National Association of Conservation Districts

National Association of Conservation Districts

NACD's mission is to serve conservation districts by providing national leadership and a unified voice for natural resource conservation.

Water Quality

No matter where you live, clean water is an important asset. Clean water is needed for many uses including drinking water, wildlife, recreation and agriculture. NACD and conservation districts work to ensure landowners have the proper tools to protect water from soil erosion, nutrients and livestock.


CAFOs
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, are agricultural operations with large numbers of livestock in a confined space. The definition of what constitutes a CAFO depends upon the number and type of livestock in the operation. Among the challenges faced by CAFO operators is managing large amounts of animal waste that are produced. Proper management through Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMP) helps ensure that animal waste is collected, stored, and used in a prescribed manner preventing contamination of the local watershed. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates CAFOs that discharge or propose to discharge waste into water bodies and requires National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.

Conservation districts can work with CAFO operators, helping to provide technical assistance and best management practices to ensure proper natural resource management.


TMDLs
Total Maximum Daily Loads, or TMDLs, represent the total amount of a single pollutant a water body can receive and still meet minimum water quality standards. Pollutants measured under TMDLs can include sedimentation, heavy metals, chemicals, fecal coliform bacteria and nutrients. Based on a water body’s TMDL, appropriate limitations can be placed on pollutants from point sources (sewage treatment plants, factories, and other individual sources) and non-point sources (storm water runoff from agriculture, urban areas, and other diffuse sources).

Excessive pollution can impact aquatic wildlife in streams and bodies of water, such as the hypoxic zone of the Gulf of Mexico. Under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, states are required to identify bodies of water that do not meet water quality standards. These bodies of water are submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency for review and approval for placement on the 303(d) list of impaired streams, at which point TMDLs must be developed.


Water Quality Trading
An emerging method of addressing water quality involves credit trading. Bodies of water with identified Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) have minimum water quality standards they must meet. This limits the amount of various pollutants that can enter the waterway on a daily basis. By paying for water quality credits, polluters can fund pollution reduction from other upstream sources such as agricultural run-off. Credits must be generated and traded in an amount sufficient to meet water quality standards.

Conservation districts can play a role in water quality trading in such roles as serving as a third-party broker of water quality credits or verifying water quality standards to ensure TMDLs are met.


Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia
Hypoxia is a condition in bodies of water where dissolved oxygen is depleted. This most often occurs due to the presence of nutrients called eutrophication, which cause large algal blooms. Once the algae die, the decomposing material consumes large quantities of oxygen, resulting in a biological “dead zone”.

The Gulf of Mexico has a hypoxic zone which expands and contracts annually with nutrients from the Mississippi River. Conservation districts throughout the Mississippi River watershed can provide information and assistance to landowners in managing nutrients and controlling runoff into the watershed.


Recent Water Quality Activities

Resources
New Opportunities for Conservation Districts: Markets, Trading and Credits - Spring 2009 feature in NACD’s publication The Resource.

Water Works: Conservation Districts Tackling Water Issues - May/June 2008 feature in NACD’s publication News and Views.


Partners

Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water
EPA Office of Water maintains resources on TMDL’s, Water Quality Trading and Gulf Hypoxia.

Natural Resources Conservation Service
NRCS works cooperatively with a variety of landowners to provide technical and financial assistance in achieving natural resource conservation goals such as water quality.