NPS: What is it?
Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution occurs when rainfall runs over land (stormwater runoff) or through the ground, picking up pollutants and depositing them into streams, lakes, and coastal waters, or infiltrating below the surface to groundwater. The most common NPS pollutants are sediment and nutrients. These pollutants wash into water bodies from unpaved (dirt or gravel) roads and parking lots, construction sites, eroded upland soils, farms, and other areas of land disturbance. As the photograph above illustrates, sediment and nutrients are among the leading causes of poor water quality and algae blooms in the Saipan lagoon.
Other common NPS pollutants include pesticides, pathogens (bacteria and viruses), petroleum products (motor oil and grease), toxic chemicals, and heavy metals. Potential sources of these pollutants include farms, golf courses, and homes (pesticides); improperly designed and maintained septic tanks and public sewer lines (pathogens); leaky car engines, vehicle maintenance and repair shops, gas stations, auto paint shops, commercial laundries, power plants, garment factories, and other industrial facilities, ports, storage facilities, and constructions sites (petroleum products, toxic chemicals, and heavy metals).
Beach closures, destroyed habitat, unsafe drinking water, fish kills, coral depopulation, and other severe environmental and human health problems result from NPS pollution. Even our economy is threatened by NPS pollution, because all of these problems make the CNMI a less desirable destination for tourism, our #1 industry. Contact the Coastal Resources Management Office NPS Manager at (670) 664-8322 for more information on NPS pollution, and what you can do to help prevent it