Water is a basic, renewable natural resource upon which the survival and well being of living organisms depend. Quantity, quality, and availability of water are critical factors in supporting our human civilization and standard of living. Water is also essential to the food supply and habitat of all other living organisms. More than 90 percent of the Nation's privately-owned land is in agricultural and forest production. Agriculture consumes 65 to 70 percent of the total fresh water resources in the United States and the world, and there is increased interest in how agriculture affects water quality.

There are physical and biological dimensions in detecting contamination, tracing the sources, defining treatment technologies, monitoring human health consequences, and addressing both the pollution and its consequences. However, water pollution is fundamentally a societal and institutional problem. The means for reducing water contamination are institutional and include a combination of incentives, rights, and obligations confronting water users and the public. Whether living in cities or rural committees, the public always will be concerned about the Nation's water quality.

Starting with the enactment of the 1990 farm bill (Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act or FACT), new provisions were added to address water quality and environmental protection. Then, after the longest farm bill debate in U.S. history, the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 significantly changed agricultural policy in the U.S. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provided incentives for crops and livestock producers to promote water quality. The program maximizes water quality benefits for the funds appropriated by Congress. At least half the appropriated funds must be used to address environmental concerns associated with livestock production. EQIP replaces the Agricultural Conservation Program, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program, Water Quality Incentives Program, and the Great Plains Conservation Program. The Agricultural Research Extension and Education Reform Act of 1998 reauthorized appropriations for natural resources management and water quality activities.

In 1996, the President signed into law new amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The SDWA and its amendments require that waters be 'drinkable' beyond meeting the 'fishable' and 'swimmable' requirements of the 1972 Clean Water Act. Included in the new amendments are requirements and financial support for achieving both watershed protection and safe drinking water. Water assessment programs conducted by the states will delineate boundaries of source waters and identify sources of regulated and high risk, unregulated drinking water contaminants. Nonsource pollution is a major water quality component that must be addressed by all states. The Act requires all states to complete these actions on an annual basis.

ARS has long been associated with improved production and more environmentally sensitive farming techniques. ARS research provides solutions to a wide range of problems related to agriculture--problems requiring long-term commitment of resources or those problems unlikely to have solutions with quick commercial payoff that could tempt private industry to do the research. With the increased invasion of nonpoint source pollution coming principally from agricultural activities, ARS has been uniquely suited to lead efforts in water quality research from a national and international perspective.

The status of the Nation's water resources (rivers, lakes, and estuaries) is assessed by states and Native American tribes according to section 305 (b) of the Clean Water Act. In the 1994 assessment, reports were made on 17 percent of river miles, 42 percent of lake acres, and 78 percent of estuaries square miles. Of the river miles assessed, about 64 percent were good quality with no identified use impairment, while 36 percent of the assessed miles suffered from use impairments caused by one or more sources. Agriculture was found to contribute to impairment in 60 percent of the impaired river miles, equivalent to 22 percent of the total assessed river miles.

One major source of water quality impairment from agriculture is the sediment, often with nutrients or chemicals adsorbed to the soil particles, that enters streams and rivers. Concentrated animal production sites are of particular environmental concern because of the potential for nutrient and bacterial contamination of water resources. According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 940,000 incidents of water-borne diseases occur each year from all microbial (i.e., consisting of microorganisms) sources. Nutrients from fertilizers, animal manure, decaying plants, municipal and domestic wastes, and atmospheric deposition are potential contributors to the expanding hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where the lack of oxygen kills shellfish and other bottom-dwellers.

Pfiesteria outbreaks in the Mid-Atlantic in 1997 and 1998 are thought to be linked to nutrient and mineral enrichment of coastal tributaries and estuaries. A highly visible threat of protozoan diseases, such as giardiasis and crypotosporidiosis, emanated from New York City's watershed, an area of cropland, dairy farms, forests, and rural communities. In 1993, the organism Cryptosporidium parvum, which can be transmitted by domestic and wild animal and human wastes, survived the city of Milwaukee's drinking water treatment process, sickening 400,000 people and causing at least 67 related deaths. From 1995 to the present, over 300 stocks of salmonids are at risk in the Pacific Northwest, in part because of degradation of upstream watersheds and spawning habitat. Pesticides from many major chemical classes have been detected in ground water, although runoff of herbicides is a bigger problem in surface water. Transformation products, rather than parent compounds, are being detected in both ground and surface water supplies.

