities should be more easily identified, contacted, and corrected. Harsh fines, in accordance with current statutes, would be the most effective means to the end. Properly functioning watersheds, which are not affected by history of violations, may only require sample maintenance testing. All reports of violations, especially by citizens, should be taken seriously and the root causes addressed immediately.
• What has worked for your organization, state, or tribe in controlling nutrient pollution? What hasn’t?
Response: Unfortunately, I have no personal experience with a functioning control program, but have seen that voluntary or loosely controlled programs and/or un-enforced laws have disastrous consequences. Even our Governments have difficulties implementing effective programs – see Combined Sewer Overflows.
March 24th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution does not authorize Congress to legislate in the area of the environment
, therefore, it is unconstitutional. All 50 states of the Union have their own version of the EPA as authorized under the 10th Amendment. There is no need for a federal agency. The states of the Union can handle their own environmental needs as authorized by their legislatures.
March 25th, 2010 at 8:55 am
It makes no sense to require treatment of sewage to remove pollutants so clean water can be returned to waterways, and then turn around and spread the sludge of those same pollutants on the land where it is free to run off back into those same waterways. The practice of land applying sewage sludge biosolids needs to be recognized for what it is – using our agricultural fields as a dumping ground. This is the cheapest means of disposal for the municipality, a big profit maker for the biosolids industry, and a disaster for the landowner (now or later), his neighbors, and all who eat.
Land application routinely applies up to 1500% extra phosphorus, to say nothing of the unknown and untold numbers of pollutants – all of which are free to seep into ground water and to run back into waterways with the first heavy rainfall. This practice must stop. Use the sludge for non-fossil fuel.
March 25th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
One area where EPA could offer additional support and assistance with in helping states implement numeric nutrient standards is to provide data and evidence on the benefits of properly functioning ecosystem services. The Water Quality Control Act, Colorado’s implementation of the Clean Water Act, requires “economic reasonableness” with its regulations. Identifying the benefit of protecting water quality has always been a very site-specific exercise. It would be a great tool if you could develop some sort of method to show how much benefit, on a state-wide perspective, is derived from controlling pollutants, in this case, nutrients.
March 25th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
We have to find a meaningful way to actually regulate nonpoint source pollution in a context that allows some control. In rivers systems that are at their limit for allowing new point source discharges, there is nothing in place that prevents someone from tilling up to the ordinary high water mark and putting down pesticides and fertilizers which runoff into the river. This is aside from the tons of sediment that also makes it into the water. Excess nutrients and sediment are some of the biggest threats to surface water and until nonpoint source pollution is held to the same standard as point sources – improvement from this point forward will be unlikely.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Louisiana is working on the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy which should bring many of the necessary partners together to discuss what is possible in reducing nitrogen and phosphorus levels entering inland and coastal waters. We have been involved in the Gulf of Mexico Program for many years and have also been working on nutrient reduction through the Hypoxia initiatives for the Mississippi River.
Finding the balance of what is understood and can be implemented now and what areas still need additional research to help improve watershed and instream models will continue to be important for this work to move forward and result in progress. Industry and agriculture will remain involved if they feel that science and information are the basis for the decisions and people are willing to accept what can reasonably be accomplished in coastal systems.
New and innovative technologies are available and some of the industries and municipalities are utlizing them but others are concernced about the costs and effectiveness and fear further regulations beyond what they agree to implement. It is important for each state to be able to continue to work on their own approach since nutrient dynamics can vary so from ecoregion to ecoregion.
One of the largest challenges within Louisiana will be working quickly enough to save our coastal wetlands and finding ways to utilize these nutrients to benefit that effort. We have many wetland scientists and local decision makers helping but the task really is a large one. It will require everyone working together and pushing hard to make it work. Information from other states and their successes is encouraging so we will continue to work as diligently as we can to make progress, and we hope that EPA will continue to be supportive.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
The EPA should require states in the Mississippi basin to develop and enforce nutrient standards to reverse the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Non-point nutrient pollution must be stopped by enforcement of existing TDML’s and development of TDML’s for nutrient impaired waterways.
March 25th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I have been in dairy practice for 30 years, and have seen farmers become BETTER stewards of the land, year after year. Farmers are using targeted fertilization and weed controll, and using less every year.
This is in part due to cost/profit. Farmers at this point need have stable EPA regualtions, and at this point, they are stringent enough.
From here on , the EPA should be simply monitoring for accidents.
March 25th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I own a 91 acre apple farm in the tri-city area of Schenectady, Albany, and Troy, New York, Town of Clifton Park, where water resources are very crucial. During the last 40 years our town has grown by leaps and bounds until we have a population of over 35,000.
On my farm I am very aware of non-point source pollution and already do everything I can to protect the water in my neighborhood. On my farm I have implemented New York State DEC best management practices including IPM for spraying apple trees along with best practices in order to keep spray drift at an absolute minimum as well as pesticide run off into water sources.
I think that retaining my farm, and in spite of these necessary farm practices, has actually assisted in keeping cleaner water quality for my community than would have occurred had my land been built out for development. Housing could have, and probably would have, polluted the water much more than my current farming practices.
I am confident that government will look at the much broader picture of agriculture and would realize that open space, local food sources, and an abundance of food is crucial to the general population, and that local farms actually help the environment, water included. Pressure from mandates and expensive implementation measures would hurt farming and therefore the entire population of the U.S. What we need instead is support for keeping our farms in existence for the good of all.
March 25th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
If the EPA is really serious about nutrients in our open waters, it should stop using our open waters as giant urinals and address the water pollution caused by nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste in municipal sewage. This waste besides exerting an oxygen demand is also a fertilizer for algae and therefore contributes to eutrophication, resulting in dead zones.
EPA ignored this waste, because it used an essential test incorrectly and although it did acknowledge this in 1984, it never corrected this test, while by administrative rule officially not only ignored this waste, but changed the goal of the Clean Water Act from demanding 100% treatment by 1985 (elimination of all pollution) to a measly 35% treatment, thereby apparently considering rivers used as urinals to be swimmable.
All this, while it still is impossible to evaluate the real treatment efficiencies of sewage treatment plants and what their effluent waste loadings are on receiving water bodies. Correcting this test should and would be a giant step in the right direction to correct many of the mistakes made in the past and fulfill another requirement in the CWA, by establishing best available treatment (95-98%), which with EPA’s own data would actually cost less than the odor control facilities now built.
March 26th, 2010 at 8:21 am
The Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection has issued Total Maximum Daily Load requirements to the towns on Cape Cod to upgrade their wastewater infrastructure from septic systems in order to reduce nitrogen loading to our coastal embayments in order to improve water quality and restore key habitats, such as eelgrass beds. To meet this challenge towns like Chatham have decided to sewer the whole town and build a centralized sewage treatment plant, while Mashpee has opted for 25-30 community cluster systems to address this problem. Other towns are in the process of developing their Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plans (CWMP) which have to be approved by Ma. DEP in order to address this challenge. Since it will cost 2-3 billion dollars to upgrade our wastewater infrastructure for the 15 towns on Cape Cod, citizens in each town will need to decide what they are willing to pay to achieve the desired outcomes from this upgrade of our wastewater infrastructure.
Having worked on the EPA-led Waquoit Bay Watershed Ecological Risk Assessment which focused on nutrients as the major human stressor in the watershed (nitrogen in coastal embayments and phosphorus in freshwater ponds), I have concerns that the focus of the town CWMPs is too narrow. For Waquoit Bay the TMDL targets would require over 90% removal of the nitrogen load by the towns of Mashpee and Falmouth that currently comes from our septic systems. The atmospheric loading of nitrogen to the Waquoit Bay Watershed has been exempted from the TMDL load reductions because it is viewed as not being under local control. Some of the subwatershed components of the Waquoit Bay Watershed have lower TMDL nitrogen reduction targets. The practical problem that we face is what combination of wastewater infrastructure upgrades need to be implemented along with reduced use of fertilizers on lawns and restoration of wetlands/planting more trees in town conservation lands to meet the TMDL targets in a cost effective fashion. An associated issue is that the sediments in Waquoit Bay are in bad shape with a buildup of organic matter and high nutrient concentrations, so that restoration of eelgrass beds is likely to require more than simply meeting the TMDL targets to improve water transparency in the bay. Periodic dieoffs of the macroalgae that have replaced the eelgrass causes fish kills in the bay during the Summer.
