When state officials said many rivers and streams around Edgerton in southwestern Minnesota were unsafe for swimming and fishing because of agricultural run-off, it wasn’t news in the local paper. “We live in an agricultural area and that’s just the way it is,” the editor of the local paper told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Lots of small towns in Minnesota face the same dilemma of farm chemicals leaching into waterways, says the newspaper. “Since 2002, Edgerton itself has spent more than $418,000 on a treatment plant to meet the federal health standard for drinking water.”
Agriculture is the foundation of the rural economy, so no one points fingers at it. Brothers Ross and Reed Van Hulzen, who farm near Edgerton, told the Star-Tribune that they get more pressure from state regulators than local officials. “Reed Van Hulzen said he resents the ‘Cities’ telling farmers what to do because urban attitudes about agriculture are disconnected from reality.” The Van Hulzens opposed a proposal for buffer strips along waterways to trap runoff, but they point to other steps by local farmers to control excess nutrients.