Pew Oceans Commission Pollution Nutrient Hearing Afternoon session

The first speaker of the afternoon was a Mr. Mosier of American Waterworks, a provider of drinking water throughout the U.S.  As a water provider you don’t always have a choice of what supply to use, and removing pollutants from water is necessary.  Prevention is better than removal. Uncontrollable growth of algae and plants causes problems as do microbial pathogens, pesticides, etc.

Now is the time to address nonpoint sources. Nitrate is a problem in the business because of the 10 ppm (parts per million) limit. When ingested at high levels it can be fatal to infants. Removal requires a special process.

He gave two examples, first the city of Streeter, Illinois, which takes it’s water from the Vermillion River.  They have to blend water from offstream reservoirs with the river water to meet the standard.  When nitrate levels are high it still goes above 10ppm, and bottled water is provided for customers. They have been working with the farming community, but it has not solved the problem.  t was so severe this summer that they had to use a nitrate removal process, at a cost to customers of an extra $50 a year.

The second example was Tiffin, Ohio, which takes its water from the Sandusky River.  Because the river  exceeds nitrate limits they drilled wells and blend the water in order to succeed in staying within the health limit.  They are also working with the agricultural community to control runoff.

Excess ammonia running off into the water is not toxic to humans but interferes with good disinfection.
Chlorine is potent in a free state but when ammonia is present, forms chloramine which is much less effective.  That means they have to remove the ammonia before they treat the water. The process creates an excess of carcinogenic byproducts.

He then talked about the problems with plants and algae. When they die, they settle to the bottom but also produce dangerous levels of toxins that are a threat to humans. Treatment to remove algae is available but not greatly effective and does not address the toxins.

Microbes cause disease outbreaks.  There were deaths in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from microbial contamination from runoff.  He repeated that many of the by products of this process are carcinogenic.

Cryptospirodosis is a disease that can be prolonged and fatal due to dehydration.

Pesticides and herbicides are consistently found in drinking water.  It is believed that an excess of these substances causes genetic mutations. It is best not to allow them in waters to protect aquatic life as well as humans.

When there is sufficient rain there are sewage overflows into waterways.

He has heard it said that pollutants should be released into the water.  This is objectionable to him, because it is more effective to remove something in a concentrated state than when it is diluted. 

Technology and responsible management is needed as well as better coordination between the EPA and others.  There is a need for funding for studies for treatment facilities.

He had three suggestions:  stricter regulations for point source emissions, better enforcement of existing regulations, and addressing nonpoint sources.

Susan Heathcote of the Iowa Environmental Council was the second speaker.

We know that here in Iowa we are contributing to problems.  We are also concerned about the quality of water here in Iowa.   It is important to tackle these problems.  In order to do that we need more federal and staff resources.

 She showed a landuse map of Iowa showing that 60% of the state is in rowcrops.  In the south there is some pasture and rolling hills. Some of these lands are in CRP. However, at the same time, a large ranch covering parts of two counties recently went bankrupt and the person who has purchased the ranch plans to plant corn and soybeans.  Federal programs are behind this decision.  Even while some land is being restored we are still fighting the inappropriate conversion of land into cropland.

We need to continue to protect forested areas along the rivers.  Forest accounts for 7%of Iowa and water 1%.  1% is urban and 1% barren. Iowa has always been a high source area for nutrients going to the Gulf.  Together Iowa and Illinois account for as much as 35% of the pollution in the Gulf.  In Iowa most of this is from agricultural land.  Iowa raises one fourth of all the hogs in the U.S. and is number one in layer hens.

We have lost cropland fertilizer needed to grow crops.  Manure is the best fertilizer and should not be a liability in a state that grows crops that need fertilizer.  But producers are allowed to treat manure as a waste product to be disposed of.  It should be a value-added product, why do we allow it to be wasted, turned into a liability rather than an asset?  Money.  You can put a lot of animals into very few buildings close together, cluster facilities in an inappropriate concentration.  All of these facilities treat manure as a waste product.  It goes into lagoons, nitrogen goes up into the air as ammonia and comes down in rainfall, polluting our waters.  This doesn’t make sense in Iowa.

Other areas don’t have cropland to use the manure.  We could recycle every bit of this waste.

She showed another map showing corn soybeans and hog concentrations and pointed out that this is remarkably similar to the areas that are known to contribute to hypoxy. There used to be more diversity, for example, there were once apple groves in Iowa.

A NAQUA study looked at nitrate and phosphorus levels and found that eastern Iowa had levels that were higher than other corn belt states and both were greater than the rest of the U.S.  CAFOS contribute additional nutrients to streams.  The concentration of livestock is directly related to nitrogen and phosphorus in the water.

Comparing the early 1900 levels to today we see that these are human induced problems.  The good news is that we recognize that we have a problem.  We also have some tools.  There are strong partnerships forming within the state.  We have a plan that was two years in the making, developed by a federal/state taskforce.  This plan would start the process of addressing the problem.

When are we going to implement the plan?  Are we going to pull it off the shelg and implement it?  A federal/state task force needs to continue to oversee it and watershed groups need to work toward this goal.

There needs to be a lot of flexibility in doing this, we should let innovation be a part of it.

We need to diversity our landscape.  We can't continue to have just corn, soybeans, cattle, and hogs. We need to have more buffers on major rivers and smaller streams as well, bring additional crops into the crop rotation cycle.

A second strategy is to improve farm practices. Fall application of nutrients should not be allowed.  We loose a lot more nitrogen when we apply in the fall. There should be nutrient management plans for all farms so we can account for how we budget our nutrients.  We should identify areas where we can improve for both crop and livestock producers.

A big percent of nitrogen is volatilized into the air.  Inputs and outputs should be figured and a fee placed on what you loose.  We need to put natural filters back into the landscape.



Questions
How can Mr. Mosier suggest specific ways in which there can be better coordiation of programs in the EPA.  He said that a certain amount of herbicide residual is expected to occur in water when the herbicide is approved.  This information is considered confidential and should at least be shared with sister agencies to help guide drinking water suppliers.


Susan Heathcote was asked if she ever employed the judicial route to get things moving.  She said IEC has never litigated because their primary focus is to work on policy issues.  When you get into litigation it damages relationships.  She doesn’t want to eliminate that option, however.

Has there been statewide polling about public appreciation of nitrates to see if they think it is a problem?  There is a very high level of concern in Iowa about the quality of drinking water. In 1997 there were beach closings.

Peggy Murdock