{"id":3293,"date":"2010-11-26T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-26T12:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3293"},"modified":"2010-11-29T10:42:04","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T15:42:04","slug":"are-farmers-hurting-the-gulf-of-mexico-more-than-bp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/11\/26\/are-farmers-hurting-the-gulf-of-mexico-more-than-bp\/","title":{"rendered":"Are farmers hurting the Gulf of Mexico more than BP?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farm run-off — and the relatively modest environmental regulations that govern agriculture — are growing issues here in the North Country.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, a massive manure spill contaminated the Black River<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

This from a joint statement released by Cornell and the University of Illinois-Urbana:<\/p>\n

[T]ile drainage systems in upper Mississippi farmlands \u2013 from southwest Minnesota to Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio \u2013 are the biggest contributors of nitrogen runoff into the Gulf.<\/p>\n

That runoff has been identified as a major contributor to \u201cseasonal hypoxia\u201d or dead zones in which nitrogen fertilized algae blooms, depletes oxygen and suffocates other life forms over thousands of square miles each summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven 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,\u201d said Laurie Drinkwater, associate professor of horticulture and co-author of the paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One solution, according to the authors, may be installing artificial wetlands to filter the farm waste.\u00a0 Another possibility is fertilizing in the spring instead of the fall.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 Do farms need tighter reins on their pollution?\u00a0 Or is this a reasonable trade-off for cheap corn, dairy, and soy-beans?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farm run-off — and the relatively modest environmental regulations that govern agriculture — are growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1420,884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}