Rural Water Pollution

President Clinton’s ambitious plan to tackle our country’s No. 1 water pollution problem--contaminated runoff--is a good start but doesn’t go far enough (“Clinton Unveils Waterway Cleanup Plan,” Feb. 20).

The Clean Water Action Plan would expand existing voluntary programs, financial incentives and technical assistance to reduce pollution from large-scale animal operations, and the plan also promises to strengthen water quality standards and authorities. But the fact is that over the last two decades, hundreds of millions of public dollars have been spent on voluntary measures to control non-point pollution--and yet this kind of pollution has worsened significantly.

In addition to incentives, we need tougher antipollution laws. There are over 1,600 large livestock cattle ranches and dairies in California’s Central Valley alone, and few of them have management systems for handling animal waste. I have introduced legislation that would require stronger disposal controls for most of the ranches and limit the amount of manure that can be applied to land as fertilizer.

We must also recognize that voluntary cleanup measures and incentives for compliance are only effective in combination with equally strong deterrents to water pollution.

REP. GEORGE MILLER

D-Martinez