Water quality is an Extension System National Initiative.As such, it looms large in Extension issues-based educational programming today and for the future.Water quality is everyone's concern and important for attention by the social sciences as well as the biological and physical.Some public decision makers feel the problem is so serious that, if Extension can't make a difference in agriculture's effects on water quality, our effectiveness and value as educators are open to question.The primary focus of Extension's efforts is on agriculture, because farms and ranches are major land users and are among the polluters of water in both urban and rural areas.People in rural America are especially vulnerable to water pollution.The Safe Drinking Water Act seeks to protect only public water supplies.Private wells, serving over 40 million people across the nation, aren't covered by the act.
Gerald F. Vaughn (Fri,) studied this question.