Last week I visited a dairy farm with my two year-old son. Complete with hayrides, homemade ice cream, cows mooing, and a bluegrass band, the fall festival provided us with some good, wholesome entertainment. My son giggled as the baby cows licked his hand, oohed and awed at the fluffy baby chicks, and, of course, consumed the decadent ice cream as if I had not fed him in weeks.
It was a memorable scene for us city-dwellers, but as my son climbed over hay bails and pretended to drive a tractor, I found myself longing for the ignorance of childhood. Because as he moved from one gleeful experience to the other, questions filled my mind as I took in each detail of the land and farming process. As I listened to the tour leader describe the careful separation of sick and antibiotic-treated cows during the milking process, I was unsatisfied with the mere assurances of this milk being separated from the milk bound for the grocers’ shelves or front doorsteps. I wanted to know, where did the “bad” milk go—down the drain? Driving past the chicken barn and cow fields and breathing in the air, pungent with what can only be described as “that farm smell,” made me wonder if they were taking appropriate measures to prevent contamination of surrounding streams, rivers, and even groundwater.
As I voiced some of these questions to my spouse and friends whose children also romped through the pastoral scene, most of them looked at me as if I was crazy and incapable of enjoying myself. “I’m sure a farm like this follows the rules. You worry too much,” my friend said. Again, a part of me wished for ignorance—in this case, my friend’s. In this farm’s defense, they at least appeared to be taking the initiative on many sustainable energy and soil conservation practices, but this was most likely not because of the rules or laws, especially when it came to water pollution.
You see, my son, my friends, and most of the individuals enjoying the farm festivities were blissfully unaware of how 40 years ago, when federal lawmakers passed one of the most ambitious and comprehensive pieces of environmental legislation known as the Clean Water Act (CWA), they left a gaping hole. Deeming the majority of farming operations “nonpoint source pollution” and exempting this industry from the CWA’s requirements, lawmakers left unchecked what has developed into one of the largest water pollution problems of our day. Even the small subset of farming operations that did come within the CWA’s permitting program and pollutant control standards (called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)) function in a vaguely regulated and largely unaccountable fashion.
Forgive the crude analogy, but the consequences of this statutory and regulatory gap are mounting into an ever-larger pile for farmer and city-dwellers alike. In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, unregulated and regulated agriculture together contribute an estimated 45 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the Bay. These pollutants are some of the primary contributors to the annual dead zones and algal blooms within the Bay, killing underwater grasses, fish, crabs, oysters, and more. Evidence of health impacts on humans stemming from agricultural-based water pollutants such as pesticides, antibiotics, and other chemicals, is also mounting. Studies have linked groundwater and surface water pollution from agriculture to contamination of drinking water.
What’s worse, both citizen and government efforts to fill this regulatory void have lead to an increasingly politicized and contentious relationship between concerned citizens, environmentalists, governments, and the farm industry. Significant amounts of time and money have been spent on developing voluntary incentives for unregulated farmers, such as nutrient credit trading programs and conservation grant programs, providing some opportunities for improvement but also ushering in additional troubles in transparency and accountability.
Back on the farm, where all of this was percolating in my head in response to my friend’s casual mention of my inability to enjoy the moment and stop worrying, I took a long look around. Ignorance perhaps was bliss, but it was not a solution to the very real problems of agricultural-based water pollution. Farmers work hard and provide an important product and service to our society, but that does not mean that they don’t have to do their part to keep our waters healthy and clean. Even more, all farmers—big or small—should be apart of the solution. The burden should not be born by the few that worry about their impacts on the health of the environment and people they support. I can only hope that as we celebrate the CWA’s successes of the past 40 years, that lawmakers, farmers, and citizens realize that this gap must be filled with mandatory pollutant control standards and mechanisms to ensure that everyone is accountable for doing their part. Then I can truly celebrate and enjoy my next scoop of ice cream on the farm with as much enthusiasm as my son.
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Aimee Simpson | October 18, 2012
Last week I visited a dairy farm with my two year-old son. Complete with hayrides, homemade ice cream, cows mooing, and a bluegrass band, the fall festival provided us with some good, wholesome entertainment. My son giggled as the baby cows licked his hand, oohed and awed at the fluffy baby chicks, and, of course, […]
Amy Sinden | October 18, 2012
The Clean Water Act turns 40 today. One of the remarkable things about those four decades is the extent to which the Act has largely withstood repeated attempts by industry to water down its technology-based standard-setting provisions with cost-benefit analysis. Just three years ago, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper, environmentalists […]
Robert Verchick | October 17, 2012
VARANASI — We slip into the river at night, and with an easy stroke, our oarsman moves our boat across the chestnut waters of “Mother Ganga,” India’s Ganges River. Spiritual life in Varanasi (also called Benares) is a passion. Hindus all over India save their money for the chance to visit this holy city and […]
Sandra Zellmer | October 16, 2012
This post was written by CPR Member Scholars Robert Glicksman and Sandra Zellmer. Visual images of burning rivers, oil-soaked seagulls, and other grossly contaminated resources spurred the enactment of the nation’s foundational environmental laws in the 1970s, including the Clean Water Act (CWA). Similarly, evocative prose like Rachel Carson’s description of the “strange blight” poisoning […]
Robert Adler | October 15, 2012
Congress adopted the “modern” version of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, more commonly known as the “Clean Water Act,” forty years ago this week (Pub. L. No. 92-500, Oct. 18, 1972). As Congress faces persistent efforts to weaken this law, it is important to take stock of why the law was passed, how well […]
Robin Kundis Craig | October 15, 2012
There is no question but that the Clean Water Act has led to enormous improvements in water quality throughout the United States. Funding for publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) has largely eliminated the use of the nation's waterways for the disposal of raw sewage. Most point source discharges are now subject to permitting and technology-based […]
A. Dan Tarlock | October 12, 2012
As the Clean Water Act (CWA) turns 40, it is useful to compare it to the cars on the road in 1972. Big cars, some still adorned with tail fins and grills, ruled the road, running on 36 cents per gallon gas. Forty years later, we look back on the early 70s and ask how […]
James Goodwin | October 11, 2012
The Vice Presidential debate is tonight, and I suspect that, among other things, we’ll hear Paul Ryan give some general talk of “reducing red tape” or “reducing government burdens on job creators.” We probably won’t hear a pitch for blocking air pollution rules that would save thousands of lives—which, after all, doesn’t poll well. But […]
Nicholas Vidargas | October 10, 2012
Imagine the ecosystem in which salmon evolved and thrived in the Northwest. As the region’s celebrated rain falls through old-growth forest, it is filtered through duff as it makes its way to one of thousands of pristine streams. It is in those cold, clear waters that salmon begin their lives among rock and pebble, the […]