Agricultural runoff damages water supply and fields each year; because of this, farmers need to try different ideas such as making an underground cement wall leading to a storage container to limit the runoff to help save our natural resources.
Every day our water supply is damaged because of runnoff containing manure and fertilizer leading into lakes, river, streams, and wells. Mr. Parish stated, “ We are on razors edge, when you get to the point where your taking more from the soil than your putting in, then you have to worry about productivity.” In this quote Mr. Parish was stating on the fact that when runoff occurs it also damages the soil itself with too much fertilizer or chemicals.
Runoff in the fields is also a series of chain reactions, a great example of this is the Mississippi River. As the Mississippi river flows south it carries the products of runoff from fields and farms. If this continues it is projected to help create the largest dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A dead zone is a space in water where the algae overpopulates the area consuming all the oxygen leaving none for any aquatic creatures to inhabitant the area. Since the 1970’s dead zones have been frequently occurring.
Citizens have called for a cleaner gulf for years from the feds in the form of regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency since 1998 has pleaded all states to place a limit on the amounts of chemicals allowed in the water ways. But only Illinois and Indiana have acted on it.
Matt Rota, director of science and water policy for the Gulf Restoration Network, on the other hand has not been impressed or pleased with the E.P.A. He said, “ Considering the current circumstances, it is extremely frustrating not seeing the E.P.A. take more direct action, we have tried solely voluntary mechanisms to reduce the pollution for a decade and have only seen the dead zone get bigger.”
Don Parish, senior director of regulatory relation for the American Farm Beau...