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<br />DO! 1'P- <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />This project was designed to enhance the natural system through precipitation management <br />and was designed to have only positive water quantity impacts to water users, primarily <br />irrigators. A possible direct water quality impact from this project is an increased nitrate- <br />nitrogen load in the groundwater due to plowing fallow ground. It is suspected that this <br />problem would be limited to similar areas where fallow ground was plowed to install <br />precipitation barriers and that the effects would be the same as those found in any area <br />using crop fallow agricultural practices. Future projects designed to use enhanced <br />infiltration would need to manage the impacts from nitrate-nitrogen using improved best <br />management practices such as fertilizer and pesticide management and conservation tillage. <br /> <br />Other factors could reduce and limit the effectiveness of the recharge method, The long- <br />term availability of land for placement of the barriers would be important. Government <br />programs controlling how farms operate, the economics of small-grain production and <br />marketing, and general cooperation among land owners may present difficult issues in the <br />establishment of a large-scale system of snow barriers, The Conservation Reserve Program <br />demonstrates some of these obstacles, During early discussions about the Turner-Hogeland <br />Artificial Recharge Demonstration Project, numerous sites for the project were considered <br />based on their locations relative to glacial outwash channels, groundwater flow in the <br />Turner-Hogeland Aquifer, and irrigation development. By the time project construction <br />began, the Conservation Reserve Program had removed most of these sites from con- <br />sideration to reduce soil erosion and decrease the amount of land being farmed for small <br />grains, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />If changes to Federal policies such as the Conservation Reserve Program were altered to <br />encourage the instillation of vegetative barriers, this technique could have widespread <br />positive impacts to groundwater quantity-groundwater quality would be expected to be <br />minimally impacted if excessive tillage could be avoided, <br /> <br />Implementing a large-scale recharge effort that relied on wheatgrass or other types of low- <br />cost living barriers tied directly to one type of farming would be difficult during the long <br />periods of time required to gain benefit from the recharge, Outside economic and social <br />pressures could cause the enhanced recharge system to be discarded prior to providing <br />long-term results, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />7 <br />