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The USDA partnered with the EPA

Definitions to help understand the following posts

TMDL - Total Maximum Daily Load (Poop levels)

BMP - Best Management Practice

Nonpoint Source Also seen as NPS - leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation.

Agriculture is listed as the leading source of watershed impairment.

Agriculture is listed as a nonpoint source polluter.

Reduction - eradication of

CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act) - was created in 1980 to
provide for cleanup of the worst industrial toxic waste sites.

EPCRA (The Community Right to Know law) - was adopted
in 1986 after the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal,
India, to force reporting when hazardous chemicals are
released and to enable government emergency response.

RE: CERCLA and EPCRA -

State and local authorities are seeking to extend CERCLA
and EPCRA liability to our nation’s livestock operations for
emissions or discharges from manure. However, such an
interpretation is not supported either by the science or legislative history. Animal rights and environmental activist groups are in favor of the action, which would create more publicity for their campaigns against modern agriculture and ultimately make it harder for livestock producers to stay in business.

Clean Water Act - Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation
Rule, producers are required to document who uses the
manure they produce and how.

Superfund - Livestock Manure and Superfund Legislation - livestock manure a “hazardous” substance under the nation’s “Superfund” law.

This make farms on which manure is applied subject to Superfund liability.

AUM = animal unit month An AUM is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.

CMR - Contaminant Monitoring and Research

Nonpoint source vs. Point Source -

Causes of Water Quality Problems

Most watersheds encompass many land uses (farms, homes, industries, forests, mines). Each land use has an impact on water quality. Even in uninhabited watersheds, natural sources of pollution exist. These include sediment from stream-bank erosion, bacteria and nutrients from wildlife, and chemicals deposited by rainfall.

Water pollution caused by human activities results from either point sources or nonpoint sources. These terms indicate how pollutants are released to surface water or ground water.

A point source is a single, identifiable source of pollution, such as a pipe through which factories or treatment plants release water and pollutants into a river. Point source pollution is often controlled through water-quality standards and permitting programs, which establish limits on the kind or amount of pollutants each point source may discharge into a body of water.

A nonpoint source is an activity that takes place over a broad area and results in the release of pollutants from many different locations. Agriculture, forestry, residential, and urban development are examples of nonpoint sources of pollutants. Common pollutants from these activities include:

* sediment from cropland, lawns and gardens, forestry activities, roadways, construction sites, and stream-bank erosion;

* nutrients from cropland, lawns and gardens, livestock
operations, wildlife, septic systems, and land receiving waste application;

* bacteria from livestock, wildlife, septic systems, land
receiving waste application, and urban runoff; and

* man-made chemicals, including pesticides, from roadways, mining operations, cropland, lawns and gardens, and forestry.