Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution: Agenda for the Future.

Nonpoint source pollution remains the Nation's largest source of water quality problems. It is the main reason that roughly 52% percent of our nationally surveyed rivers, lakes, and estuaries are not clean enough to meet basic uses such as fishing or swimming and are thus labeled impaired. Reducing nonpoint source pollution, particularly nutrients, and their impacts to water quality, has become a top priority for EPA. Agriculture, both animal and row crop operations, is the leading nonpoint source, causing lakes, rivers, and streams across the U.S. to consequently be impaired. The most common agricultural pollutants are nutrients and sediment. A variety of data sources show that the current voluntary approaches alone have not been sufficient to deal with the nutrient problems. EPA must look to the full suite of tools available and expand the use of the Clean Water Act tools to better address this increasing problem.