11/6/08 Input for Water Quality Plan

Input for Water Quality Plan. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Washington Department of Ecology is seeking input from the public on a plan to improve the water quality of the rivers, lakes and streams in the Walla Walla River watershed according to Karin Baldwin, Ecology's project manager for the improvement plan. BALDWIN: We're looking for input on the actions and the strategies and the prioritizations that Ecology worked to develop. We have some actions out there in this plan and looking for their comment whether they think the actions go far enough, maybe they think more needs to be done, maybe other areas need to be prioritized. Maybe we need to address a different source of pollution that we didn't really cover all that well, those kind of things. Everyone in the watershed is covered in the plan. BALDWIN: The plan tries to cover what the cities will do to control storm water, pollution. It talks about what people living in small farms can do; larger agricultural areas. Really kind of addresses the impacts that everybody in the watershed can make. It also prioritizes where actions should take place in the watershed Baldwin says some farming operations may need to make some alterations. BALDWIN: The biggest thing is change in how they go about farming. It can be changes to direct feed, it can be changes in how they rotate crops, maybe leaving a little bit more residue, not making so many passes. Maybe reducing the amount of summer fallow they have, basically there's a variety of techniques. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.