The other issue being raised is that since we have to upgrade our wastewater infrastructure whether we should address emerging contaminants of concern (endocrine disrupters, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, household cleaning products, etc.) at the same time. These COCs have been detected in our groundwater/surface water by investigations conducted by the Silent Spring Institute’s for their Cape Cod Breast Cancer and Environment Study. Some of the advanced centralized sewage treatment approaches to remove nitrogen also reduce the COC levels and the “nitrex” community cluster system proponents claim similar reductions for their system. Ma. DEP has no regulations for removal of these COCs in either wastewater treatment or water treatment for public water supplies. Ma. DEP is looking to EPA to provide guidance and regulations for these COCs.
From the Sierra Club’s perspective, we need to address the nutrient loading/COC treatment issue in a more integrated fashion than the CWMP’s being developed by each town. Building a new wastewater infrastructure to replace septic system will require the use of a lot of energy and in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we will have to develop the wind energy off of our coast. Sewering portions or the whole town and constructing new centralized sewage treatment plants with discharge of treated effluent back into our sole source aquifer for drinking water will create plumes of low levels of COCs. These COC plumes may need to be addressed by our public water supply systems before drinking water is sent out to the public. Our sandy soil with low levels of organic carbon have limited natural attenuation abilities, so that the treated sewage effluent will quickly move into our groundwater and from their to our surface waters. The sludge from this treatment process will contain adsorbed COCs which will generate a municipal solid waste (MSW) challenge if this sludge is to be converted to a value added product or the organic msw is composted. Thus an integrated response needs to address renewable energy; public water supplies; wastewater treatment and municipal solid wastes.
It would be useful if EPA’s Coming Together for Clean Water dialog could provide guidance for such an integrated approach, since I am sure that Cape Cod is not the only region in America facing these wastewater infrastructure upgrade challenges. We are already being impacted by climate change (natural environment and socioeconomic system), so that we need to find a way to make the transition to sustainability.
March 26th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I live and work in an area that has a large number of large dairy farms. I remember 15-20 years ago, before the advent of CAFO regulations and focused efforts by the farms to manage nutrient loss. Farm odor and run off losses were significantly greater than they are today. Technological advances, farmer and consultive nutrient planning and management, adequate regulatory oversight along with the farm communities desire to be good environmental citizens have all contributed to this success.
We are not perfect but progress is being made every day. The next opportunity would seem to be to insure that all farms (large and small animal farms as well as non-animal based crop farms) acurately manage all farm imputs to insure minimal nutrient losses.
March 26th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Another important aspect of nutrients and their relationship to water quality needs to be kept in mind in some watersheds. Some pollutants act to reduce the availability of essential nutrients (e.g. metals that are Ca utilization inhibitors can exacerbate the problem of anthropogenically reduced calcium by increasing peristalsis and reducing ability of salmon to obtain prey… thereby harming growth, health, and fitness of salmon smolt to survive when they move out into the marine environment). The salmon, then, do not return to provide marine-derived nutrient to fertilize the watershed to the degree that salmon had evolutionarily adapted to prehistorically. Coho salmon smolt size has been getting smaller and smaller across the range of the salmon, making them less fit to compete in the marine environment. In this important case, metals may be reducing nutrient that had been essential. While salmon, lamprey, and river mussels continue to decline, we avoid pointed investigation of these relationships… and continue to allow adding huge tonnages of lost lead fishing sinkers, boat anchors, and bullets, to low-calcium waters that grind them up in hydrologically active ‘mortar and pestle’ riverine potholes. Lead colloid and larger particulate can end up dissolving in fish gill and gut to directly dose fish and reduce fitness to survive in the ocean. Huge quantities of toxic metal paint flakes, from degrading railroad bridges, ‘feed’ salmon when they fall into the river resembling fishing lures. 303d lists do not relate to any of this. No agency responsible for water quality assessment has done adequate investigation, yet, many millions of dollars are readily spent on culvert replacements to increase fish passage to increase fish rearing habitat…. without adequate assessment to see whether or not the galvanization is poisoning the species of interest in the associated cool water refuge areas that are subject to anthropogenic acidification pressure increases locally. What’s up with that?
March 27th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
This is to respond to David Dow’s March 25 comment that stresses the need to move from septic systems to wastewater treatment plants to alleviate nutrient pollution. Dow also mentions emerging contaminants of concern (COCs) that have been identified in the treated effluent. He fails to point out, however, that sewage pollutants removed by wastewater treatment plants, primarily concentrate, not in the effluent, but in the resulting sludge.
Typical sewage from industrialized urban centers that enters sewage treatment plants contains not only pathogens from human waste, but tens of thousands of industrial chemicals, some of which are highly toxic and persistent. Current regulations permit every industry, institution and business, every month, to discharge 33 pounds of hazardous waste into sewage treatment plants. The regulations governing the land application of sewage sludge test and have standards for only nine toxic metals. For most of the the other industrial sludge chemicals, there are little toxicological data, especially not when these are mixed and interact with other contaminants and then spread on farms as “fertilizer.”
Is there really any point in EPA and communities spending billions to sewer communities and up-grade sewage treatment plants–which means more and dirtier sludge– only to then permit sludge, which contains most of the removed pollutants, to be returned to the environment where they are degrading ground water and farmland, and making people and animals sick?
The current regulations permit hundreds of tons of sludge and sludge mixtures to be deposited in spent sand and gravel pits, under the guise of “reclamation” and “soil manufacturing.” In the Northeast these sites are located above stratified drift aquifers, only a few feet away from the water table. There is no groundwater monitoring requirement. When water is tested at these sites–usually only after people complain or get sick–data almost always indicate that the culprit is sludge.
Eighty-four health, farm, and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, oppose using sludges as “fertilizer” and have urged EPA to choose alternative sludge disposal options that do not pollute water and degrade the land where we grow our food.
Here is the link to the Sierra Club policy: http://sierraclub.org/policy/conservation/LandApplicationSewageSludge.pdf
March 27th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
We have been asking EPA and Iowa DNR for legislation requiring Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to obtain NPEDES permits. Inevitably, there will be spills or leaks from these operations, resulting in fish kills and dangerous pollution in streams.
March 28th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
There are a lot of legacy pollutant problems on farmland where ‘bio solids’ and fertilizers contained amendments that included toxic metals. Levels of lead can become bioavailable to root crops under many circumstances, and can move up into fruit and leaf crops if a chealator chemical transports it. If fertilizers, biosolids, and legacy lead pesticide on old orchard sites also get applications of herbicides and pesticides, some chealators in the formulations may end up transporting the lead as an unintended consequence. Since lead is an accumulative toxic metal, and there is very little recent scientific literature that suggests a strong functional threshold of effects, should we not be more concrned and carefully test many potential exposure scenarios for agricultural crop contamination via these routes? Would it not be sensible to build up databases of ag cropland subject to these contaminations, and work to mitigate the problem sites for safety of the food chain?
Maybe Pogo was right… ‘we met the enemy…’
March 29th, 2010 at 10:05 am
TOPIC 2: MANAGINGING POLLUTANTS FROM NUTRIENTS
What critical elements need to be included in an effective nutrient strategy?
The most critical element is public education. My experience has shown that most people do not realize that nutrients are a problem, much less a pollutant. Most do not understand what nutrients are, where they come from. Shore front property owners don’t understand that the leaves they are raking off their shore front property into the lake are putting nutrients into th e lake. They don’t understand that over fertilizing their shore front lawns puts unused nutrients into the lake. They get up set with me when I require that the design to replace their failed septic system between their residence and the lake, to be located on the other side of their residence, which may require them to pump to that location, when they didn’t have to pump before. When it comes to nutrients, most point up the watershed to the farmers.
Farmers /Agriculture. The Ontario County Sioli & Water Conservation District implements the Agricultural Environmental Management (AEM) program. Again, this is an identified action of our Watershed Management Plan that I descibed under Topic 1. AEM is a farmer-led effort to promote and maintain farming as a profitalbe and environmentally sound enterprise within the Canandaigua Lake Watershed. The goal of AEM is to assist farmers to identify, implement and maintain “Best Management Practices” (BMP) suited to their individual farm, enhancing farm profiability and environmental quality. Cost shares are available through state funded grants. An Agricultural Advisory Committee made up of farmers prioritize funding of BMPs and recommended agency staff work.
