Forwarded by Jane Clark from Roy Overton.
We hit the News in New York twice in the same paper.......Now if we can the
state legislature to read this also!! RO
Big Farms Making a Mess of U.S. Waters, Cities Say
February 10, 2002
By ELIZABETH BECKER
DEDHAM, Iowa - By the time the Raccoon River winds through
the western hills here, passing corn fields and livestock
pens before reaching Des Moines miles to the east, it is so
polluted the city has to put it through a special nutrient
filter to meet government standards for drinking water.
The culprits are not industrial plants or mines belching
toxins into the river. They are Iowa farms, which send
fertilizer and animal wastes into the groundwater and into
the river.
"Farmers are the problem," said L. D. McMullen, the general
manager of the Des Moines Water Works. "And they are
entirely unregulated."
The issue goes beyond Iowa. Across the country,
metropolitan water agencies are battling increasing
pollution from the countryside. The river pollution is
spreading and helping to cause dead zones in the open seas.
A recent study by the Pew Oceans Commission, an independent
group examining government policies, called huge livestock
feedlots and farm fertilizer runoff among the
fastest-growing sources of pollution in oceans thousands of
miles away.
As a result, the $171 billion, 10-year farm bill, once seen
as a parochial issue for rural lawmakers, has been
scrutinized by members of Congress from urban and suburban
districts who realize that the upheaval in agriculture has
implications beyond the grocery store.
The bill includes several proposals to reduce water
pollution, like increased money to encourage farmers to
practice conservation, increased money to protect wetlands,
and limits on subsidies so the federal program will not
underwrite further farm consolidation. [On Thursday, the
Senate voted to limit a farmer's annual subsidy to
$275,000, half of the current limit. It is unclear if that
cap will survive negotiations with the House, which has
voted to keep the current limit, $550,000.]
In Iowa, farmers cultivated land with the help of more
federal subsidies than farmers in any other state - $6.75
billion in five years. In a state with no national parks or
forests, which keep the land in its natural state, the Iowa
countryside has been awash in fertilizers, pesticides,
herbicides and animal wastes, some politicians, scientists
and environmental groups say.
"We have the most subsidies and the lowest amount of public
lands of any state in the union," said Senator Tom Harkin,
the Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Agriculture
Committee.
In the last six years there have been 152 fish kills in
Iowa - leaving 5.7 million fish floating dead in rivers and
lakes polluted by fertilizer runoff or leakage from hog and
cattle manure lagoons.
Half of Iowa's lake beaches were temporarily closed last
year because of agricultural pollution, said Craig A. Cox,
executive vice president of the Soil and Water Conservation
Society, based in Iowa.
"Over the last 20 years, we've farmed fence row to fence
row, encouraged by federal subsidies, and changed the whole
landscape of Iowa," Mr. Cox said. "Farmsteads with groves
of trees, patches of wetland and well-planted river banks
have been eliminated. Without those natural buffers, we've
short-circuited the natural filters and ended up with these
water problems."
But those who have large farms say it is wrong to blame
them for water pollution. John E. Conrad and his three
brothers operate a 5,000- acre spread in Rose Hill, Iowa,
that received $921,654 in subsidies over five years and is
among the top recipients in the state.
When the government started paying farmers to practice
conservation, the Conrad brothers planted grass strips
along most of their streams. They have resisted building
manure lagoons for their 3,000 hogs in confinement pens;
instead they recycle the waste on their fields.
"We have everything the smaller farmer has for
conservation," Mr. Conrad said. "If our subsidies were
limited, we'd go out of business."
The relationship between federal subsidies and the water
problems begins with farm payments that encourage big farms
to grow bigger, buying out smaller farmers who tend to be
better conservationists, said Michael Duffy, an
agricultural economist at Iowa State University.
The big farmers then "plant for subsidies, not for the
market," Mr. Duffy said, producing some of the best yields
of corn in the state's history. A glut in the global market
means farmers are paid $2 less than their cost per bushel.
But federal subsidies essentially make up the difference.
That cheap corn is then bought by large farms, which feed
it to animals, leading to profitable business for meat
packers.
"The most drastic charts don't begin to show the revolution
in agriculture in the last 10 years," Mr. Duffy said.
"Sometimes I think the government is wearing blindfolds
when it ignores how the farm program is creating the misery
out there."
The number of big farms has doubled over the last two
decades while middle-size family farms that manage to stay
in business have lost half their earnings. The average
number of hogs per farm shot up to 1,300 in 2001, from 400
in 1995, creating the huge manure lagoons scattered across
Iowa.
At the same time, the state's water quality has declined,
although debate continues about who bears the greatest
responsibility.
Without taking sides, the Iowa Farm Bureau has created
programs to plant trees and grass buffer strips and to
monitor water pollution.
For Mr. McMullen, the water manager in Des Moines, about 70
miles east of here, there is little doubt that agriculture
and livestock are the source of his city's water problems.
Two Iowa State University scientists recently reported how
huge hog manure lagoons were seeping into the state's
groundwater.
"The water quality this December is the worst we've had in
winter," Mr. McMullen said. "And we're expecting the worst
spring on record."
For the first time, he and other city water managers are
lobbying Congress to put money in the farm bill to clean up
water pollution at its source, the fields and livestock
pens.
Last summer Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman agreed to
give the state an additional $40 million to improve water
polluted by excess nitrates.
While farmers may be reluctant to accept responsibility for
water pollution, they are eager to be part of the solution.
Jon Judson, a farmer and biologist, persuaded his neighbors
to plant borders of native big blue stem and switch grasses
to filter runoff.
Mr. Judson's mission was financed by wealthy Iowans who
built their homes around an artificial lake that was
becoming cloudy.
Now, through the fog covering his farm, Mr. Judson can
point to nearby fields where every stream is lined with
frozen grasses and new bare trees break the monotony of low
Iowa sky.
"Once farmers saw the benefits they brought to a neighbor,
then it wasn't hard to get them to put conservation into
practice on their land," he said.
"They saw what they had forgotten - that it pays to take
care of your soil and water."
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