701-566-9300Public input is still being taken by the North Dakota Department of Health (DoH) on their Nutrient Management Plan, include at a meeting at the Fargodome on the first of May. There were people interested in municipal, livestock and general agricultural sources as well as septic system problems. We listened to reports from DoH officials on the status of the Plan and then broke into separate interest groups. Sugar beets, grain growers, soybeans and others were represented in our subgroup. The group came up with a few things we think the DoH would do well to consider when seeking volunteer producers to regulate their nutrients: Uppermost was that the practice must show economic benefit. Secondly we felt that realistically scaled demonstrations (entire fields rather that small test plots) that are successful would do the best job of showing producers how best management practices (BMPs) can be utilized. Then we discussed various partners who might help the producer with instituting a plan that works for them. For anyone who would like to delve deeper into the DoH plan, I would go to their website. Find Water Quality in their banner, and then under Programs, go to Watershed Management. Under that you will find Nutrient Reduction. From there it is up to you to go as deeply as you wish. I find that those involved in this program will be happy to answer questions. I have also written about this in blogs #48 and #42 if you would like more background. The DoH stresses that this is going to be decades in the making and they have doing their best to welcome questions and comments from all quarters.