Benefits of participating in AEM?
* Cost shares for planning and implementation
* Documentation of current conservation practices
* Complete control over any mamagement options chosen
* Expert assistance from trained Distrct staff
* Lake Friendly Farmer sign for qulified participants
Examples of BMPs implemented in the Canandaigua Lake Watershed:
* Stormwater diversion from barnyards
* Livestock water source developments
* Fuel storage and spill containments
* Pesticide storage and mixing areas
* Silage leachate management
* Milkhouse waste management
* Buffer strips and vegetative filter strips
* Manure management systems
* Rotational grazing enclosures
How should strategies differ for protecting healthy and functioning watersheds versous those that need to be significanlty restored due to precious pollution ?
In my opinion, there should be no difference. If a comprehensive Watershed Management Plan is implemented to clean up a polluted watershed, you don’t stop implementing because it is now clean. Given the varying and continual changing land use activities that can threaten a watershed, implementation of a Watershed Management Plan needs to be perpetual. The only thing that might change / differ would be what may be prioritized.
What has worked for your organization, state or tribe in controlliong nutrient pollution?
All I have described above.
What hasn’t?
Educating the elite. Many do not consider their one property is contrbuting any significant nutrients, even though they insist on maintaining a “golf course quality lawn” right up to the break wall or shoreline of their property. Many of them still put all the blame on the farmers even though the farmers are participating in AEM and implementing BMPs.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:25 am
It is time to stop treating CAFO’s as “agricultural” and start looking at them as industries. These large operations create more waste than small cities, and yet they are allowed to spread the waste without treatment. These operations are often the cause of fish kills. The operators often don’t follow the rules as to the amount that can be applied, or to the method of application onto the fields, and the result is that a large amounts of manure can enter streams and rivers. Treating CAFO’s as industries would require that they build small treatment plants to treat the waste, but the result would be a much cleaner environment around the CAFO’s and cleaner water.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Caroline Snyder makes a good point about emerging COCs (insoluble) accumulating in the sludge component during wastewater treatment and why these should not be applied on land/used for other value added products. On Cape Cod our municipal solid wastes (msw) are currently being sent off-Cape to a waste-to-energy (wte) incinerator in Rochester, Ma. This contract runs through 2015, after which a new msw contract will be sought by 14 of the 15 towns on Cape Cod. The Cape Cod Commission’s (CCC) Solid Waste Advisory Committee is considering the Bourne Landfill has a possible replacement option for the existing wte approach for addressing msw. The CCC is promoting increased recycling and source reduction as part of their msw strategy, along with composting of non-toxic organic wastes. These zero waste approaches are supported by local environmentalists.
Ms. Snyder’s comments provide support to the need for an integrated approach to wastewater infrastructure upgrades to address other issues beyond simply reducing nutrient loading. Unfortunately EPA and the Massa. Department of Environmental Protection which oversees our town Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plans (CWMP) are organized along lines that parallel their legislative mandates. Thus toxic COCs in wastewater effluent (water soluble) or sludge from centralized treatment plants are not addressed in the CWMPs. Their are no underlying state regulations for these chemicals in drinking water or sewage effluent.
Thus we are looking to EPA for leadership in this area. Under the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA has only examined 200 out of 82,000 chemicals in commerce for their toxicity, with bans only being implemented for a few contaminants: PCBs, DDT, etc. I would think that the Safe Drinking Water Act would be a more likely venue for regulating these emerging COCs. This approach was used by Ma. DEP for the Superfund cleanup at the Massa. Military Reservation where perchlorate (an endocrine disruptor) standards were developed for the cleanup. This is obviously a complex topic which would benefit from discussion by the experts at EPA’s Coming Together for Clean Water meeting.
March 29th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
EPA:
To help control nutrients, we need to get more help on-the-ground. I am aware of many people that just do not realize they are part of the problem. In today’s enviroment of informatiojn overload, that is hard to imagine but I am seeing it first hand. We need to help fund local watershed efforts that are making a true differnce if we are going to get a handle on cleaning up the nation’s waters
March 29th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
As a middle aged farmer in Kansas I have seen agriculture make many strides in the way crop nutrients are used. While the impetus has been mostly economic rather than altruistic the result is largely the same. Fertilizers have become the largest single expense incured by most in agriculture and applications in a way that lets them wash away is a very large waste of money. Most of us wish there was someway to grow crops without them but to remain sustainable nutrients must be replaced as the crops we harvest remove them. The agriculture boards on the internet carry many discussions about how the best ways to get as few nutrients down to where they are needed, when they are needed, as possible. While there is always room for improvment I worry about nutrient controls placed blindly across all types of situations without any regard to things like rainfall, soil type, and crop nutrient needs among others.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
For an effective nutrient strategy, we need to know what current levels of phosphorus and nitrogen are in the waters. That means that we need to have an effective and consistent baseline and monitoring approach in the waters.
We also need to be able to monitor inputs. Phosphorus at levels that can be in lake and stream waters is very difficult to test on site. It would help greatly to be able to have an effective, automated, affordable phosphorus test, if possible on site. Currently we need to mail frozen samples to only certain labs, for manual and therefore constrained and expensive analysis.
We also need numeric criteria. Too often we see regulations that say there shouldn’t be degradation, but that is very dependent upon the knowledge and determination of reviewers and the persuasiveness of the applicant or the agent.
Since septic systems are a widespread source of phosphorus and nitrogen, we need effective septic inspection or pumping regulations. It would be great if there were research and development of septic systems that could remove P and N from the effluent. Once developed, regulations should allow installation of these innovative septic technologies, especially in repair situations. Voluntary pumping and inspection hasn’t been effective locally. In addition, we need to better educate people about septic system function and maintenance. Just like any homeowner knows that a roof will eventually need to be replaced, we need to set expectations that eventually a septic system will need repair.
Furthermore, we need systemic thinking. In our lakeside community, we have a small community drinking water supply system. Because of when the homes were built and because of our water chemistry, there is some lead and copper that leaches out of the fixtures in a few homes. As a result, the Dept of Health mandated the addition of orthophosphate to the water supply for corrosion control. We have tried to find alternative treatments or approaches, but this is apparently one of the few chemicals approved by the EPA for this purpose. The irony is not lost to the community that we are adding approximately 100 pounds of P each year to the watershed. Unfortunately, we think this more than offsets all the voluntary curtailment of phosphorus use in fertilizer and dishwashing detergent. I feel it’s a grave mistake for the drinking water and the water protection units to be working at cross purposes. Further, it puts incredible stress on the people on the ground trying to do the right thing for both drinking water and lakes and streams.
In our community, we have a lot of dirt roads, dirt driveways, and dirt ditches. We also have a lot of culverts that fill up with dirt road runoff. After a rain, there’s often a lot of sediment transport into waters and wetlands. We need to do a better job of educating our highway department about dirt road management and the importance of seeding ditches. We need to educate our homeowners and local contractors about how to maintain driveways, for example to build water bars and water “kick-offs”, how to crown driveways and not worsen the dirt road conditions.
Again, we have to improve teamwork. In our area, the Department of Health installs larvacide in storm drains as an action against west nile. However, once the larvacides are installed, the highway department can’t clean out the catch basins. This means that catch basin maintenance is limited to a few weeks each spring. This isn’t sustainable.
Thanks to the EPA for asking for input via this forum!
March 30th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Trying to protect and improve water quality by trying to reduce or eliminate nonpoint sources of nutrients, without establishing protected riparian habitat along our rivers and lakes, is like trying to stay healthy by reducing or eliminating the bacteria around us without an immune system to protect us.
Establishing healthy, undisturbed riparian buffers along all of our rivers, streams, lakes and ponds is the single most important thing we can do to prevent excess nutrients from reaching our waters.
Please make the establishment and protection of riparian buffers throughout the nation a major focus and high priority of the USEPA!
