Who could argue against the idea of clean water? Preventing further pollution of our rivers and lakes should be a basic goal that all society can support.
Unfortunately, even such universal goals can become divisive issues when overzealous bureaucrats and lobbyists get involved.
The debate now raging in the United States over proposed changes to their Clean Water Act may provide some important early-warning signals for Canadian farmers, since U.S. political and regulatory trends often cause pressure for similar action here.
Stuart Hardy, manager of food and agriculture policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned agricultural journalists recently that farmers, like other businessmen, could find themselves targets for environmental extremists acting as “bounty hunters.”
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Under the proposed U.S. legislation, he said, a citizen group could launch proceedings against a polluter and be paid from the resulting fines if the polluter is found guilty.
Hardy said such lawsuits could be started even if the alleged pollution happened five years earlier and operations had been corrected to prevent further pollution.
He said life for enterprises accused of pollution would be further complicated by inflexible regulations, a highly adversarial process, tight deadlines, and centralization of decision-making in the national capital.
The American Farm Bureau Federation noted that the proposed new water legislation would order best management practices on all farms, regardless of whether local water quality has been polluted or whether a farm is the source of any pollution.
Both organizations have suggested that draconian new laws are not needed, since the quality of U.S. water has been improving under the milder existing laws, without the $100,000-a-day fines in the proposed changes.
The Clean Water Act was first passed in 1972 and concentrated on so-called “point sources” of pollution, like chemical plants. With considerable success in that goal, officials have been giving greater emphasis to “non-point sources” like runoff from farmland.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicated last month that it is paying greater attention to alleged pollution by farmers.
The EPA’s annual water quality inventory called agricultural runoff the leading source of U.S. water-pollution problems.
One senior EPA official noted that taxpayers contribute $20 billion a year for agricultural payments and services: “This presents a powerful tool with which to shape farming practices in a more environmentally sound manner.”
