Are farmers hurting the Gulf of Mexico more than BP?
Farm run-off — and the relatively modest environmental regulations that govern agriculture — are growing issues here in the North Country.
Five years ago, a massive manure spill contaminated the Black River.
A new film made in Vermont examines the crisis of toxic blue green algae blooms on Lake Champlain, which occur most commonly in areas where dairy run-off is most intense.
Now a new study produced by Cornell University suggests that agricultural run-off may also be devastating the Gulf of Mexico, creating a massive “dead zone.”
This from a joint statement released by Cornell and the University of Illinois-Urbana:
[T]ile drainage systems in upper Mississippi farmlands – from southwest Minnesota to Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio – are the biggest contributors of nitrogen runoff into the Gulf.
That runoff has been identified as a major contributor to “seasonal hypoxia” or dead zones in which nitrogen fertilized algae blooms, depletes oxygen and suffocates other life forms over thousands of square miles each summer.
“Given the pivotal role of tile drainage in transporting fertilizer nitrogen from agricultural fields to streams and rivers, we need to consider some form of regulation if we expect to reverse hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Laurie Drinkwater, associate professor of horticulture and co-author of the paper.
One solution, according to the authors, may be installing artificial wetlands to filter the farm waste. Another possibility is fertilizing in the spring instead of the fall.
The idea of Congress regulating farms more intensively — and treating their pollution the way that, say, a factory’s pollution is handled — would be hugely controversial.
So what do you think? Do farms need tighter reins on their pollution? Or is this a reasonable trade-off for cheap corn, dairy, and soy-beans?
Tags: agriculture, environment
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It’s all part of the subsidy/control issue Gov’t plays in agriculture. The easy answer is YES, by all means Gov’t should regulate and reduce fertilizer inputs, drainage, etc. to avoid any further environmental damage. So what effect will that have, who pays for it, what unintended consequences will it have, what subsidies will be “needed” to offset increased costs, how long will it take to see a difference and what will all this do to food prices?
This is one bag can of worms and it’s tied into some other cans of worms like fuel- we’re still using our food (corn) to make ethanol ( one of the dumbest ideas to come down the pike it turns out). We wouldn’t be using so much fertilizer to grow so much corn if prices weren’t so high due to ethanol demand.
Another issue with multiple problems and possible solutions. I have little faith the path chosen will will either solve the problem or not develop a dozen other problems of it’s own.
Yes we do need to regulate fertilizers and run-off, and yes we should eat the corn and stop the ethanol junk.
What the commentators in the video said was that there are enough laws on the books already. They’re not being followed nor enforced.
The answer is not more legislation. In other words, “let’s just add more laws to the books and not enforce them”. That is what has already been tried.
I love the line that says, “this is the result of state and federal regulators …. ignoring laws that have been on the books for years and decades”.
Oh when will we ever learn.
Crummy headline, Brian. Provocative, but misleading.
There’s nothing new about agri-waste in the Mississippi Delta or the dead zone there. http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/
Or pick up a National Geographic from the past 10 years.
Plus, your headline is implying that we’re all stupid to be concerned about the BP spill, that it was somehow overblown, and that reasonable people should be concerned about the agri-dead zone instead. Reasonable people have been. The BP spill is apples to the dead zone’s oranges.
Thanks for at least localizing the issue, though. Some farmers on the New York side of the lake have mitigated their damage by planting vegetation buffers between their fields and waterways to stop direct runoff from their farms, and are getting encouragement to do so.
http://pressrepublican.com/0100_news/x1627563226/Funds-help-farmers-reduce-phosphorus-pollution