Voluntary Clean Water Guidance for Agriculture Draft Comment Period
We are seeking comments on the draft chapters of our Voluntary Clean Water for Agriculture Guidance. The guidance is a technical resource for agricultural producers that describes Ecology’s recommended best management practices (BMPs) to protect water quality. The goal of this guidance is to support healthy farms and help farmers meet clean water quality standards.
The guidance will contain 13 chapters, which will cover different conservation practices and give agricultural producers a comprehensive set of BMPs for protecting water quality. As we finish each draft chapter, we will distribute the new chapter for public comment.
We have completed drafts of the guidance’s Introduction as well as the Cropping Methods: Tillage and Residue Management chapter of the guidance. The next chapters we are working on include: Riparian Areas & Surface Water Protection (Buffers), Livestock Management-Pasture & Rangeland Grazing, Livestock Management-Animal Confinement, Manure Handling & Storage, and Suites of Recommended Practices. We plan on having drafts of these chapters completed in 2021.