Agencies that supported the survey included the Monterey County Farm Bureau, the University of California Extension, the Agriculture and Land Based Training Association, and the Agricultural Water Quality Agency. Each agency requested results from the survey, as well as a presentation to their organization. Additionally, I plan on distributing a two-page summary of results to all growers who participated in the survey. Another part of this doctoral research that helped forge partnerships is through my work on Chapter 5. Data analysis in this chapter included spatial analysis of regional pesticide use over the past 13 years. In designing this chapter, I met with third-party monitoring agencies, G.I.S. technicians, and faculty members to ensure the highest quality data was used and that the research results would be of use to growers and policymakers. The spatial analysis of several pesticides known to be sources of water column and sediment toxicity in the region show the impacts, both negative and positive, of the primary regional agricultural water quality mandate that specifically targets two organophosphate pesticides. Results have already been distributed to Regional Water Quality Control Board staff members, who have passed them along to other networks and agencies. Research results from this dissertation have been and will continue to be shared with academic audiences, agricultural operators, policymakers, water quality agencies, and the general public in peer-reviewed publications, conference proceedings, reports, magazine articles, poster presentations, and oral presentations. Links to all published research are posted on my graduate student website. Throughout the data collection process, I maintained thorough records in both my notebooks and on electronic devices, and all stored electronic data have been backed up and preserved. Records of all interviews, survey questions and responses, datasets,large plastic pots and methodologies were retained to ensure reproducibility. I received exemption from IRB Review for both the interviews as well as the survey conducted in this research.

Agricultural non-point source pollution—runoff and leaching into nearby water bodies from nutrients, pesticides and soil sediments—is the chief impediment to achieving water quality objectives throughout the U.S. and Europe. Consequentially, policymakers cannot employ the old standbys used to regulate point sources of pollution, which are emitted from an identifiable pipe or outfall. Instead, regional, state, and federal agencies have typically relied on voluntary, incentive-based approaches to manage non-point source pollution . Such approaches have resulted in unsuccessful agriculture NPS control. In the U.S., agricultural pollution is the leading cause of pollution to rivers and lakes . And in Europe, agriculture contributes 50-80% of the total nitrogen and phosphorus loading to the region’s fresh waters and sea waters . The inadequacies of current approaches have triggered academic and regulatory discussions about how to proceed with abating non-point sources . These issues pose particularly challenging questions about appropriate regulatory tools, jurisdictional boundaries, funding needs, monitoring requirements, pollution permit allocations and stakeholder collaboration. Drawing from environmental policy and environmental economics literature as well as case studies from the U.S. and Europe, the aim of this chapter is to assess agricultural NPS pollution management approaches and the factors that drive or impede their implementation and enforcement. The E.U.’s recent Water Framework Directive presents an opportunity to build on lessons of the earlier-promulgated 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act, while the U.S. can benefit from the implementation and enforcement of effective European water pollution controls. This research presents several policy tool frameworks to help characterize the widespread non-point source pollution problem in the U.S. and Europe, distinguishing its unique set of hurdles from other environmental policy problems.

Findings suggest that controlling numerous diffuse sources of agricultural pollution requires an integrated approach that utilizes river basin management and a mix of policy instruments. Additionally, this chapter finds that transitioning from voluntary mechanisms to more effective instruments based on measurable water quality performance relies predominantly on three factors: more robust quality monitoring data and models; local participation; and political will.Since the passage of revolutionary water quality policies in the 1970s, the U.S. and Europe have seen significant water quality improvements in point source discharges—defined as any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance. Over the past 40 years, industrial pollution and discharges of organic wastes from urban areas and publicly owned treatment facilities have dropped substantially, and dissolved oxygen levels have increased downstream from point source pollution. This success can largely be attributed to the use of a transformative technology-based command-and-control approach, which employs standards to control pollutants at the point of discharge, setting uniform limitations based on the “Best Available Technology” for a given industry. Technology-based effluent limits have been enshrined in both the 1972 U.S. Clean Water Act and various European environmental policies. The technology-based regulatory framework skillfully transformed water quality regulation for point sources into a remarkably more streamlined and simplified system with successful results; it unfortunately neglected the different and more difficult task of controlling non-point source pollution. Instead, individual states in the U.S. and Member States/river basins in Europe have been entrusted with the monumental task of NPS pollution control. The 1972 Clean Water Act and subsequent amendments largely shape present-day water quality policies . During the drafting of the CWA, non-point source pollution was not perceived as serious of a problem as point source pollution , and was only considered as an afterthought . Prior to 1972, the nation’s general approach to water pollution was disjointed and highly variable—analogous to non-point source pollution regulation today. Control mechanisms were decentralized, which resulted in each state developing its own method of protecting water quality.

