nonpoint source

[‚nän′pȯint ‚sȯrs]

(civil engineering)

A dispersed source of stormwater runoff; the water comes from land dedicated to uses such as agriculture, development, forest, and land fills and enters the surface water system as sheet flow at irregular rates.

References in periodicals archive ?

This project, approved for a duration of five years (2018-2022) seeks to assist Member States combat nonpoint source pollution, a major problem in both developed and developing countries.

Austria : Multiple Isotope Fingerprints to Identify Sources and Transport of Agro-Contaminants (D15018)

Nonpoint source emissions are largely exempt from permitting under the CWA.

Waters of the US Rule and Clean Water Act Fail to Provide Cost-Effective Improvements in Water Quality

Agriculture, though, has been exempted from many of the regulations and permit requirements, mostly due to the concept of nonpoint source pollution.

Game changing lawsuit filed

Through case studies of acid rain, nonpoint source water pollution, toxic releases, and industrial recycling, he analyzes policy tools and outcomes, focusing on failure mechanisms or regulatory slippage and policy mismatches, and offers recommendations based on science and altered incentives.

American Environmental Policy: The Failures of Compliance, Abatement and Mitigation

Nonpoint Source Pollution: The Nation's Largest Water Quality Problem.

Nutrient pollution: a persistent threat to waterways: point-source releases of nitrogen and phosphorus have declined dramatically since the 1970s, but nonpoint-source pollution continues to pose a significant threat to water quality

The IG report acknowledges that the challenge of achieving nutrient reductions in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya Basin is complicated by the size of the Mississippi River watershed, which is the third-largest in the world; lack of Clean Water Act authority over nonpoint source pollution arising from agricultural activities; and competing environmental priorities.

EPA inspector general outlines plan to better monitor gulf pollution

and Ditches Along Logging Roads as Nonpoint Source "Natural

Enough is enough! Stormwater discharged from man-made pipes, ditches, and channels along logging roads is not nonpoint source "natural runoff"

Others, rooted in the Act, seek to incentivize regulated point sources to invest in less costly nonpoint source pollution control through economic drivers.

Addressing death by a thousand cuts: legal and policy innovations to address nonpoint source runoff

2) Nonpoint source pollution on the other hand does not fall under the discharge permitting system.

Plugging the drain: using Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown to reach other point source discharges under the Clean Water Act

Unlike pollution that comes from specific industrial factories, sewage treatment plants and other easily discernible 'points', nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities.

What is "nonpoint source pollution?"

Under wet conditions, nonpoint source loads increase and residence times decrease, which flush the nontidal and tidal river segments and cause bacterial concentrations to spike in the bay.

Spatial and temporal variation in bacterial loading in the Copano bay watershed

The statute's failure to perform even more admirably than it has is due largely to a lack of legislative clarity in addressing the role of wetlands in preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and to Congress's unwillingness to adopt, or force the states to adopt, measures to control nonpoint source pollution.

Science, politics, law, and the arc of the Clean Water Act: the role of assumptions in the adoption of a pollution control landmark