Drive as far as you can along the 120-mile southern shore of New York’s Long Island and you’ll arrive in the Hamptons. The exclusive high-style living area with its multi-million dollar mansions is where Big Apple’s elite spend their weekends and summer vacations. So what does has to do with no-till?

As reported in the East Hampton Star newspaper, a dust storm last winter blanketed the main street in the town of Amagansett. The dust made its way into buildings, sickened employees, led to the temporary closing of at least one business and kept local school children indoors during recess.

As a result, the local town board recently proposed a law that would institute fines of up to $2,500 or 6 months in jail for farmers who didn’t seed cover crops to protect against wind erosion. As you can guess, farmers and farm groups aren’t happy with the proposed law’s language.

EPA Involvement

Maybe you haven’t thought about the amount of dust you generate in a given day, but lawmakers have. That’s why the EPA in 2010 started taking a hard look at the amount of dust generated on farms and how it impacts air quality and human health.

Tillage and harvesting operations were singled out in California’s San Joaquin Valley as a key contributor to PM-10 particles, which are 25-100 times thinner than a human hair. Nearly 73 tons per day of dust were being emitted through the use of extensive tillage practices in 2010.

The 2017 Ag Census…