The Environmental Protection Agency is good at pointing out problems. Solving them is where the EPA comes up short.

Take nitrates. They are naturally occurring and present in many foods such as vegetables and some meats such as ham and bacon.

Sometimes, however, the use of fertilizer, compost and manure on farmland can result in nitrates infiltrating ground water. This can happen in areas where there’s a lot of rain or irrigation is used. A 2018 National Institutes of Health study found that 21% of private wells in U.S. agricultural areas exceed the maximum contaminant level for nitrates of 10 milligrams per liter.

In most European countries, the average nitrate level in groundwater is 17.5 mg/liter, according to the study.

Clearly, nitrates are not confined to any single area, region or even continent.

If ground water with excess nitrates is used to drink and cook, it’s possible people can encounter health problems. In some cases, excess nitrates can increase the risk of complications during pregnancy, cancer in the digestive system and even blue baby syndrome, a condition in which infants get too little oxygen.

When people live in rural areas, it is common for the local extension office or health department to encourage them to regularly test their well water for nitrates. If a high level of nitrates is found, the problem can usually be solved with a reverse osmosis water filter or by using bottled water.

Yet when the EPA stumbles on a situation involving elevated nitrate levels, instead of explaining and addressing the problems, the agency engages in finger-pointing. Farms in the area, manufacturers that produce waste water and other sources are singled out while failed septic systems and other sources are minimized.

That’s where the problems arise, and where the EPA falls short. Instead of explaining what’s going on and how to fix it — again, nitrates were not invented yesterday — the EPA engages in a prolonged blame game.

The irony of this is that even when the farmers follow the EPA’s instructions, they continue to be blamed for any problems that remain.

In the case of four dairy farms near Yakima, Wash., the EPA’s instructions have been carried out over the past 11 years at a cost of millions of dollars. Manure lagoons were lined or abandoned and the dairies were required to report their progress every month.

Yet, in some areas, the excess nitrate problem remains.

The EPA should figure out why its requirements were ineffective, not look for a farmer to blame.

As an aside, a local Groundwater Management Area was formed by local and state agencies to provide “a technically sound set of best management practices, education and outreach efforts, technology-based actions and inter-agency coordination initiatives.”

In other words, while the EPA was talking to lawyers, these other agencies were doing the work.

By going to court instead of to the laboratory, the EPA hasn’t solved the problem but did put two family-run dairies out of business.

So after millions of dollars were spent and two farms closed the nitrate levels are still too high in some areas.

We fail to see what, exactly, EPA did to solve the problem.