National and regional insights into nutrients and pesticides in streams and ground water are based on findings from studies completed in 1998 by the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 20 of the Nation's most important river basins and aquifer systems. The most prevalent nitrate contamination was detected in shallow ground water (less than 100 feet below land surface) beneath agricultural and urban areas where about 15 percent of all samples exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) drinking water standards. This finding raises potential concerns for human health, particularly in rural agricultural areas where shallow ground water is used for domestic water supplies.

The NAWQA Program also measured 83 pesticides and chemical byproducts in water and 32 pesticides in fish or stream bed sediment. The good news is that concentrations of individual pesticides in samples from wells and as annual averages in streams were almost always lower than current USEPA drinking water standards and guidelines. However, effects of pesticides on aquatic life are a concern based on U.S. and Canadian aquatic-life guidelines, which have been established for 28 of the pesticides measured. More than one-half of agricultural and urban streams sampled had concentrations of at least one pesticide that exceeded a guideline for the protection of aquatic life.

Challenges in Water Quality Management

Reductions in nutrients, pesticides, other synthetic chemicals, and pathogens, sediments, trace elements, and salinity in streams and ground water clearly require management strategies that reduce chemical use and subsequent transport in hydrologic systems. For these strategies to be effective, they should carefully consider the patterns and complexities of containment occurrence, behavior, and influences on water quality. Results from ARS research and cooperative work with other federal and state agencies indicate four critical basic considerations managing and protecting water resources in diverse settings across the Nation. First, regional and local management strategies are needed to account for the geographical patterns in land use, chemical use, and natural factors that govern hydrologic behavior and vulnerability to contamination. Second, all the potential pollutants associated with agricultural production are readily transported among surface water, ground water, and the atmosphere; therefore, policies to protect water quality are needed that simultaneously address entire hydrologic systems. Third, a high priority should be given to ascertaining the risks of agricultural contaminants to human and aquatic life.

Addressing the foregoing concerns will require improved information on the nature of exposure and effects and development of standards, guidelines, and monitoring programs that address the many complexities of contaminant occurrence. For example, neither current standards and guidelines, nor associated conservation or environmental incentive programs have monitoring or assessment criteria that account for the costs and benefits of environmental stewardship. Finally, continued development of reliable predictive models is an essential element of cost-effective strategies to anticipate and manage agricultural contaminants over a wide range of possible circumstances, over broad regions, and for the long term. An understanding of these considerations will help water managers and policy makers implement environmental control and protection strategies; invest in monitoring and science; and develop future environmental policies, standards, and guidelines.

To establish and revise water policies, standards, and guidelines, unified watershed assessments are being conducted by the states under the direction of USEPA. The objective of these assessments is to determine if specific watersheds and ecosystems can or will meet Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) of potential contaminants. ARS is uniquely suited to develop the Best Management Practices (BMPs) and the agricultural productions systems needed to meet TMDLs for water quality improvement. Also, ARS has and likely will continue to provide the research data that will help to establish the TMDLs and provide the models and decision support systems needed to assess the success of agricultural practices and systems in achieving TMDL standards and guidelines.

On the 25th anniversary of the Clean Water Act in October 1997, Vice President Gore directed the USEPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to work with other federal agencies and the public to develop a Clean Water Action Plan aimed at fulfilling the original goal of the Clean Water Act--'fishable and swimmable' waters for all Americans. Then, in February of 1998, President Clinton and Vice President Gore unveiled the Clean Water Action Plan as a blueprint for protecting the Nation's accomplishment over the past five years and aggressive new actions to strengthen the program. A key element in the Action Plan is a new cooperative approach to watershed protection in which federal, state, tribal, and local governments and the public first identify the watersheds with the most critical water quality problems and then work together to focus resources and implement effective strategies to solve those problems. The Action Plan also includes new initiatives to reduce public health threats, improve the stewardship of natural resources, strengthen polluted-runoff controls, and make water quality information more accessible to the public.

