Additionally, ensuring clean water and maintaining our state’s biodiversity are essential to ensuring healthy people, protecting our quality of life, and maintaining a thriving economy. As we fall behind on meeting our clean water targets, how we regulate our farms is an important factor. Under the current system, both the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) and the Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets (AAFM) regulate water pollution on farms. We are calling on lawmakers to shift clear authority to ANR to properly regulate water pollution on farms. This shift will create a clearer regulatory system for farmers, reduce redundancies in state government, and help ensure all farms are complying with our state and federal clean water laws. 

Another water pollution issue is the over-salting of roads, which harms water quality and aquatic species. We are calling on lawmakers to pass a Chloride Reduction Program that will require municipalities to employ practices that will reduce the amount of salt used on our roads and therefore reduce harmful chloride pollution.