March 31st, 2010 at 10:01 am
It’s interesting to note that the water quality in lakes and streams located in wilderness areas, national parks and remote areas is generally higher quality than lakes and streams in areas inhabited with people. Restrictions on access and activities in preserved areas seem to help prevent nutrient pollution. Also, people seem to accept the restrictions on access and activities in preserved areas. It’s hard to understand why we would allow unregulated access and activities near unpreserved water bodies when we know how to prevent nutrient pollution. This has put us as a society in a position of having impaired waters which cost more to restore than they would have cost to protect. The only approach we can take now is to invest in the costly restoration of impaired waters while preventing our high quality waters from becoming impaired. This may require preservation of more land and water with restrictions on human access and activities as population grows and pressure on water resources increase. We have demonstrated how to do this with parks, wilderness areas, and wellhead and drinking water source protection. These can be difficult and controversial decisions.
March 31st, 2010 at 10:20 am
Nutrient managment in the non-point source areana should be approached as all on-farm conservation programs have been:through voluntary cost-share programs. Huge improvements to water and soil quality have been made with the implementation of conservation practices across the country. No-till and minimum-till farming continue to grow and in concert with other runoff management practices. Futher implementation of these practices will continue to improve local and national water quality.
The limiting factor for implementation of water quality best management practices is budgetary. In Kansas, the use of state and federal cost-share dollars is prevalent amongst most farmers. However, the available dollars in these programs is not adequate to fund all of the projects proposed by producers. Demand far exceeds the available monies. Without the cost-share program funding it simply is not economically feasible to implement all the needed conservation practices by producers.
A command and control approach to nutrient management on agriculture production areas will produce increased food, fuel and fiber costs to the American consumer and will put the agriculture industry in economic jeopardy. Food production could be moved to other countries if nutrient management is implemented through a mandated regulatory mechanism.
Please consider working with local, state, and federal agenciens to increase the cost-share dollars available for nutrient management and increase awareness in the agriculture communinty. Lead with the carrot not with the stick.
March 31st, 2010 at 10:52 am
Farm Bureau supports state development of voluntary action plans to address agricultural nonpoint source nutrient issues. We believe that nutrient program goals and objectives can best be administered at the local level through soil and water conservation organizations, farm groups and their partners. Any EPA policies regarding nutrient issues must be backed by sound scientific research and give proper consideration to impacts on agriculture production.
Numerous nutrient reduction activities have been undertaken to address hypoxia and other nutrient concern, but federal and state resources have been insufficient to quickly address such dynamic issues. Any new federal monitoring, underlying scientific research, and resources to implement state nutrient reduction plans should be targeted toward the most effective nutrient reduction actions. Let the states determine the best actions for themselves.
Variability in weather dominates nutrient reduction strategies. Science suggests that current nutrient issues are not due to mismanagement of fertilizers and manures, but more to historic changes in land use and hydrology. The popular notion that nutrients in water are the result of the loss of “excess nutrients” from the soil implies that if there were no excess nutrients, losses would not occur.
The Corn Belt and Iowa have fertile soils and generally ample precipitation. It is also important to understand that for optimal crop production, university nutrient application recommendations are followed. As a result of weather variability, land use and hydrology changes, and crop nutrient demand, nutrient loss can still occur. Successful nutrient reduction programs are highly dependent on these complicated, inter-related factors.
Successful state and federal nutrient reduction strategies should recognize that:
•Cost-effective measures are different across different watersheds, and watershed residents should gain a good knowledge of their watersheds before adopting any control policies that have been promising elsewhere;
•Targeting different pollutants will mean different land use options, so it is important watersheds identify their needs before any policy discussions;
•Programs need to target nitrogen and phosphorus reductions;
•A recognition that aquatic life standards need to be accompanied by significant resources and given adequate time for implementation; and,
•A significant investment in monitoring and evaluation would enable us to be more strategic with our program implementation.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:47 am
During his campaign, President Obama promised stricter, effective Clean Water Act regulations to control Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) pollution. The current CAFO regulation, issued by EPA in 2008, has major loopholes that render it ineffective to deal with nutrient pollution from CAFOs. Here are major revisions that should be made to CAFO regulations to control nutrient pollution:
1. The 2008 regulation allows CAFOs to “self-certify” that they will not discharge pollution, with no notice to the public of this self-certification. The regulation should be revised so that Large-Scale CAFOs and those Mid-sized CAFOs that land apply CAFO manure and waste should not be allowed to “self-certify” that they do not discharge pollutants. EPA should establish a regulatory presumption that these CAFOs do discharge. CAFO owner/operators should be required to show to regulators and the public the CAFO design and management measures that they claim will result in no discharges of pollutants. Also, any CAFO that has had discharge must be required to obtain a Clean Water Act permit.
2. The current EPA regulation focuses on nutrients from land-applied CAFO manure and waste but does not adequately deal with heavy metals, antibiotic residues in the waste and pathogens, including antibiotic resistant pathogens that can develop when livestock and poultry are given antibiotics to promote growth. The regulation should be revised to protect water quality and the public health from these pollutants.
3. Under the current EPA regulation, if a CAFO transfers manure and other CAFO waste to another entity for land application, the CAFO has no further liability for water pollution from the CAFO waste. The CAFO regulations should ensure that both the CAFO and the entity receiving the CAFO manure and waste are required to apply the manure and waste in accordance with an effective CAFO waste management plan that addresses nutrients and other pollutants in CAFO manure and waste.
4. Many CAFOs are operated by farmers under contract to large livestock and poultry processing companies in a system that is vertically integrated. These companies may determine how the CAFOs are designed and operated and many retain the right under the contract to take over the operation of the CAFO. These companies – the “vertical integrators” – should be made co-permittees on the CAFO Clean Water Act permits.
5. In many regions, CAFOs which together confine thousands of cows or hogs or millions of chickens are packed together in a single watershed, often watersheds that are already degraded by nutrient pollution. The EPA Clean Water Act permit process should include a watershed level assessment to determine the amount of CAFO manure and waste that can be land-applied in a watershed and set limits and restrictions on the number of CAFOs in watersheds that are impaired by nutrient pollutants.
6. CAFOs emit numerous pollutants into the air, especially ammonia, that are subsequently deposited into water bodies. EPA should control this deposition of nutrient air pollution into water.
7. In addition to surface water pollution, CAFO manure and waste can pollute groundwater that serves as a source of drinking water in many rural communities. Nitrate levels from this contamination can exceed the safe levels for drinking water and is especially harmful to children and pregnant women. In addition, families dependent on groundwater have been sickened by contamination of their drinking water by CAFO pathogens. EPA and state regulators should address groundwater, as well as surface water contamination by nutrients.
8. The U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment Program is the most important long-term national survey of trends in the nation’s water quality. Along with the Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, it provides one of the best assessments of the health of our nation’s waters. We need this critical information to assess the effectiveness of the Clean Water Act in protecting our waters and public health from nutrient pollution and other pollutants.
But the National Water Quality Assessment Program has been reduced from 500 sites in 1991 to 113 in 2010 of which only 12 are monitored every year and 86 are monitored only every 4 years. In 2002, a National Research Council review of the program found that some substantive national coverage had been lost to previous funding reduction and that, “NAWQA cannot continue to be downsized and still be considered the national water quality assessment that the nation needs.”
The Obama Administration work for increased funding for the program with a goal of restoring the National Water Quality Assessment Program to its scope in 1991.
March 31st, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Nutrients and sediment are the nations primary water quality problem and agriculture is the primary source now that most of the other significant sources are regulated. If we want to protect and restore our WQ then we need to get real about and regulate it accordingly. This isn’t about science – we know what’s happening to our water. This is all about political will. The misconception by Agriculture is that mandatory BMPs and regulation will put them out of business. There are ways to do this that can maintain or increase profits for those doing the right thing for the environment and that punishes the polluter. A polluter is a polluter whether he is sitting behind a desk running a dirty factory or if he is a farmer discharging tons of nutrients and sediment into our waterways. I feel that most farmers and farm corporations will want to do the right thing as long as their bottom line is protected. We simply have to have the will to put together and pass a package that will do the job. I think it is time to intoduce the 2010 version of the Clean Water Act. FYI – I am not against agriculture, I farm. I just want to see our nations waters restored.
March 31st, 2010 at 1:22 pm
We look forward to participating in this dialogue. In the meantime, below are some detailed thoughts about nutrients in particular.
