An agricultural policy think tank says farmers in the Midwest are majorcontributors of excess nitrogen entering the Mississippi River. Thenitrogen causes major environmental problems in the river anddownstream. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
An agricultural policy think tank says farmers in the Midwest are major contributors of
excess nitrogen entering the Mississippi River. The nitrogen causes major environmental
problems in the river and downstream. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports.
The institute for agriculture and trade policy has released a report calling on farmers to
change their crop rotations in order to reduce the use of nitrogen by at least 30-percent.
That reduction is backed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Mark Muller is a
senior associate with the think tank.
“We do have too much nitrogen here in the upper Mississippi basin
and we have to do something about it. If we keep on putting our heads in the
sand, then regulation’s going to come down and that’s not a solution that
anybody wants. If we can address this, we can find a way to reduce our
nitrogen use and be beneficial to the farmer. So let’s be more proactive
about it rather than deny the problem exists.”
Excess nitrogen damages the environment by displacing oxygen in the river and its
tributaries. It’s also been linked with a large ‘dead zone’ where the Mississippi drains
into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.