While several states attempted to implement innovative water quality standards and discharge permits, the vast majority failed to improve water quality conditions. A fundamental weakness of relying on ambient standards was that states needed to prove which polluters impaired water quality and to what extent. This endeavor was extremely difficult given that the regulatory agencies possessed very little data about the location, volume, or composition of industrial discharges . Even if data were available, water agencies were often understaffed, under budgeted and had inadequate statutory authority. By the 1960s, many of the country’s rivers and streams had reached such abominable conditions that a growing population of frustrated U.S. citizens turned to the federal government for help. After years of delay and struggle, the U.S. was ready to formulate a comprehensive, unified regulatory structure, resulting in the 1972 Clean Water Act. The Act employed a command-and-control approach to implement technology-based standards,raspberry container enforced by National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits . This approach, aimed at controlling pollutants at the point of discharge, set uniform limitations based on the best available technology pertaining to a particular industrial category. To implement and monitor performance, every point source was required to obtain a permit to discharge. Under this innovative system, enforcement officials need only compare the permitted numerical limits with the permittee’s discharge. Technology-based effluent limits have transformed U.S. water quality regulation into a remarkably more streamlined and simplified system with successful results . In addition to the technology standards, the drafters of the Clean Water Act held on to the historic water quality-based approach, despite its observed inadequacies. In an attempt to bridge the gap between discharges and clean water , dischargers were expected to comply with more stringent, individually-crafted effluent limitations based on water quality standards . This additional control tool is only implemented when technology-based controls are not sufficient in meeting beneficial uses. The process entails a few ostensibly straightforward steps: first, the state lists each impaired waterbody within its jurisdiction; second, the state designates a “beneficial use” for each waterbody; third, a Total Maximum Daily Load or “TMDL” for each waterbody is calculated based on the designated beneficial use; and finally, a portion of the load is allocated to each point or non-point source. However, the fundamental problem of TMDLs is that they must be translated into specific numerical discharge limitations for each source of pollution . This endeavor is often prohibitively expensive and extremely difficult given that every step of the regulatory process— from identifying and prioritizing impaired waterbodies to allocating emissions loads to measuring the program’s success— suffers from insufficient and poor quality information . Monitoring data are needed to assess, enforce, evaluate and use as a baseline for modeling efforts. The task of collecting these emissions data—identifying polluters that are difficult to pinpoint, monitoring discharges that are stochastic and virtually impossible to track, and connecting diffuse effluents back to their sources—is so problematic they have been stamped “unobservable” . The paucity of information is often the result of another, more tangible limitation when implementing non-point source pollution abatement mechanisms: budgetary and administrative constraints. Funding the monitoring efforts as well as the staff time to adequately oversee water pollution control efforts is an obligatory, but often missing component in water management programs. Also, a lack of enforcement in areas where management practices are not protecting water quality remains a widespread problem throughout agricultural NPS programs .

While individual river basins and states have varying water quality issues and employ slightly different approaches to abate non-point source pollution, each bears the burden of these similar hindrances. Clearly, the challenges and complexities of non-point source water pollution are not amenable to technology and emission-based policy tools historically used. Current discussions on how to proceed with non-point source pollution abatement strangely and sadly mirror those occurring over forty years ago. In describing the difficulty of implementing water quality standards in the 1960s, Andreen presents several questions still debated today: How should regulators allocate the capacity of a stream to a multitude of diffuse dischargers? Should the allocations be recalculated every time there is a new or expanded discharge? What should be the boundaries of a receiving waterbody—an entire river system or should each tributary be considered separately? Likewise, Houck describes the current state of U.S. non-point source pollution policy as: “slid[ing] back into the maw of a program that Congress all but rejected in 1972, among other things, its uncertain science and elaborate indirection.” Similar to the U.S., the first surge of European water legislation began in the 1970s. This “first wave” was characterized by seven different Directives, which were initiated by individual Member States with little coordination with the larger E.U. community . During the late 1990s, mounting criticism on the fragmented state of water policy drove the European Commission to draft a single framework to manage water issues . The resulting legislation, the Water Frameworks Directive , has been championed as “the most far-reaching piece of European environmental legislation to date” . Adopted in December 2000, the WFD replaced the seven prior “first wave” directives. Just as the Clean Water Act passes down authority to states in the U.S., the WFD gives each Member State and its river basins the same responsibility. Under this “second wave,” the WFD requires that River Basin Management Plans be established and updated every six years. The RBMPs specify how environmental and water quality standards will be met, allowing local authorities the flexibility to comply as they best see fit. The WFD mandates that all river basins must achieve “good” overall quality, and that more stringent standards need to be applied to a specific subset of water bodies used for drinking, bathing and protected areas. Two additional requirements of the WFD are economic analyses of water use and public participation in the policy implementation process. The E.U. chose management at the river basin level, a hydrological and geographical unit, rather than political boundaries, to encourage a more integrated approach to solving water quality problems . Another distinguishing aspect of the WFD is its “combined approach,” which guides Member States’ choice of policy tools. Similar to the U.S. CWA approach, technology controls based on Emissions Limit Values, such as those embedded in the previous E.U. Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive , are implemented first. The IPPC works similarly to the U.S. NPDES permit system , requiring all major industrial dischargers to obtain a permit and comply with specific discharge requirements. If these emissions and technology-based instruments are not sufficient in meeting water standards, then Environmental Quality Standards are employed. The Water Framework Directive provides opportunities and challenges for all actors involved—Member States, European Commission, and candidate countries .