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>Farmers and the fertilizer people who do a lot of the spraying live in the community. Having been a part of that fraternity I can guarantee you they aren't goi

• dalke 15y ago
  Following on to that, farm runoff is a widely known source of contaminates to rivers and lakes. It's a non-point-source pollution, and the EPA says "agriculture, including crop production, animal operations, pastures, and rangeland, impacts 18% of the total river and stream miles assessed, or 48% of the river and streams identified as impaired". Agribusiness has generally been against increased restrictions on non-point source pollution. There are solutions, but most are expensive and with no immediate local gain. Farmers, like everyone, balance risk, time, and money. In this case the risk is literally downstream and several years or decades in the future. To follow the original metaphor, it's someone else's problem in a different world. It's easy to see how a distant risk might not be considered worth minimizing. The common solutions to that are laws and financial incentives, both of which bring either the risk or reward closer to hand. Therefore, to say that "they aren't going to do anything to pollute their world" reflects a simplification of the issue. If there's no longer EQIP, CRP, CREP, or any of a large number of other programs to encourage good land management practices, then do you think the farmers will continue to do so? If so, then let's cut that funding since obviously it's not needed.