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Water safety
Rappahannock’s bodies of water are hardest hit by the pollution associated with farms. Fertilizers run off into streams, farm activities erode ground cover, and livestock create tons of raw sewage that flow into the county’s rivers. Many farms are viable as farms because of their proximity to rivers. A river provides an easy source of water for crops and livestock, saving the resources that would haul water. A river is considered a “natural” source of water for farms located near it, on what is called riparian land. However, like any industry, as a farih takes an environmental toll on the resources around it, those resources become less usable. As a farm pollutes the local waters, those waters are less suitable to water crops, sustain cows, or even swim in.
With these concerns in mind, several programs are available to farmers interested in controlling the environmental damage farming can do to a river system.
Some of them, like Virginia Agricultural Best Management Practices (VABMP), work by assisting farms in funding environmentally friendly procedures, while others like the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) focus on protecting specific tracts of land. These programs and others like them are available under the auspices of the Culpeper Soil and Water District.
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