Chocolate Waters
Chocolate Waters
By Troy Bishopp
I thwarted the truth of an intern’s camera by convincing him to focus on the positive attributes of achieving water quality and not filming the chocolate waters rushing under a bridge in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. I was in denial; because I know the politics of such an action when millions of dollars and man hours are spent to supposedly stop soil loss. Seeing our children’s bank account floating by after every rain seems depressing to me especially when we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Natural Resources Conservation Service this year.
Mary Wahl from Oregon is quoted in the USDA-NRCS full color brochure: “Everything we do on the land gets written in the water”. The key word for me is everything. I still wonder where we might be if the nation’s public investment in the Soil Conservation Service and the Conservation Districts were never born. And yet my view from the bridge feels like this mission was not a holistic endeavor. I just can’t get my head around how upset people are at the BP gulf tragedy, when in all reality, the dead zones off our shores caused by soil piggybacking with nutrients, chemicals and pharmaceuticals dwarf any oil spill.
This subject reached a crescendo when I witnessed an exercise in futility. There, near a tributary that feeds the Hudson-Mohawk River was a very large track-hoe digging mercilessly into the deposited sediment from upstream and loading huge quarry trucks backed right out on the island of soil. The scene of piling thousands of tons of material, never to return to its original origin, by state employees consuming large amounts of fossil fuel was almost pitiful. I felt hypocritical taking pictures but it struck me as incredibly important to document the insanity. Upon further investigation upstream, everyone including farmers are contributing to this desperate scene.
So I started asking questions which is not the most politically correct thing to do. I came to realize that citizens do not view these waters as a holistic being where everything is tied together. To my amazement or scorn, lawn maintenance supervisors, road crews, companies, city dwellers, families, farmers, boaters and fisherman are all disconnected from each other and not seeing the value of personal responsibility and working together in addressing the brown water syndrome. As the finger pointing continues, solving this problem gets murky.
My friend Pete who works for an environmental agency saw his neighbor draining the oil of his motorcycle straight into the storm sewer. When confronted, he kindly threatened to stuff him down the sewer with the oil---and the conversation about water quality was over. I approached a DOT Gradall operator about why they were cleaning ditches with a firm sod waterway already in place. “It’s what we always do this time of year and I do what I’m told”, said the man. A new home site was being excavated and runoff from the area plugged a culvert. When I asked about the soil loss, I was greeted by “I know the codes enforcer and he said everything is fine, now get off my property.”
I see my local conservation professionals taking orders from a top-down, leadership mentality, rife with counting the “beans” for the GAO. Sorry to report this agenda has field people writing more grants, sending more seasoned, practical employees to early retirement and chasing the program of the month club rather than implementing soil conservation on the ground.
I even posed this question to a farmer who was lauding me for helping him save a few thousand on his feed bill by achieving better pasture management. “Would you take a small portion of your savings to help fund a grazing specialist’s position?” “Why would I buy the cow when I can get the milk for free”, he said. Hard to argue with that logic in these stressful financial times, however it must be noted that most technical assistance is hardly free.
These stories are not unique but they do load me up with some excess baggage from the locals’ point of view. You know, all soil politics are local. So when I’m asked to make suggestions on the EPA’s 16 year mandated TMDL pollution diet for the Chesapeake Bay, I approach it with trepidation. The chess game of players and numbers that make up the 800 page mystical watershed model showcasing BMP definitions and efficiencies are fraught with this problem: It is based on treating symptoms with money, resources and people we don’t have and not addressing the root cause---all humans acting foolishly with their natural resources. No amount of money can cure this affliction without first addressing human behavior issues.
What worries me most is the “Model” suggesting that to reach the goals of the watershed implementation plan or (WIP), over half the farms in the basin may need to be eliminated. Think about that for a moment! Is this a sustainable approach to a watershed/foodshed? The anxiety I feel from regulators honing the “bigger hammer paradigm” serves as the catalyst to draw me back to my farming roots where topsoil is the Lord’s and farmer’s most precious resource.
With this looming TMDL elephant and its price tag, I’m suggesting a brand new, low cost, grass roots (no pun intended) approach to saving soil: It’s called “Do The Right Thing”. This campaign would seek to inspire all people of the watershed to look into children’s eyes and ask, “Will I embrace the personal responsibility to change my mindset and actions in respecting and preserving the topsoil for future generations without needing governmental agency intervention, regulation and money to shape my decision?
Discuss this question amongst your family, friends, neighborhoods, churches, civic groups, yacht clubs and agricultural venues. I would love to hear how that went. As Mr. Weaver has said to me on countless occasions, if we all did the right thing by our soil and water resources, we would spend more time eating ice-cream and buying fishing tackle. Published in Lancaster Farming 8-28-2010