Seminar Focuses On Decreasing Farm Run-Off

2/9/17 – The Beaver Dam Lake Improvement Association held a seminar Wednesday night to discuss practices by famers to decrease runoff into lakes and waterways. Guest speaker and 33-year soil veteran Ray Archuleta believes that we need to start looking at this problem holistically. One of the practices that Archuleta talked about involves no tilling to cultivate the soil. Instead using more natural means, like bacteria, earth worms, and critters to do the work. This can help the soils porosity, allowing deeper water penetration. His goal is to provide groundwork for rain water to soak as far as it can naturally, instead of using barriers to catch whatever is left at the surface. Archuleta says that barriers won’t fix the entire problem, that they are just a Band-Aid, rather the entire farm needs to be a buffer. Archuleta says that in order to stop runoff in Dodge County it takes a change in mindset.