GROUNDWATER Pollution Emerges as a Rural Issue”— Successful Farming , January 1986 ( 79 ). “Families Worry as Water Quality Drops”— Progressive Farmer , September 1985 ( 60 ). “Groundwater Pollution: Who's Liable?”— Successful Farming , December 1985 ( 82 ). As these farm magazine titles suggest, agriculture's impacts on groundwater quality have become an important environmental issue. Countless newspaper and magazine headlines, congressional hearings, a myriad of technical and policy meetings, and various industry and government agency activities all attest to this fact. As Ken Cook aptly noted in his satirical commentary, “The Big Seep,” in the July-August 1986 issue of the JSWC ( 26 ), “I'll put it to you real blunt Nepa: groundwater pollution is probably the major environmental problem facing agriculture over the next 10 years.” Collectively, these articles and events mark a turning point. In most technical circles the debate is no longer about whether or not agricultural activities contaminate groundwater. Current discussions focus on where, when, why, the seriousness of the problem, and what can be done about it? Facts emerging from the studies of groundwater contamination raise more than concern from environmentalists. They raise legitimate …
George R. Hallberg (Sat,) studied this question.