Time to be a Champion for Clean Water
Agraria's Food in the Forest campers waded in the cooling waters of Jacoby Creek last summer.
Photo Credit: Kelly Hudson
By Sarah Hippensteel-Hall, PhD
Originally in the Agraria Winter 2021 Journal
I love to waterski, and one summer I had the opportunity to teach my daughter. It was a beautiful day on the Ohio River, we were with great friends, and we had a really good ski boat. But then we noticed tiny little green balls floating in the water. They were everywhere. We realized it was an algae bloom.
We spent hours researching water-quality reports and found that just three days earlier, toxins were detected at our location, hundreds of times higher than the public health advisory. There were no warning signs or advisories. We spent days worrying that we might develop symptoms for things like liver failure. Fortunately, we did not. Unfortunately, the algae continued to grow and by the end of that summer, over 600 miles of the Ohio River were covered in algae and tested positive for toxins.
This was not an isolated instance in Ohio. For three days in the summer of 2014, 400,000 residents in Toledo, Ohio, had no access to safe drinking water when a toxin created by an algae bloom in Lake Erie threatened the city’s water supply. The algae growth is fueled by nutrients that run off the land, mainly from fertilizers. And Lake Erie is surrounded by many, many farms.
Here in southwest Ohio, with more than 70 percent of land in the Great Miami River Watershed actively used for agricultural production, it’s easy to see the importance of farming—as well as its influence on aquifers, rivers, and streams.
Only 77 percent of the stream miles in the Great Miami River Watershed meet Ohio water quality standards.
The good news is that a solution to agricultural runoff is literally right under our feet—in the soil. Healthy soil, that is. Restoring and enriching soil health through regenerative farming conservation practices helps prevent runoff, improves water quality, biodiversity, and also crop productivity. Healthy, carbon-rich soil, holds water, and the more water infiltrating the soil, the less water available to run off a field.
Regenerative agriculture aims not just to sustain the land in its current state, but to continuously improve soil health and the overall quality and health of the land, water, plants, and animals, leaving it better for the next generation.
Whether you live in an urban neighborhood with a lawn and small garden or a farm with hundreds of acres, you can help build and maintain soil health by implementing regenerative practices. They include the following:
Minimize disturbance of the soil, which reduces compaction and encourages growth of microbial communities.
Keep the soil covered year-round, with cover crops, plant residue, or mulch.
Improve biodiversity by growing different types of crops.
Install vegetative buffers along waterways, which can help trap and remove sediment and protect rivers and streams from farm field runoff.
Agricultural runoff is not the only impact on our rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. Polluted runoff can originate from urban sources including stormwater, industry, and aging infrastructure. These pollution sources can also get into our groundwater. The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972 with the goal that all water in the US be swimmable, fishable, and drinkable. But that goal is still not met, and there is opposition to strengthening the Clean Water Act.
We know what to do to keep our water safe from pollution. We aren’t making water a priority. The average US family pays twice as much on their television service as they do on their water bill—and TV is optional. Water is not.
Water is not just an environmental issue. It’s an economic issue, it’s a jobs issue, it’s a health issue, and it’s a parenting issue. And someday, it may be a national security issue.
We need to become water advocates. We need to make clean water a priority, in our lives and in our communities. That means spending money to fix the real problems. It means changing the way we build roads and buildings and parking lots on our land. It means strengthening the laws that protect our water and electing people who are committed to doing the same.
What is water worth to you? And what are you willing to do to protect it?
Sarah Hippensteel-Hall, Ph.D., is the manager of watershed partnerships for the Miami Conservancy District (MCD) and a member of the Agraria Board of Trustees. This article is adapted with permission from articles that appeared on MCD’s blog, Watershed News.