New USGS study cites Farms in 9 States Causing the Dead Zone Problem
This week, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report showing that farms in just 9 states cause 75 % of the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that creates a Dead Zone every Spring at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Imagine, 9 states causing all the ruckus. After all, these nine states (IL, IA, IN, MO, AR, KY, TN, OH, and MI) make up just one-third of the Mississippi River Basin that encompasses 31 states!
How could this happen, you say? You thought that farmers were “the first environmentalists, †that they were “good stewards of the land?†Many of them rightly regard themselves this way, but unfortunately the scientists conclude that there’s still a lot of fertilizer and manure that’s escaping their farms, getting into rivers, and causing a Dead Zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico.
Could it be that these 9 states take home 41 % of all federal commodity subsidy dollars that encourage production and thus, enable polluting practices?
Could it be the fact that even USDA’s Economic Research Service knows that 80 % of the farms in the country with high nitrogen run-off potential happen to also receive farm subsidies?
Is it possible that the Farm Bill conservation funds to help solve the problem are woefully underfunded? Over the last 5-year Farm Bill, thousands of farmers’ conservation applications were denied (USDA received $18 billion worth of conservation applications, but only $6 billion were funded).
The answers to all these questions, of course, are yes.
But there’s one more really important question: What are the policy makers going to do about this?
The 18-agency Gulf Hypoxia Task Force is meeting in February to decide just this. Will this policy-making body heed the USGS scientific findings? Will they heed the recommendations of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board to set a 45 % nitrogen and phosphorus reduction target to shrink the Dead Zone in half?
I’ll keep you posted.
Photo: Farm Scene by cindy47452