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SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

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The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

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Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Report: Nitrate from Fertilizer Polluting Drinking Water in Ag Regions

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012   

DAVIS, Calif. - Much of the groundwater used for drinking in California's two leading agricultural regions contains unsafe levels of nitrate from farm fertilizer, according to a new report from the UC Davis Center for Watershed Science. In fact, the amount of contaminated water in the Tulare Lake Basin and the Salinas Valley is so vast it would fill Lake Shasta nearly eight times.

Laurel Firestone, co-executive director of the Community Water Center, was one of the reviewers of the report. She says the first step is making sure that farm communities have safe drinking water right now, and then going to the source of the problem by reducing the amount of fertilizer that's getting into groundwater.

"We work with communities that are directly impacted by this problem, that don't have safe drinking water every day. These are farm communities that believe that we should be able to have a vibrant agricultural economy and produce food without sacrificing safe drinking water."

Nitrate in water has been linked to blue-baby syndrome, kidney problems and thyroid cancer. The report estimates that providing safe drinking water to these farming communities will cost the state up to $36 million a year.

Firestone says because nitrate can take decades to filter into groundwater, the problem is only going to get worse unless there are significant changes in current agricultural practices, such as more targeted fertilizer application.

"What that means is that this issue can't be solved without agriculture making some significant changes in the way it currently and has used fertilizer and manure to grow food."

She says while some farmers are already voluntarily changing their practices, the state needs to implement a program that ensures wide-scale adoption of farm practices that protect water quality.

More information is at www.communitywatercenter.org.




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