Today, nutrient pollution is pervasive and pernicious. According to EPA, of assessed waters, nutrients are connected directly or indirectly to 51% of impaired river and stream miles, 52% of impaired lake acres, and 58% of impaired square miles of bays and estuaries. U.S. EPA, An Urgent Call to Action: Report of the State-EPA Nutrient Innovations Task Group, at 5-6 (Aug. 2009), available at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteria/nutrient/nitgreport.pdf (hereinafter “Urgent Call”). Nutrients contribute to a host of water quality problems, including causing an overabundance of algal growth and resulting low oxygen levels (such as the mammoth hypoxic, or “dead,” zone in the Gulf of Mexico), nitrate toxicity to infants, diminishment of aquatic community structure and function, and harmful – even toxic – algal blooms.
These problems call for a suite of strategies aimed at addressing the various sources of nutrient pollution. Many of those strategies do not require new legal authority, and should be implemented right away.
1. EPA must ensure that States adopt comprehensive numeric nutrient criteria.
As the agency knows well, water quality standards that adequately protect waters’ designated uses are critical to the proper functioning of the Clean Water Act’s regulatory structure. However, numeric nutrient water quality standards are largely absent in critical waterways across the country. EPA’s own internal watchdog, the Office of Inspector General (OIG), recently found that states and EPA had failed to make needed progress in establishing numeric nutrient standards; as of last year, half the states had no numeric criteria whatsoever, and many other states lacked such standards for whole categories of water bodies. In the Mississippi basin, the news is worse. Of the ten States that contributed the most nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico, only one — Tennessee — had any kind of numeric standard, and seven of the ten States responsible for the most phosphorus delivery to the Gulf had no numeric standards. U.S. EPA, Office of Inspector General, EPA Needs to Accelerate Adoption of Numeric Nutrient Water Quality Standards, Report No. 09-P-0223 (Aug. 26, 2009) (introductory section titled “At A Glance”).
The absence of numeric criteria is not an academic problem. Numeric standards are the foundation for clean-up plans when the standards are not met, and they help State water officials determine how much pollution a given industrial or municipal discharger must remove from its waste stream. Given these functions, one can easily see the benefit of a numeric standard, as opposed to the alternative — a narrative standard. While water quality officials can take a numeric standard (X milligrams per liter, for instance) and establish regulatory requirements aimed at achieving that number, it is far harder to write a cleanup plan or a discharge limit to address narrative prohibitions. For example, some States prohibit unnatural levels of algae, but figuring out how much is natural and how much is unnatural is very subjective, and that kind of ambiguity often leads State regulators to throw up their hands and do nothing.
As former Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin Grumbles wrote in 2007, there are several benefits from numeric standards:
• easier and faster development of TMDLs;
• quantitative targets to support trading programs ;
• easier to write protective NPDES permits ;
• increased effectiveness in evaluating success of nutrient runoff minimization programs ; and
• measurable, objective water quality baselines against which to measure environmental progress .
Memorandum from Benjamin H. Grumbles, EPA Assistant Administrator for Water, to Directors, State Water Programs, et al., at 2 (May 25, 2007). EPA is required to promulgate water quality standards where states fail to issue necessary standards. 33 U.S.C. 1313(c)(4). Given the myriad benefits of numeric nutrient standards, the failure of narrative standards to protect the nation’s waters from various nutrient-related harms, and the repeated calls that EPA has made to states to get numeric standards in place, EPA cannot credibly argue that these requirements are not necessary to achieve the mandates of the Clean Water Act, and thus must either ensure that states adopt numeric standards immediately, or promulgate federal standards.
2. For interstate waters or waters affected by interstate nutrient pollution, such as the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, EPA must establish the necessary water quality standards and the total maximum daily loads to assure the attainment of those standards.
It is bad enough that EPA has failed to make sure that states safeguard their own waters from the effects of nutrient pollution, but the agency has failed even more egregiously when it comes to interstate nutrient pollution. The OIG report on numeric standards indicates that one reason for state failures to set standards for their waters is that cleaning up nutrient pollution might lead to tougher restrictions on certain businesses, which could be politically unpopular. In the same vein, the report found that States essentially disregarded downstream impacts (like the Dead Zone) in the standard-setting process, even though federal regulations require states to consider such effects. See 40 C.F.R. § 131.10(b) (“In designating uses of a water body and the appropriate criteria for those uses, the State shall take into consideration the water quality standards of downstream waters and shall ensure that its water quality standards provide for the attainment and maintenance of the water quality standards of downstream waters.”). One can imagine that it is hard to convince decisionmakers in Iowa, Indiana, or Illinois that they need to strictly control in-state sources of pollution that cause harm off the Louisiana coast.
The IG’s solution is basic — EPA must lead where the States have fallen behind. The agency has the authority to establish necessary standards when States do not, and EPA can better withstand parochial political pressures. The IG recommends that EPA identify “significant waters of national value” that need numeric standards, and establish the standards, taking into account the needs of downstream waters. We agree; the agency should promptly develop numeric criteria for the Mississippi, its tributaries, and the Gulf of Mexico. In July of 2008, several organizations petitioned EPA to promulgate necessary numeric standards and total maximum daily load (TMDL) clean up plans – and showed with particularity the need for such leadership in the Mississippi basin. EPA has not taken action on that petition. See Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy et al., Petition for Rulemaking Under the Clean Water Act: Numeric Water Quality Standards for Nitrogen and Phosphorus and TMDLs for the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico at 55-69 (July 30, 2008), available at http://www.elpc.org/documents/NutrientPetitionFINAL.pdf.
The OIG report and the groups’ petition are consistent with a prior report of the National Research Council, which faulted EPA’s lack of leadership when it came to implementing the Clean Water Act along the Mississippi River. The report labeled the river an “orphan” from the standpoint of pollution monitoring and assessment, and identified several ways in which EPA could help bring about positive change, including by developing needed standards and TMDLs. See generally McKnight Foundation Environment Program, User’s Guide: Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act, available at http://www.mcknight.org/files/pdfs/MSWQCWA_user_guide.pdf.
The agency should promptly grant this petition and get about the business of getting standards and pollution reduction plans in place that will protect and clean up these critical national resources.
3. EPA must update its published information about the capabilities of “secondary treatment” and specifically consider the inclusion of nutrient controls in the generally-applicable requirements for publicly owned treatment works.
Municipal sewage contains significant nutrient pollution. In some watersheds, publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) are important contributors to the nutrient load. For example, according to EPA’s discussion document for this forum, municipal wastewater sources discharge 21% and 25% of the phosphorus and nitrogen, respectively, to the Chesapeake Bay. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Discussion Document: Coming Together for Clean Water, available at http://blog.epa.gov/waterforum/discussion-document/. In large part, however, these facilities have not been called upon to reduce their nutrient pollution; according to a recent in-depth analysis of the nutrient problem and potential solutions, “[o]f more than 16,500 municipal POTWs nationwide, approximately 4 percent have numeric limits for nitrogen and 9.9 percent for phosphorus.” Urgent Call at 14 (citations omitted).
EPA has authority under the Clean Water Act to require POTWs to treat their effluent to remove nutrients. In particular, such facilities must achieve pollution control achievable by “secondary treatment,” as defined by EPA, and the agency is required to update the information available about the pollution control capabilities of “secondary treatment” periodically. See 33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(b)(1)(B) & 1314(d)(1). EPA is long overdue in its obligation to update this information, and should do so promptly and include nutrient control in its assessment of the capability of plants. Indeed, when a task force of key state and EPA water pollution control officials recently issued a report on tools to combat nutrient pollution, they identified five tools having “the most promise to reduce nutrient loadings and therefore judged to have the highest overall effectiveness,” and the list included establishing “technology treatment requirements for nutrients and thereby establish[ing] technology based limits for NPDES point sources that discharge nutrients to water — update secondary treatment requirements.” See Urgent Call at C-6 (emphasis added).
