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2016 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine
Lincoln Daily
News.comMarch 24, 2016 31
hand has been to address silt and nutrient levels
accumulating in major watersheds. The Chesapeake
Bay Watershed has become a model and that work is
well underway at this time.
In the broadest view, the Rule gives the EPA power
over every major waterway leading to a watershed.
In the narrowest context, the agency now has
jurisdiction over farms and other land-use throughout
the states as every drop of water can now be back
tracked through every tributary to every parcel of
land, even taking into account dry land (fields) and
the flow of water as it runs off the surface to ditches
or through drainage tiles - that lead to a tributary -
that leads to waterways - that leads to a watershed.
It is estimated that agriculture contributes 80 percent
of the nitrogen and 48 percent of the phosphorous
reaching Illinois waterways.
Basins cover almost 75 percent of Illinois and there
are there are 18 major watersheds. Nutrients washed
down the Mississippi River end up in the Gulf of
Mexico.
Representatives from agencies and non-governmental
organizations, industry, universities, agriculture,
wastewater treatment from state and federal levels,
worked together to develop the Illinois Nutrient Loss
Reduction Strategy (NRLS) with a goal aimed to
reduce nitrogen and phosphorus losses by 45 percent.
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