Blackman criticizes Record
Peggy Blackman, speaking at Monday's Marion City Commission meeting, took issue with an Marion County Record editorial.
She said the editorial, by Eric Meyer, was misleading in blaming state and federal agencies and officials for the recent water crisis at Marion Reservoir.
(The editorial did not blame the agencies for the crisis but did criticize them for not having established standards for anabaena despite having it on a "candidates list" since 1998. The editorial also said farm runoff tended to be blamed for most algae, although as a story in this week's paper points out, odd weather may be responsible for anabaena overhwelming other algae.)
Conservation practices constitute a voluntary program, not a mandatory one, said Blackman, Marion Reservoir watershed water quality coordinator.
"We have lots of absentee landowners. There are 70,000 acres of cropland above the reservoir, and 40,000 of them are eroding," she said.
Phase I of the water quality program was finished in 1998, she said.
"We knew what was there and have known a long time," she said.
Weather this year has created very little flow into the reservoir.
"We've been working on it and will continue to do so," she said.
Terraces, waterways, wells, and livestock were some of the concerns of which she spoke briefly. Agricultural pollution also is a concern, she said.
None of these are "new problems;" she said. "we're working with farmers.".
Meanwhile, water in Marion County is relatively clean, Blackman said, compared to that in other areas of Kansas.
"It's not a matter of us not doing our job — we have to be asked," she said.
