EPA Criteria

NWU Radio Script

12-30-01

Clinton administration actions continue to haunt farmers and ranchers, even though it has been a year since the former President left office.

The President's Clean Water Action Plan, floated back in 1998, called upon the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to accelerate nutrient water quality criteria development for every lake, river and estuary in every geographic region.

Now the EPA has released its criteria for nitrogen and phosphorus in eight of the 14 "ecoregions" of the country. With the release, the goal of water quality standards shifts from safeguarding human health to protecting aquatic life. According to an article written by Darrell Smith for the October 2001 issue of "Farm Journal," the standards that result will likely be tougher than any farmers have had to meet so far.

The standard for safe drinking water, which farmers are accustomed to, is 10 parts per million (ppm) of nitrate nitrogen only. But the new criterion includes all forms of the nutrient, including ammonia, nitrite and organic nitrogen.

"If you think meeting a 10-ppm nitrate standard is tough, just wait till you see total nitrogen standards," says Farm Journal environmental consultant Dick Fawcett.

For Eco-region VI, which covers the heart of the Corn Belt and northern Great Plains, the phosphorus criterion is 76.25 parts per billion, that right billion with a "b," for rivers and streams and 37.5 ppb for lakes and reservoirs.

These levels are higher than those for the other ecoregions, mostly because the high organic-matter soils of the Midwest just naturally supply more nutrients. Also areas that have less agriculture have lower levels of nutrients in their waters.

The phosphorus criteria become especially significant in light of recent findings that phosphorus - once considered a stable nutrient - can go into solution and run off with rainwater.

A University of Illinois study shows that with soil test levels as low as 40 pounds per acre and with any commonly used tillage system, phosphorus in runoff water exceeds the 76.25 ppb limit.       

That same study compared the runoff on chisel-plowed land to that on no-tilled land and found the no-till runoff to be extremely high in phosphorus. It also indicated that manure applied on the soil surface causes runoff water to exceed the phosphorus criteria.

Best management practices (BMPs) won't be sufficient. "Manure needs to be injected, but most livestock is produced on rolling land, so injection or tillage causes soil erosion.

Farmers agree water needs to be protected from nitrogen and phosphorus, writes Smith. But the criteria are unrealistically low, says Fawcett. "In 1994 only one Iowa rivers averaged below 200 ppb phosphorus and 14 averaged below 400 ppb," he says.

"Out of 114 lakes monitored in 1994k, only four met the 37.5 ppb P criterion. Less than half were below 10 ppb. Many waters are now 200-400 percent greater than EPA's nutrient criteria."

But the EPA does not believe the criteria are unrealistic. Notes Bob Cantilli, coordinator of EPA's national nutrient team. He calls the standards "starting points."

The criteria may be unrealistic for some water bodies, Cantilli acknowledges, because EPA lumped together data from many size classes of water bodies - for example, large and small, shallow and deep lakes. The states will have great flexibility in setting standards, as long as the standards are scientifically defensible," he says.

Once criteria are released for an ecoregion, states have at least three years to develop nutrient standards for individual bodies of water. If lakes, streams, reservoirs of wetlands don't meet the state standards, they will be designated as impaired.

Then states will be required to calculate a "total maximum daily load" (TMDL) for impaired waters, showing how much of each pollutant it can receive. TMDLs will also specify how much of each pollutant each city, industry and farm can discharge.

Some EPA officials note efforts to meet the TMDL requirements could be voluntary, but farmers (for good reason) fear the criteria will be translated into very low nutrient standards, and some environmental group eventually will sue to have them strictly enforced. Notes Iowa farmer Roy Bardole, "I consider the criteria an extreme threat to production agriculture," he says.

          -30-