Page:Update on water quality- Progress update (IA CAT10556197004).pdf/3

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United States Department of Agriculture
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The Research Committee of the USDA Working Group on Water Quality has chosen five areas overlying aquifers in nine Midwestern States as primary locations for new water quality research. The research will lead to better understanding of the dynamics of groundwater contamination by agricultural chemicals and better practices and technologies for lessening the risk of contamination.
 * USDA Announces Midwest Research Initiative

Scientists from the Agricultural Research Service, State Agricultural Experiment Stations (working with Cooperative State Research Service Special Grants), and U.S. Geological Survey will conduct collaborative research. State and local agricultural, natural resources, and environmental agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will cooperate. The researchers will consult farmers, community leaders, local agribusiness interests, and environmental groups at each site.

The Midwest is one of the most intensively farmed regions of the U.S. It produces more than half of all U.S. corn and soybeans—crops that normally are grown with large inputs of pesticides and fertilizers. Some pesticides used by the region’s farmers have been detected in groundwater. Midwestern groundwater is also vulnerable to contamination by nitrate nitrogen. The lessons of the Midwest, therefore, should have broad national significance.
 * Why the Midwest?

USDA’s Midwest Initiative is a combined effort with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mid-Continent Herbicide Initiative. A Program Management Team from ARS, the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, USGS, and the Environmental Protection Agency is providing overall coordination and management for the initiative.
 * Cooperation With USGS

In general, USDA and State research will focus on the upper, unsaturated part of the soil, including the rooting zone; USGS will emphasize the underlying unsaturated soil and parent material and the saturated groundwater system. However, at times both USDA and USGS researchers will likely work in all parts of the hydrologic continuum. USDA, State, and USGS researchers together will address questions of chemical interactions with the entire environment, not just groundwater.

A USDA panel selected five research proposals to establish Management Systems Evaluation Areas (MSEA’sMSEAs [sic]) for the the Midwest/Mid-Continent Initiative. Criteria for selection included: Past and present farming systems; climatic, soil, topographic, geological, and groundwater characteristics; and expected collaboration in support, planning, and implementation.
 * Study Areas

MSEA’sMSEAs [sic] will allow scientists to evaluate the performance of management systems on field- to farm-size units—areas large enough to support economically and environmentally significant agricultural production systems. Associated research projects of focused experiments, designed for more precise measurements or more intensive sampling, will also be carried out.

Full characterization of sites and installation of sampling equipment, instrumentation, and cropping systems will being this growing season. Most MSEA’sMSEAs [sic] will be fully operational by next year, and the rest by 1992.

Primary study areas will be located in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio. Research associated with the Minnesota site will be conducted in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.