Note the comments by the Farm Bureau and John Downing.


Wally Taylor




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From: Ed Hopkins <[log in to unmask]>
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Sent: Fri, Jun 3, 2011 8:44 am
Subject: [WATER-ISSUES] Y Times: Chemicals in Farm Runoff Rattle States Along Mississippi River


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/science/earth/03runoff.html


June 2, 2011
Chemicals in Farm Runoff Rattle Stateson the Mississippi
By LESLIEKAUFMAN
 As the surging waters of the Mississippipass downstream, they leave behind flooded towns and inundated lives andcarry forward a brew of farm chemicals and waste that this year — givenrecord flooding — is expected to result in the largest dead zone everin the Gulf of Mexico. 
Dead zones have been occurring in thegulf since the 1970s, and studies show that the main culprits are nitrogenand phosphorus from crop fertilizers and animal manure in river runoff.They settle in at the mouth of the gulf and fertilize algae, which prospersand eventually starves other living things of oxygen. 
Government studies have traced a majorityof those chemicals in the runoff to nine farming states, and yet today,decades after the dead zones began forming, there is still little politicalcommon ground on how to abate this perennial problem. Scientists who studydead zones predict that the affected area will increase significantly thisyear, breaking records for size and damage. 
For years, environmentalists and advocatesfor a cleaner gulf have been calling for federal action in the form ofregulation. Since 1998, the EnvironmentalProtection Agency has beenencouraging all states to place hard and fast numerical limits on the amountof those chemicals allowed in local waterways. Yet of the nine key farmstates that feed the dead zone, only two, Illinois and Indiana, have acted,and only to cover lakes, not the rivers or streams that merge into theMississippi. 
The lack of formal action upstream haslong been maddening to the downstream states most affected by the pollution,and the extreme flooding this year has only increased the tensions. 
“Considering the current circumstances,it is extremely frustrating not seeing E.P.A. take more direct action,”said Matt Rota, director of science and water policy for the GulfRestoration Network, an environmentaladvocacy group in New Orleans that has renewed its calls for federallyenforced targets. “We have tried solely voluntary mechanisms to reducethis pollution for a decade and have only seen the dead zone get bigger.”
Environmental Protection Agency officialssaid they had no immediate plans to force the issue, but farmers in theMississippi Basin are worried. That is because only six months ago, theagency stepped in at the Chesapeake Bay, another watershed with similarrunoff issues, and set total maximum daily loads for those same pollutantsin nearby waterways. If the states do not reduce enough pollution overtime, the agency could penalize them in a variety of ways, including increasingfederal oversight of state programs or denying new wastewater permittingrights, which could hamper development. The agency says it is too soonto evaluate their progress in reducing pollution. 
Don Parish, senior director of regulatoryrelations for the AmericanFarm Bureau Federation, atrade group, says behind that policy is the faulty assumption that farmersfertilize too much or too casually. Since 1980, he said, farmers have increasedcorn yields by 80 percent while at the same time reducing their nitrateuse by 4 percent through precision farming. 
“We are on the razor’s edge,” Mr.Parish said. “When you get to the point where you are taking more fromthe soil than you are putting in, then you have to worry about productivity.”
Dead zones are areas of the ocean wherelow oxygen levels can stress or kill bottom-dwelling organisms that cannotescape and cause fish to leave the area. Excess nutrients transported tothe gulf each year during spring floods promote algal growth. As the algaedie and decompose, oxygen is consumed, creating the dead zone. The largestdead zone was measured in 2002 at about 8,500 square miles, roughly thesize of New Jersey. Shrimp fishermen complain of being hurt the most bythe dead zones as shrimp are less able to relocate — but the precise impactson species are still being studied. 
The United States Geological Survey hasfound that nine states along the Mississippi contribute 75 percent of thenitrogen and phosphorus. The survey found that corn and soybean crops werethe largest contributors to the nitrogen in the runoff, and manure wasa large contributor to the amount of phosphorus. 
There are many other factors, of course,that determine what elements make it from crops into river water, for example,whether watersheds are protected by wetlands or buffer strips of land.
John Downing, a biogeochemist and limnologistat Iowa State University, said structural issues were also to blame. Manyfarms in Iowa, he said, are built on former wetlands and have drains rightunder the crop roots that whisk water away before soils can absorb andhold on to at least some of the fertilizer.    
Still, overapplication of fertilizersremains a key contributor, he said. “For farmers, the consequences ofapplying too little is much riskier than putting too much on.” 
Hemmed in by the antiregulatory moodof Congress and high food costs, the Obama administration has looked tocombat MississippiRiver pollution through anincentive program introduced in 2009 by the Department of Agriculture thatencourages a variety of grass-roots solutions, from wetlands creation toeducating farmers on just-in-time application. 
The MississippiRiver Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative provides$320 million in grant money, which has so far been spread among 700 projectsin 12 states, projects proposed by farmers, environmental groups and localgovernments. So far, the department says the results are quite promising.Phosphorus and nitrogen found in surface runoff from 150,000 acres enrolledin the program have decreased by nearly 50 percent. 
That amount of land is just a drop inthe bucket for the vast Mississippi watershed, but Agriculture SecretaryTom Vilsack thought it was promising enough to invite the administratorof the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, to visit one ofthe farms in the program. 
“There is fear, real fear, in Iowa thatwe’ll take what we’re doing in Chesapeake Bay and transfer it here withoutregard to what’s already happening on the ground,” she said during hertrip in April, adding she appreciated the opportunity “to ensure thatisn’t our approach.” 
Mr. Vilsack said that farmers had comea long way toward understanding their effect on ecosystems downstream andthat what they needed were government incentives and creation of privatemarkets — where, for example, farmers who do a lot of conservation couldreceive payments from farmers who do not — to help them improve environmentalsafeguards while they also keep food production high. 
“A lot of folks are basing criticismand concerns on the way agriculture was, not the way it is now,” Mr. Vilsacksaid in a phone interview.  “We as a nation have an expansive appetitefor inexpensive food. To produce more, you have to turn to strategies likechemicals and pesticides.” 
That stance infuriates Dave Murphy, founderof FoodDemocracy Now!, an Iowa nonprofitthat advocates for smaller organic farms. He argues that voluntary programsare a subterfuge. 
“As is standard in Iowa and other states,voluntary regulation by the polluters and the industry themselves is thepreferred method of getting around any serious environmental enforcement,”he said. 
Even some farmers do not disagree. ChrisPetersen, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, which represents small farmers,said the country’s policy were not working. “We’ve been trying to dothis for years, and we are just not turning the corner.”  
This article has been revised to reflectthe following correction:
Correction: June 3, 2011
An earlier version of this articleused an incorrect spelling of a chemical that runs off into rivers fromcrop fertilizers and animal manure. It is phosphorus, not phosphorous.
 

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