YES DEAR

44

TheNational

FUTURE

FA

RMER

JalayneWoodhead,Carthage's 1987 parliamentaryprocedure chairperson.

sure ifthe chapter will be able tocon- tinuehostingit,thoughhedoesadmit"it

would be hard to give up once we've startedit."

DebbiePowell, chapterpresident,says the contest ^is

good

torthechapterfora

number

ofreasons. "It'salot like

Wash-

ingtonConference

Program

ⁱⁿthesense

that

we

gettomeetother

members

from across thecountry. It's alsogreat public relations for our chapter."

The

Plant City,Florida,

FFA

Chapterhave brought theirlocal

TV

news crew and newspaper reporters

when

they competed.

A number

ofchaptersreturneach year as state winners. Besides Plant City,

chapters suchas

James Wood.

Virginia;

Waverly, Nebraska;

and

last year's winner. White House. Iennessee, areno strangers tothis restfulsouthwest corner of Missouri.

And

no one leaves

empty

handed.Everyone

who

attendsreceivesa certificateand winning teamsgetplaques.

In 1985 the National

FFA

Board of Directors considered the feasibility ot

adopting parliamentary procedure as a national contest,suchaspublicspeaking.

Aftera lengths studyand survey ofeach state by an appointed committee, the board decided not to addthe contest.

So

again this fall, for the tenth year straight, state-winning parliamentary procedureteamsfromacross thecountry willmeetinCarthagetosettle

who

isthe very best.

No

fuss, no whoopla- just

FFA

leadership teamsgivingtheir best.

Any

discussion'

Meeting adjourned. •••

Gunfc

"Whatasuperday!When weweren'tdoing

'donuW

orflyingoverdunesweweredrillingbull's-eyeswithoui oiniu SuregladItalktdDaJintobringing emalong.*^

Seewhatyou'vebeenmissing. Getyourhandsona

Oxman

andshareallthefun.

BPBI

^•i

a*

Water, Water Everywhere. But

(Maybe) Not A Drop to Drink? ^By

^JackPitzer

A worn out cliche which, unfortunately, may apply to 95 percent of rural America.

Dateline — _{Thursday, April}

_30.

1987

— _{Ag Ed}

Network. ..Ground-water contamination is getting an increasing

amount

ofattention

from members

of Congress. In Senate hearings Wednes- day, one witness testified that even if

farmers

stopped

using all chemical

fertilizers

and

pesticides today, already serious contamination of the nation's precious ground-water supplies

would

continueto worsen.

This ^{Ag Ed Network}

^{news report is}

just one of

many

examples of the growing attention being given ground waterinagriculture.

Why

allthe publicitylately?

How

does

it affect

FFA members?

Firstoff,groundwatersuppliesalmost

all of the available fresh water in the United Statesand istheprimarysource of drinkingwater for 50 percent of the generalpopulationand95 percent ofthe rural population! That's

why

the topic hits home;it'sthewateryoudrink!

What

^is

ground water?

Many

people think ofgroundwateras a series of lakes and rivers flowing beneaththe surfaceoftheearth andare surprised to learn that ground water exists in permeable saturated zones of rock, sand or gravel called aquifers.

According

to

Concern,

Inc., these aquifers

may

cover only a few miles in overall area or they

may

extend over thousandsofsquaremiles

—

^asdoes the Ogallala aquifer which reaches from South

Dakota down

^to the plains of centralTexas.

Most

ground wateroriginates as pre- cipitation,percolates into the soil

much

aswater fillsasponge,and

moves

from place to place along fractures in rock, through sand and gravel, or through channels in formations such as caver- nouslimestone.

Betweenirrigationandlivestock usage, about two-thirds ofthe daily supply of ground water used in the U.S. ^is for agricultural activities. But agricultural activities havealsointroduced contami- nantsthatthreatenground-waterquality, limiting its usefulness as a source of drinkingwater andforother purposes.

Ground-water Contamination Sometime

ago, there was a lot of attention towaterpollutioncontrol pro- grams focused on protecting surface waters like pollution of a river from a specific source.

Gound-water

quality didn't get

much

attentionbecause^itwas assumed pollutants would bedegraded orcleansedfromthewaterbythenatural filtering action of the soil. It was not realized untilthelate 1970s thatground waterwas being pollutedbynondegrad- ingchemicalsandnot being

removed

by

soil filtration.

With observed improvements in sur- facewaterqualityandin-placeprograms tocontrol pointsourcesofpollution,the focus of water pollution control in the UnitedStatesduringthe¹980shasshifted to

managing

the

more

difficult con- cern

—

^{ground water. That's}

^why

^{all the}

talkinthenews.

In 1985, 38 states reported that agri- cultural activity was a

known

or sus- pected source ofground-watercontam- inationwithintheirborders accordingto aLibrary ofCongressresearchreportby

analyst

Donald

Feliciano.

The

most

commonly

found or suspected ground- water pollutants in the states tendedto befromagricultural sources:38 reported nitrates(fertilizers),24reportedbacteria (animal wastes), and 32 reported pesti- cides (herbicides and insecticides).

The

mostaffectedgroupisthe ruralpopula- tion, which obtains its drinking water from ground waterthat isforthe most partuntreatedprior to consumption.

Ground-water contaminationas are- sult ofagriculture can occur in several ways.

Ag

chemicalpollutionhasresulted

from

spills,improperstorage, backflush- ing

down

the well after adding agri- chemicals to irrigationwater,andother accidents. These can be identified and preventedby prudentsafeguards.

But normally accepted large-scale agricultural practices such as spreading fertilizer or spraying of pesticides also cancauseground-watercontamination.

The

problem in these situations is the difficultyin being abletodeterminethe exactsource of contamination.

Variations in general agricultural practices,together withlocalsoil,ground water,andclimaticconditionsaffectthe likelihood of ground-water contamina-

tion.

What

Threat

Do

Agricultural Practices Present

To Underground Water?

The

actual threat ofagricultural ac- tivities to ground-water quality is un-

known,

althoughthegrowing

number

of discovered incidents of ground-water contamination involving agricultural activities indicates a problem of poten- tiallysignificant proportions.

The EPA

^is conductinganationwide survey of pesticides in drinking-water wellsinordertoprovidethefirstnational picture of the extent of agricultural chemicals in drinking-water wells. This three-year survey will analyze samples

from

approximately 1,500 drinking- waterwellsacrossthecountry, including about 750domesticwellsinlargelyrural areasand about 500

community

wells.

Results from the National Pesticide Survey will provide the first accurate, statisticalestimatesofthe extentofpesti- cide contamination of drinking-water wells.

The

results are also expected to improve our understanding oftherela- (Continuedon Page48)

46 The\ational

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