The Clean Water Action Plan has 111 action items built around key tools of a watershed approach to achieving clean water goals: strong federal and state standards, natural resource stewardship, and informed citizens. Regulation, research, economic incentives, technical assistance, education, and accurate information all play key roles in meeting clean water goals. Research was explicitly mentioned in 44 of the action items.

Government support for research and extension efforts by ARS, universities, and other institutions is a compelling need to encourage change. New information and data about water quality problems can produce the support necessary for successful regulation or voluntary adoption. More information is needed on health and environmental risks.

ARS is uniquely suited to partner with universities, USGS, USEPA, and others to develop, through reasoned public policy, agricultural solutions to the water quality problems. In cooperation with the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), ARS initiated the Management Systems Evaluation Area (MSEA) projects in 1990 and the Agricultural System for Environmental Quality (ASEQ) projects in 1995 to address water quality and other environmental issues. MSEA and ASEQ evaluate and assess alternatives at the field, farm, and watershed scale. These integrated research, education, and extension projects that began in the Midwest need to be expanded throughout the Nation as water quality problems become an even greater public policy issue in the 21st century.

A clean and safe water resource while maintaining our global agricultural production leadership

Develop, improve, and transfer new and innovative technologies and agricultural production systems that protect the quality of the Nation's water resources and enhance the agricultural economy.

A workshop for the Water Quality Component of the Water Quality and Management National Program was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on August 3 - 6, 1999. Approximately 135 participants attended including producers, agricultural industry representatives, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, university scientists, and scientists and administrators from ARS and other federal and state agencies. At the workshop, these customers, stakeholders, and partners identified their problems and needs related to water quality management. As a result of this input, eight problem areas were identified, five of which were Potential Agricultural Contaminants: (1) Excess Nutrients; (2) Pesticides and Other Synthetic Chemicals; (3) Pathogens; (4) Sediments; and (5) Trace Elements. The other three problem areas were associated with Water Quality Assessment and Management Strategies: (1) Model Evaluation, Testing, and Improvement; (2) Integrated Field, Farm, and Watershed Management Systems; and (3) Risk and Economic Evaluation.

Component Problem Areas
State	Locations	Excess Nutrients	Pesticides & Other Synthetic Chemicals	Pathogens	Erosion & Sedimentation	Trace Elements	Model Testing, Evaluation, & Improvement	Integrated Field, Farm, & Watershed Management Systems	Environmental & Economic Risk Evaluation
AK	Fayettville	X
AZ	Phoenix	X		X
AZ	Tucson				X		X
CA	Davis					X
CA	Fresno					X
CA	Riverside		X	X		X
CO	Ft. Collins	X					X
FL	Miami	X	X					X
GA	Athens	X		X
GA	Tifton	X	X		X	X	X	X	X
GA	Watkinsville								X
IA	Ames	X	X		X		X	X	X
ID	Boise				X				X
ID	Kimberly	X		X	X
IL	Urbana		X
LA	Baton Rouge	X	X
MD	Beltsville	X	X	X		X	X		X
MN	St. Paul	X	X					X
MO	Columbia	X	X					X
MS	Mississippi State			X
MS	Oxford	X	X		X		X	X	X
MS	Stoneville		X						X
NE	Lincoln	X						X
NV	Reno	X
OH	Columbus	X	X					X
OH	Coshocton				X
OR	Burns	X
PA	University Park	X			X
SC	Florence	X	X	X				X
TX	Bushland	X		X
TX	Temple	X			X		X		X
WA	Prosser	X
WV	Beaver	X
WY	Cheyenne	X