EPA has a pending petition from NRDC, the Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest, the Sierra Club, the Waterkeeper Alliance, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Midwest Environmental Advocates, the Prairie Rivers Network, the Iowa Environmental Council, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, American Rivers, and the Gulf Restoration Network, on this very topic. The petition demands that EPA update its published information about the capabilities of “secondary treatment” and specifically urges the agency to consider the inclusion of nutrient controls in the generally-applicable requirements for publicly owned treatment works. NRDC et al., Petition for Rulemaking Under the Clean Water Act: Secondary Treatment Standards for Nutrient Removal (Nov. 27, 2007). That petition, filed in November 2007, should be promptly granted and the standards should be revised in short order.
4. EPA must better control pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations.
As it has done with POTWs, EPA has also failed to adequately address nutrient pollution from another category of point source nutrient polluters: concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Also like POTWs, the sector can be far better controlled via regulatory changes, and we respectfully request that EPA take steps to revisit the rule concerning the Clean Water Act permitting requirements and effluent limitation guidelines for these animal factories, which the Bush administration adopted in its waning months. 73 Fed. Reg. 70,418 (Nov. 20, 2008). Please note that this rule is presently in litigation, and NRDC is one of the parties that petitioned for review of the rule. National Pork Producers Council v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 08-61093 & consolidated cases (5th Cir.). However, these changes need not await the resolution of that case.
The Bush administration rule primarily relies on CAFO operators making their own judgments about whether facilities will discharge. If a CAFO operator concludes that the facility will not discharge, then s/he can elect not to seek a pollution control permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program, subject to little or no oversight by permitting authorities. This approach is a dramatic reversal of the policy embodied in the 2003 CAFO rule, in which the agency required all large CAFOs with the “potential to discharge” to apply for a NPDES permit. EPA believed such a strategy was necessary because of inadequate Clean Water Act compliance by the industry and because of the intermittent nature of CAFO discharges.
Although a court invalidated the “potential to discharge” approach, it made clear that EPA’s conclusion that large CAFOs should be subject to enhanced oversight was well-founded. In particular, the court said, “EPA has marshaled evidence suggesting that such a prophylactic measure may be necessary to effectively regulate water pollution from Large CAFOs, given that Large CAFOs are important contributors to water pollution and that they have, historically at least, improperly tried to circumvent the permitting process.” Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. v. U.S. EPA, 399 F.3d 486, 506 n. 22 (2d Cir. 2005). Crucially, the court’s decision left EPA with many legal tools to require CAFOs to obtain pollution control permits or demonstrate that they will not discharge. We strongly urge you to exercise that authority in an improved rule, as the history of this issue makes it unreasonable to rely on CAFO operators to properly determine whether facilities require permits, and we seriously question whether agency enforcement resources are adequate to ensure full compliance with the permitting requirement.
A second reason to revisit this rule is that it perpetuates a mistake made in the 2003 rule, namely an overbroad interpretation of an exemption in the Clean Water Act for “agricultural stormwater.” This decision denies permitting authorities the ability to meaningfully control significant pollution from a CAFO’s land application area under the Act, and is more pernicious today in light of the permitting approach reflected in the final rule. The land application area is an integral part of a CAFO, which is a statutorily-defined point source; accordingly, any discharges from this area should be considered regulated point source releases. Moreover, exempting a significant part of a facility’s discharge from the Clean Water Act makes it easier for an operator to evade the permitting requirement which, as discussed above, EPA previously tried to make it harder to do.
Finally, EPA has the discretion under the Act to identify which facilities constitute “CAFOs,” and therefore are “point sources” under the law. See 33 U.S.C. § 1362(14). The agency can bring more facilities into the permitting system by adopting lower animal number thresholds to trigger treatment as a CAFO and it also can tighten the requirements for on-site nutrient management. We strongly urge EPA to do so. The agency is considering doing this very thing in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. See U.S. EPA, Rulemaking Gateway, Revised Regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed (action not yet proposed), available at http://yosemite.epa.gov/opei/rulegate.nsf/byRIN/2040-AF20. Moreover, EPA has already threatened to employ a variant of this strategy in the Chesapeake region, as one of the potential consequences for states’ failure to develop required plans or make satisfactory progress toward needed reductions of nutrients and sediment. See Letter from Shawn M. Garvin, Regional Administrator, EPA Region III, to L. Preston Bryant, Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources, at p. 8, encl. B (Dec. 29, 2009) (“The NPDES permitting regulations . . . authorize the Regional Administrator to designate any Animal Feeding Operation (AFO) as a CAFO upon determining that it is a significant contributor of pollutants to waters of the United States.”), available from http://www.epa.gov/chesapeakebaytmdl/.
5. EPA must work to ensure that known nutrient sinks, like headwater streams and wetlands, are fully covered by the pollution control programs of the CWA.
Scientists have found that wetlands and small streams are capable of removing nutrient pollution before it pollutes major waterways. As even the Bush White House explained, wetlands in the Mississippi River Basin “retain nitrates and phosphates that would otherwise drain from adjacent farmlands.” See White House, Fact Sheet: Protecting, Improving, and Restoring Our Wetlands (Oct. 29, 2008), available at http://knowledge.fhwa.dot.gov/ReNEPA/ReNepa.nsf/9ba8442069238e44852568fe00708985/10f543637c64ad1f852574f1006ea0a3?OpenDocument. The administration also noted that ensuring that nutrients pass through such features “will help reduce the size of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico and provide habitat, flood protection, and clean drinking water.” The obvious upshot of that conclusion is that these resources ought to be protected from harm as much as possible.
For many years, the federal Clean Water Act had protected small streams and wetlands from unregulated pollution or destruction. However, this has changed significantly since the Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions about what kinds of aquatic features are considered “waters of the United States,” protected by the law. Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs (“SWANCC”), 531 U.S. 159 (2001); Rapanos v. U.S., 547 U.S. 715 (2006). Since then, the federal agencies charged with implementing the Act have given unclear guidance about what kinds of water bodies remain protected, and have effectively written off roughly 20 percent of the wetlands in the continental U.S. Courts also have struggled to figure out what kinds of resources are still covered.
As a result, many of our country’s smaller streams and wetlands are at risk of being polluted or even buried by mining companies, developers, industrial wastewater sources and others without so much as a Clean Water Act permit to limit the effect that the activity will have on aquatic resources. And that could lead to additional nutrient pollution that contributes to the Dead Zone, either as a direct result of now-unregulated discharges or because of the destruction of aquatic features that would trap nutrients before they moved downstream. NRDC issued a report in October 2008, which brings together recent information about nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River Basin and Gulf of Mexico, how it relates to the Supreme Court decisions that have made it more difficult to protect resources in the basin that help reduce this pollution, and provides a roadmap for safeguarding these resources under the law. NRDC, Missing Protection: Polluting the Mississippi River Basin’s Small Streams and Wetlands (Oct. 2008) http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/msriver/contents.asp.
EPA knows this problem well. Administrator Jackson has personally spoken about the loss of Clean Water Act protections as a key problem to the implementation of the law today, and the heads of several agencies, including EPA, wrote a letter last May that stressed the importance of fixing this problem legislatively, and the critical need to restore broad protections to features throughout the watershed. As the agencies stated, “[a]ll of the environmental and economic benefits that these aquatic ecosystems provide are at risk if some elements are protected and others are not.” Letter from Nancy Sutley, Chair, Council on Environmental Quality, et al., to Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman, Environment and Public Works Committee, at 2 (May 20, 2009).
As the agency recognizes, only Congress can fully and certainly restore the law’s safeguards to our water bodies; unless legislation, like the pending Clean Water Restoration Act, is adopted, the critical resources that help reduce nutrient pollution will be further jeopardized. EPA must work with leaders in Congress to ensure that proposed legislation fully accomplishes the goal of restoring protections to previously-protected waters, and must make a concerted effort to make information public about the kinds of resources at risk because of the decisions.
6. EPA should work with USDA, and with states implementing the section 319 program, to track the implementation of agricultural management practices and systematically monitor their success or failure, so as to create a knowledge base that can be used in future regulatory and funding programs.
Of course, a significant amount of the nutrient pollution in many watersheds is attributable to agricultural runoff, which is poorly controlled under the Clean Water Act, as it currently exists. Leaders in Congress are beginning to look at strengthening the Act’s requirements to ensure that states in the Chesapeake Bay region fully address all sources of nutrients, see, e.g., H.R. 3852 & S. 1816, and we believe this kind of approach is justified for the Bay as well as other watersheds, such as the Mississippi Basin. Certainly, in those watersheds (like the Mississippi) where agricultural runoff constitutes the vast majority of the nutrient pollution, we believe that actually achieving water quality goals will require an enhanced regulatory approach. In the meantime, however, EPA should step up its efforts to catalog and measure the effectiveness of management practices that can reduce the nutrient pollution from lands in agricultural production.
