Congress amended the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1987 to establish the section 319 Nonpoint Source Management Program because it recognized the need for greater federal leadership to help focus State and local nonpoint source efforts. Under section 319, State, Territories and Indian Tribes receive grant money which support a wide variety of activities including technical assistance, financial assistance, education, training, technology transfer, demonstration projects and monitoring to assess the success of specific nonpoint source implementation projects.
As a result, coalitions were formed across Arkansas to work toward water quality. improvement. John Pennington, agriculture and water quality specialist with the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, reports on one such effort in Washington County.
Area farmers use recommendations from the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Washington County Conservation District to improve their overall farm management strategies. These agencies all work to increase the knowledge and use of best management practices (BMPs) in the farming community. BMPs are proven management options that significantly reduce nutrient and sediment loss from the land to surrounding bodies of water. BMPs can be costly to implement, but farmers have been adopting various practices to protect water sources. Some BMPs, though, aren’t expensive and may actually increase farm profits. Most farmers have been incorporating the less-expensive practices for years.
Results of water quality monitoring of Moore’s Creek and Beatty Branch tributaries of Lincoln Lake have been released. The report is part of the Lincoln Lake Watershed Project – two decades of water quality work in the watershed.
The report indicates that, since the year 2000, nutrient and sediment loads transported from the surrounding lands to the tributaries of the lake have both been dramatically reduced. According to the report the following have declined:
• Total phosphorus in base stream-flow; dropped almost 50 percent;
• Total nitrogen in base stream-flow: steadily declined;
• Nitrate nitrogen in base stream-flow: declined 66 percent; and,
• Total suspended solids: declined by nearly fivefold.
• The total load, or pounds, of sediment and nutrients delivered to Lincoln Lake on an annual basis have also decreased.
