Letter: Too much cost, too little benefit from buffer strips.
Can one buffer-strip law fit every farm, any more than one shoe size can fit every foot?
Trying to enforce such a law is going to be hugely expensive and not very beneficial.
But farmers still will pay more than a million dollars of land tax on this land that they cannot farm, and they’ll lose more than $37 million of gross income in just 10 years’ time.
Grazing is permitted, but grazing requires fencing, and fences catch weeds.
That means animals will mess the buffers and the water.
Remember, urban run-off is a huge source of water pollution, because water on streets, roof tops and fertilized golf courses and lawns quickly flows into the storm sewers.
But barely a word is said about this source.
Water moves more slowly in these flatter ditches, and that fact—coupled with the existing grasses and vegetation —confirms that most contaminants settle to the ditch bottom soon after entering the ditch system.
We farmers want clean water more than anyone.