Targeting the Conservation Reserve Program to Maximize Water Quality Benefits

There is a growing desire on the part of environmental and conservation groups to see agricultural programs that remove cropland from production, or that require soil and input conservation, be used to protect or improve water quality. Such programs could become powerful tools for addressing an important source of water pollution. One such program is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Many environmental groups are looking upon the CRP as a way of retiring from production cropland which is contributing to water quality problems. Senators Robert Dole and Wyche Fowler have each proposed expansions of the CRP specifically to address water quality issues. The Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging states either to incorporate the CRP into their plans to meet the nonpoint source pollution requirements of the 1987 Water Quality Act, or to develop their own CRP-like programs. Most discussions of how to approach the problem of nonpoint source pollution involve targeting programs to problem watersheds. For example, Section 319 of the 1987 Water Quality Act requires states to identify priority watersheds for treatment of nonpoint source pollution problems. Such targeting implies there exist criteria upon which areas can be ranked for the purpose of implementing water quality improvement measures. The criteria selected are