Assessing the Present
Narrator
In 1986, a coalition of Oregon environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to enforce the Clean Water Act in the Tualatin basin. This led to a new emphasis in pollution control—one that addresses runoff from all parts of the landscape including farms, forests, cities, construction sites, mines, and septic systems. The sources of this pollution are widespread, thus the name nonpoint source pollution.
Roger Wood coordinates the nonpoint source pollution program for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality. He says our nation must continue its efforts to control point source pollution, but stresses the growing need to reduce nonpoint source pollution.
 Roger Wood, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Every time a study is done, in Oregon or nationally, we find that nonpoint source pollutants are from 50 to 80 percent of the total pollution in the water. I think it’s time for us to turn our attention nationally and at the local level to non-point source (pollution). Otherwise, we’ll never be able to bring river and lake and groundwater quality to the point that we want it to be.
Narrator
Nationwide, regulation of nonpoint source pollution is almost non-existent. Many communities are just beginning to document their local situations.
John Jackson, Unified Sewerage Agency
Nonpoint source pollution needs to be defined locally and it needs to be defined based on the problem it’s creating in the river. Some places its dirt—just absolute muddy water—thick enough that you might be able to walk on it as they say. Other places it’s dissolved oxygen. It could be an urban stream in a very large city that has to deal with copper or zinc or cadmium coming off of automobiles.
Narrator
Nearly two dozen Oregon scientists helped define the Tualatin’s nonpoint source pollution problems with a series of reports issued in 1993. They analyzed the river’s major pollutants, identified the sources, when possible, and made recommendations to help reduce nonpoint source pollution.
Stan Gregory provided expertise on river systems and land use planning.
 Stan Gregory, Oregon State University
The increase in human populations is a very common problem in all of these watersheds. For instance, in the Tualatin, the population that has developed here over the last 140 years will be doubled in the next 30 years. So we’ve got to plan and make decisions much faster—and with much shorter lead-time—than we ever have before.
Narrator
Benno Warkentin analyzed the effects of agriculture, forestry, and new construction, as they relate to Tualatin basin soils.
Benno Warkentin, Oregon State University
One of the big things that you can do is protect the riparian, or the area right next to the stream. If you protect the first five to ten feet from the stream, you pick up a lot of sediments, you pick up a lot of nutrients, a lot of chemicals in that way. The other thing is leaving the surface. You’ll notice these areas have all been planted and so there will be protection for the surface here during the winter.
Narrator
Judi Li examined life in the Tualatin’s aquatic ecosystem and its ties to life on land.
Judi Li, Oregon State University
We’ve lost a lot of habitat. And so we realize that the stream does not have a chance to filter things the way it did when it was flowing in its complete natural flood plain. And we anticipate that if there were more wetlands here, as there were formerly, we wouldn’t be getting as much algal growth or nutrient kinds of cycling within the system.
Narrator
And Wayne Huber was one of several scientists who studied the effects of urban runoff.
 Wayne Huber, Oregon State University
One of the biggest contributors in urban areas is the runoff from paved areas, such as hydrocarbons from oil and the products of combustion, zinc from brake linings, cadmium from tires. Mercury and lead are also pollutants that are associated with urban runoff. We fertilize our lawns. We dispose of our trash in a variety of ways. Sometimes we throw things—throw chemicals in the street gutter, not understanding that, in fact, waters that drain into gutters and down storm drains eventually drain into our natural receiving waters.
Narrator
A growing number of communities are working to identify their nonpoint source pollution problems, but government agencies and citizens groups are finding the next step more difficult. The next step is public education.
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