NACWA staff and member agency representatives met with the Agricultural Nutrient Policy Council (ANPC) last week to discuss potential areas of collaboration among the clean water and agricultural communities.  The ANPC, whose members include the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Pork Producers Council, and The Fertilizer Institute, among others, was formed in 2010 to provide the agriculture community a forum for discussing technical and policy issues involving nutrients.  

The meeting was intended as a prelude to NACWA’s upcoming Nutrient Summit in March, where Association leaders will discuss NACWA’s short and long-term positions on nutrients, as well as begin a conversation exploring whether NACWA and ANPC can find common ground for future collaboration.  David St. Pierre, NACWA Treasurer and Executive Director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago; Tom Sigmund, Executive Director for NEW Water in Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Bruce Roll, Director of the Watershed Management Department for Clean Water Services in Hillsboro, Oregon, provided overviews of the collaborative work being led by their utilities to engage agricultural producers at local level water quality projects.  

NACWA and ANPC agreed that working to increase the number of these types of partnerships could be an area for collaboration among the national groups, and also discussed opportunities to increase funding for conservation programs in the Farm Bill which help to support these partnerships.  NACWA seeks to engage in similar discussions with the ANPC throughout 2017.