A new Environmental Working Group report examines water pollution caused by farm runoff and details how treating the problem after the fact is increasingly expensive, difficult and, if current trends continue, ultimately unsustainable.
The report, “Troubled Waters: Farm Pollution Threatens Drinking Water,” is available for download at http://www.ewg.org/report/troubledwaters.
Water that runs off poorly managed fields that have been treated with chemical fertilizers and manure is loaded with nitrogen and phosphorus, two pollutants that “set off a cascade of harmful consequences, threatening the drinking water used by millions of Americans,” according to an EWG press release.
Nitrate, the most common form of nitrogen in
