Agricultural runoff remains the "leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation," according to the most recent National Water Quality Inventory, noted in the latest Tipsheet from the Society of Environmental Journalists.
"The consequence of such runoff is well illustrated by the annual plume of nutrients that pour into Lake Erie from the Maumee River," the Tipsheet notes. "The runoff is high in the fertilizers phosphorous and nitrogen, which leads to a gigantic algal bloom in Lake Erie that, after it dies off, sinks to the bottom and begins decomposing, depleting the water of oxygen. Every summer, a 'dead zone' grows in Lake Erie as the oxygen levels get so low that fish can't survive. This is the same phenomenon observed in the Gulf of Mexico." (NASA photo: Lake Erie, with Toledo and Maumee River at left, Cleveland at bottom)
States are most responsible for controlling such pollution, and a 2010 report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Mississippi River Collaborative concluded that they are failing to protect water quality. "The farm lobby is politically powerful, and farmers have resisted mandatory controls for decades," the Tipsheet notes. "Most of the time, the best that could be hoped for has been federal incentive payments for land conservation measures that reduce pollutant runoff." Those include the the Conservation Reserve Program, which some farm interests are trying to change in order to avoid penalties for putting more erodable land back into production.
The Tipsheet points to a list of agricultural issues and guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service website and state agricultural runoff policies, avaialble from state agencies.We suggest contacting state Farm Bureaus for the farmers' side of the issue.
"The consequence of such runoff is well illustrated by the annual plume of nutrients that pour into Lake Erie from the Maumee River," the Tipsheet notes. "The runoff is high in the fertilizers phosphorous and nitrogen, which leads to a gigantic algal bloom in Lake Erie that, after it dies off, sinks to the bottom and begins decomposing, depleting the water of oxygen. Every summer, a 'dead zone' grows in Lake Erie as the oxygen levels get so low that fish can't survive. This is the same phenomenon observed in the Gulf of Mexico." (NASA photo: Lake Erie, with Toledo and Maumee River at left, Cleveland at bottom)
The Tipsheet points to a list of agricultural issues and guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service website and state agricultural runoff policies, avaialble from state agencies.We suggest contacting state Farm Bureaus for the farmers' side of the issue.
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