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Texas Agriculture Archive

March 17, 2006

Be proactive in water issues

By Ned Meister
Director, TFB Commodity & Regulatory Activities

The City of Waco has engaged upstream dairies in a battle over water quality in Lake Waco for the past several years.

The picture painted back then by former Mayor Linda Ethridge —aided by some local media—was one of out-of-control dairymen in the Bosque River watershed, allowing their cows to back up and conduct their business directly into the streams and rivers that feed Lake Waco. Listening to the former mayor, you'd have thought Lake Waco was nothing but a giant, stinking cesspool of cow patties.

Fast forward to now. Mayor Ethridge is gone, but the city's battle against the dairies continues. Lawsuits have been filed against dairymen, dairies have spent millions of dollars in their defense, and many have gone out of business or moved away. Although the main battle over the years has been against excess nutrients causing algae blooms—supposedly making the water taste bad—the city opened another front concerning E. coli bacteria in Lake Waco waters. As they did in the nutrient issue, the Texas Farm Bureau Board of Directors decided to fight back.

The Board determined that it was important to find out where the sources of E. coli bacteria in the lake came from. If the dairy industry was causing a problem, then resources could be targeted to solve that problem.

Texas Farm Bureau began developing a Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP), and invited participation from the City of Waco, the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, and the Brazos River Authority. All agreed.

Originally, the QAPP required that samples be sent to a lab in Washington State to determine the genetic sequences of E. coli, so the sources of that bacteria could be found and identified in water sampling. That was acceptable, but Farm Bureau decided to go one step further. After talking to the folks at Texas A&M, a program was developed to set up a lab that used four methodologies to determine the genetic typing of these E. coli bacteria. That project not only defined the sources of E. coli in the waters of Lake Waco and Belton Lake, but also compared the methodologies to see which one would give the best bang for the buck.

Fecal samples were collected from virtually all domestic livestock and many of the wildlife species within the two watersheds. E. coli was extracted to create a genetic library of bacteria. When water samples were taken from the lakes—over a period of 10 months—it could determine what species the E. coli came from.

To make a long story short, multiple species contributed to the E. coli presence in the water. The greatest contributor of the bacteria in both lakes was wildlife, ranging from 40 to 55 percent contribution depending on where the sampling site was. Typically, the human impact and cattle impact were very close together, a percentage or two either way. The best news was there was very little E. coli presence in the water, which means neither lake is contaminated.

So how does this apply to you?

There are about 180 segments of Texas rivers and streams impaired by bacteria. This project developed new science as a tool to deal with these water quality issues. It can be a very valuable tool for the State of Texas as it starts to develop total maximum daily load (TMDL) programs for all the impaired segments. It can really put a more focused attention on the sources of bacteria so that solutions can be applied in a surgical sense, addressing only the problem and not implicating a whole industry that's not at fault.

This project also teaches us that agriculture must be proactive in these water quality issues. We must use sound science—first of all—to determine if there is a problem. If a problem is found, farmers and ranchers can take the lead to help develop or apply science to abate it.

Farmers and ranchers also need to be involved in the TMDL development process, which addresses not only bacteria, but also other factors such as nutrients and other sources of pollution and sediment. Becoming a TMDL planning team stakeholder or getting in on the ground floor to develop a watershed management plan are ideal ways for farmers and ranchers to get involved and let their needs, limitations and suggestions be expressed. Producers need to remember that is not one big event, but incremental events that cause a load on a river, lake or stream to be such that it needs to be dealt with in a regulatory fashion.

If every agricultural producer can be involved in a watershed plan or in TMDL planning for their area, and apply a little bit of management on their places, then by and large agriculture won't be the target in the impaired water blame game. And remember, no watershed management plan will work unless it's inclusive of agriculture, municipalities and industry. If all three entities join together and put their shoulders to the wheel, we can have a safe and clean source of water for all Texans.