Under section 319 of the Clean Water Act and under various Farm Bill conservation programs (especially as some of those programs support the recently-launched Mississippi River Basin Initiative), federal funds are available for the implementation of projects that are designed to reduce agricultural water pollution. To ensure that these projects provide the most benefit, and to identify those kinds of projects that can be replicated to good effect in other places, we believe that critical information about individual projects should be tracked, and the water quality impacts of them should be monitored. EPA can implement this approach directly under the section 319 program, and it should work closely with USDA to make it an essential piece of conservation program projects aimed at reducing nutrient pollution. Such a recommendation would help address a concern identified by the National Research Council, which found: “A stronger commitment to performance-based, farm-level conservation actions and water quality monitoring will be necessary to reduce the extent of northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxia. Most current nutrient control efforts, which are made possible by USDA land and water conservation programs that promote use of best management practices . . ., are not closely monitored, if at all.” National Research Council, Nutrient Control Actions for Improving Water Quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico, at 23 (Dec. 11, 2008) (prepublication copy).
March 31st, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Excess phosphorus and nitrogen come from agricultural runoff, the discharge of untreated sewage, and the use of phosphorus-based fertilizers and detergents at home. Plants, particularly algae, thrive on abundant sources of nitrogen and phosphorus. While algae is an important and necessary component of any aquatic ecosystem when present in the right quantity, nuisance algal blooms can be harm water quality and impair recreational enjoyment of beaches in the Great Lakes. The discharge of these nutrients into the water may also be connected to the dead zone in Lake Erie.
In 1998, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its national strategy for helping states develop and adopt numeric water quality standards for phosphorous and nutrients. In May 2007, EPA reaffirmed the need for the states to adopt numeric nutrient water quality standards for all state waters and for EPA to assist states with that effort.
While some states have adopted numeric criteria for phosphorus and nitrogen in the open waters of the Great Lakes, other states in the Great Lakes region have still not adopted numeric standards and phosphorous/nutrients continue to negatively affect water quality. In addition, EPA has not clarified how states should address situations where existing phosphorus and nutrient standards for Great Lakes waters are exceeded in nearshore areas. With the recent increased interest in and funding for the Great Lakes, the development and enforcement of numeric water quality standards for phosphorus and nutrients in the Great Lakes watershed is needed more than ever.
The Alliance for the Great Lakes has urged Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio to more seriously address their algae problems by setting more stringent nutrient budgets and phosphorus limits to control algae growth, including algae-ridden waters on their lists of impaired waters so they can receive appropriate attention, evaluating the recreational damages resulting from algae-infested waters and beaches, and making their lists of impaired waters more readily available to the public. (Alliance letters to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio are available online at: http://www.greatlakes.org/algae) Unfortunately, the absence of numeric phosphorus and nutrient water quality standards for tributaries that feed into the Great Lakes limits the ability of these states to act.
EPA urgently needs to ensure that Great Lakes states set numeric standards for phosphorus and nutrients in all states that have not done so and provide recommendations for enforcing the numeric standards in each state, including reviewing existing data on sources of nutrient pollution and measures to reduce this pollution from both sewage plants and nonpoint sources such as agriculture.
March 31st, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Nutrient pollution is a national priority and even more so a priority to the Gulf of Mexico Region, with the obvious example of the massive Dead Zone that forms at the mouth of the Mississippi River each Summer. In order to fix this problem there are several things that need to happen:
1. EPA must set a firm deadline for each state to promulgate numeric Nitrogen and Phosphorus criteria. I commend EPA’s efforts in Florida, but if EPA takes states one at a time, we are not willing to wait 100 years for numeric criteria in all of the states.
2. The Hypoxia Taskforce, if it is to become effective, must have firm deadlines, interim goals, and penalties or dis-incentives if goals are not reached. I have observed the Taskforce for the last 5 years and have become extremely frustrated with the process. We need a real plan that will require the states to seriously address the Dead Zone problem, as well as local nutrient pollution throughout the Mississippi River Basin.
3. Any new or expanding dischargers that emit N and P should have minimum required limits, based on current innovative technologies, not technologies decades old.
4. Nutrient TMDLS have to have real reductions in point sources, as well as assurance that reductions to non-point pollution will be achieved. I have seen too many TMDLs that allocate all of the pollution to non-point with no real plan to make the needed non-point reductions. Additionally some states allow new or expanded dischargers in impaired waters. EPA should not allow this.
5. EPA must enforce antidegradation policies in each state, to ensure that clean waters are not killed by a thousand cuts.
The time to act on nutrient pollution is now. EPA must be a leader, and not let the states make excuses.
March 31st, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I live in the Northwest Arkansas region where there is an ongoing “conversation” about phosphorus in the Illinois River. Municipalities are being required to upgrade their wastewater treatment facilities in order to reduce the phosphorus levels in the watershed. This is a point source method for addressing the problem even though the existing wastewater treatment facility is already one of the most efficient in the country. It would be much more effective to allow the communities to address non-point source pollution through the use of LID practices throughout the watersheds in which they are located. Programs that reduce non-point source pollution (LID ordinances, riparian zone ordinances, stream restorations, watershed education programs, improved inspection and enforcement programs) would be more effective than only targeting the point source polluters. Please consider the watershed scale sources of pollutants prior to mandating upgrades on wastewater treatment facilities. In the long run, this would reduce more pollutants and would not be so expensive for taxpayers. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Farm Bureau supports the concept of cleaning up our nation’s waters with a focus of meeting fishable and swimmable standards. It is important that EPA recognize that efforts to regulate agriculture in a manner that sets unattainable standards or places undo financial burdens on farmers, will ultimately not help EPA meet the objectives of the Clean Water Act.
As EPA moves forward to protect water resources, it is vitally important the agency recognize that 98 percent of America’s farms and ranches are operated by families; families who live and work on the land to provide food for our country. Our members strive to protect the natural resources that provide for their livelihood and seek to leave those natural resources in better condition than they received them in hopes of creating a future for the next generation of agriculturalists. It is in that vein that we encourage EPA to view America’s farmers and ranchers as partners, not as adversaries, in a broader effort to protect the quality of our nations waters.
Voluntary, incentive based approaches to conservation are vital to protecting water quality. Programs administered at the local level with buy-in from local people and the farming community, are the best way to meet the goals of the Clean Water Act.
It is important to note that the Clean Water Act does not give EPA the authority to regulate nonpoint source pollution controls as that power is vested with the states. For those reasons, Farm Bureau opposes any attempts by EPA to dictate specific practices and to place regulations to control nonpoint source pollution. To help move forward in addressing nonpoint water quality concerns in a fashion that is more compatible with farming interests, we recommend: (1) Nonpoint source programs that emphasize a voluntary, incentive-based approach; (2) Targeting efforts to address nonpoint runoff and improving water quality to impaired watersheds using a “worst case first” approach; (3) Providing federal funding adequate to develop site-specific information, technical assistance, cost-sharing for local programs. (4) Utilizing best management or accepted agriculture practices that are developed locally with farmer involvement.
Furthermore, we believe BMPs should be used as an alternative to numerical standards to more effectively address the point and nonpoint sources of pollution which can greatly vary in a regional watershed.
In closing, we encourage EPA to move forward with strategies that empower local people to take ownership and responsibility in helping protect water quality. As part of that process we believe EPA would be better served to recognize the positive role farmers and ranchers can play in meeting the objectives of the Clean Water Act and to work with them in a collaborative fashion to protect our water resources and the people who provide food for America.
We appreciate the agency’s consideration of these comments.
March 31st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
EPA should continue to advocate for the adoption of numeric nutrient water quality criteria into state standards to better manage excess nutrient enrichment in surface waters. Emphasis should be on load-based TMDLs for nutrients.
