In the future, our research program will be judged on how well we fulfill the objectives of the associated National Program. For FY2000, we received additional funds for research on food safety. These funds will be used to study the use of municipal and animal waste for irrigation and the associated potential degradation in groundwater quality. Microbiologist Norma Duran was hired to conduct this research. She came on board in October 2000.
Water conservation is an immense challenge.
It is so broad and so critical to society both here and abroad that the opportunities for positively impacting both science and practice are almost limitless. With our present funding and staff, we can address only a few aspects of this problem. However, the laboratory can be proud of its long history of producing meaningful and useful research results. Our job is to identify those areas of research that are most critical to the long-term sustainability and enhancement of modern society. While water is a renewable natural resource, it is also a limited one, and one upon which the entire planet depends for its survival.