March 31st, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Nebraska Farmers go to great lengths to ensure proper application and utiliziation of nutrients on their farm fields, regardless of whether such products are commercial fertilizers or organic fertilizer collected as manure from livestock farms. Fertilizer nutrients play a pivitol role in the enuring a viable farming operation and proper application and utilziation are key to farmers in this regard, not only from a financial perspective, but an environmental perspective.
EPA rules and regulations clearly define the responsibilty of livestock farmers in how nutrients are managed on farm. In addition to regualtory requirements, farmers have adopted numerous practices, including the establishment of grassed waterways and buffers to protect soil quality and to keep nutrients where targeted in farm fields.
Farm Bureau supports voluntary action to address agricultural nonpoint source nutrient issues. We believe that nutrient program goals and objectives can best be administered at the local level. Any EPA policies regarding nutrient issues must be backed by sound scientific research and give proper consideration to impacts on agriculture production.
As EPA moves forward to protect water resources, it is vitally important the agency recognize that 98 percent of America’s farms and ranches are operated by families; families who live and work on the land to provide food for our country. Our members strive to protect the natural resources that provide for their livelihood and seek to leave those natural resources in better condition than they received them in hopes of creating a future for the next generation of agriculturalists. It is in that vein that we encourage EPA to view America’s farmers and ranchers as partners, not as adversaries, in a broader effort to protect the quality of our nations waters.
March 31st, 2010 at 4:10 pm
In urban areas the total flow in receiving streams and rivers often includes a significant amount of treated wastewater, and in fact there are a whole category of streams that are referred to as effluent dominated. In such systems, wastewater effluent is an important source of nutrients.
In less developed areas wastewater discharges comprise only a fraction of the total flow in the receiving water and typically similar small component of the total nutrient load. For example, in Lake Champlain the discharges for wastewater treatment plant (located in Vermont, New York, and Quebec) total roughly 75 million gallons per day, or slightly over 100 cubic hectometers per year. By contrast the total flow out of Lake Champlain annually is approximately 9000 cubic hectometers. In short, treated wastewater accounts for slightly more than 1% of all of the water in Lake Champlain.
Wastewater treatment facility upgrades often compete for the same funding (federal, state, and local) available for non-point source pollution abatement projects. In a system, such as Lake Champlain, where nutrient loads are dominated by non-point (non-wastewater) sources, how should the appropriate level of treatment for wastewater treatment facilities? Further in the context of a TMDL, how should the wasteload allocation for such facilities be determined?
March 31st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Sewer sludge should not be permitted to be spread on farmland. Toxic waste and chemicals dumped on our foodsource? Insane.
March 31st, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Many of my comments have been addressed by others, but as someone who is working directly on the issue at a State level, I felt compelled to chime in. The following are a few things that could be done at the Federal Level to move the process forward.
Monitoring & Assessment
- R&D funding into probes to obtain and store high frequency data. These are neccesary to understand loads associated with snow melt, which can contribute significantly to nutrient loads.
- Evaluation and promulgation of new laboratory methods to improve detection limits and the precision of nutrient data. Without more precise data it will be difficult to identify contributions from individual sources or evaluate BMP effectiveness.
- Develop methods and models that predict background concentrations by combining reference water chemistry data with watershed lithology.
- As was done with biological assessment programs, encourage states to develop “functional” indicators of stream conditions. Such programs are being developed in Europe and New Zealand. streams that are becoming degraded by nutrients. Also, these data are relatively inexpensive to collect and may be better indicators than biota in identifying nutrient-related problems.
- We need to have a policy that clearly provides a mechanism for addressing situations where achieving critieria that are ecologically needed via PS controls is simply not possible, especially under the current paradigm where NPS controls are voluntary.
- Nutrients are retained in sediments and released through time. As a result, lag times in ecological responses should be anticipated following implementation of nutrient controls. Little is known about how long recovery takes, but the few studies that address this suggest years to decades. This does not mean that we should continue to let things get worse, however we clearly need to set reasonable expectations among our stakeholders!
With regard to standards development…
- It would be useful to have clear and direct guidance on the specific information needed for an “approveable” site-specific nutrient criteria. If there were clear and consistent “rules” to this game then it would be easier to address concerns raised by facilities about not adequately considering local conditions. Facilities who disagree with more broadly applicable criteria could be encouraged to work with thie State to collect the requisite data. This would be a MUCH better use of resources than defending lawsuits.
- EPA should promulgate national, technology-based, effluent limits for nutrients that take into account the economic impact to communities.
- Ultimately, the failing infastructure issue will need to be addressed. EPA could encourage voluntary incorporation of nutrient controls by identifying funds to address this issue, and then requiring that facilities who want to use these funds implement “reasonable” nutrient controls.
- A national variance policy would be useful that establishes a reasonable approach for plant upgrades, taking into account the the available technology and funds available for facility modifications. This plan should also consider that in some cases, the expenses for PS nutrient reductions are simply not justified by the relative contribution to the stream (i.e., cost:benefit considerations).
On the Non-point Source Issue…
- I agree that detailed research into BMP effectiveness, translated into a model that takes into account local conditions (i.e., ditance to waterbody, underlying lithoilogy, hillslope) would be useful. Such a tool would be even more effective if it was tied to funding sources (not just EPA, but USDA as well). For instance matches could be adjusted depending on the relative threat to water quality by the resource.
- EPA’s current approach to monitoring NPS (319) projects is a major waste of limited resources. While I agree that we need more accountability, not less. It is simply not reasonable (given sample frequency and sample variability) to expect to see water quality responses at the scale in which they are typcially implemented. Accountability, and NPS “success stories” should be tied to whether projects are implemented properly and maintained.
- Related to the previous point, we need better methods of identifying problems causes by individual facilities. In my experience most farmers genuinely see themselves a good stewards of the land–and many are– so getting more action will require showing producers that they are causing problems.
- NPS programs can not be exclusively voluntary if they are too be effective. While voluntary compliance is important, there must be a point where regulatory action is needed. EPA has started moving in this direction with their new AFO rules. Similarly, we could start by requiring permits for opperations that use >XXX lbs of nutrients/year unless they can demonstrate that they have developed and implemented a nutrient management plan.
- There has been much talk about CAFOs, but this dialogue fails to acknoledge problems associated with range animals, which can often be a major concern in the western USA.
On other issues…
- I completely agree with the commentor who suggested the need for information on ecosystem services. The costs of nutrient removal will be high– >1.5 billion in our relatively small state just to upgrade the mechanical POTWs– and we owe it to taxpayers to show them that these dollars are well spent. We need to know the economic benfits of nutrient removal and the costs of the status quo. It would be great if tools (models) could be generated that allow the benefits of nutrient removal to be calibrated in a state-specific way. After all, this is the scale at which decisions are made.
I fully realize that I have made far too many suggestions than may be praticle to implement over the short term, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I think that it is completly appropriate for EPA and States to make addressing nutrients a priority. Numerous studies point toward nutrients as one of the greates threats to our waters. Addressing nutrient pollution will remain difficult for a number of reasons: solutions will be costly, perhaps more competing interests than any other pollutant, and the scientific underpinnings are complex. Yet, solutions can be reached if we continue to find innovative solutions to these problems.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:42 am
If we are to successfully address our water quality and quantity issues, we need to see the big picture. Communities can then have a better understanding of how our natural resources are interconnected; work as a system; and begin to see how the cumulative landuse decisions impact our natural resources. If these natural resources, that support us, are managed sustainably, we can begin to see the critical social, economic, and environmental benefits that they provide and improve our health, safety and welfare.
I like how the Healthy Watersheds Initiative adopts the holistic green infrastructure approach that is needed to identify and protect our healthy watersheds while creating a benchmark to measure our restoration of our impaired waters. It is proactive instead of reactive and provides the scientific systems approach that is needed to address these interconnected land/water resource concerns. More importantly, it engages the stakeholders residing within and benefitting from a healthy watershed. I can see how the Healthy Watersheds Initiative can compliment and integrate other EPA programs by creating a framework to focus those programs. It also demonstrates the opportunity to integrate other related federal, state, and local programs and efforts.
EPA is in a unique leadership position to orchestrate these efforts. It may require breaking down “stove-piped” programs to work together as a team with other related federal, state, and local natural resource managers. The healthy watershed or “holistic” green infrastructure approach is a positive step forward to protecting our water and supporting land resources.