Although government programs offer incentives for farmers to plant grassy buffers between farm fields and waterways, many farmers don't bother with the voluntary efforts to reduce nitrogen. A new push to reduce nitrogen runoff is in the works in an effort to reduce the size of a 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico believed to be caused by excess nitrogen runoff from Midwest farms. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A government task force is trying to find ways to reduce fertilizer pollution from Midwest farms because it’s causing environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A government task force is trying to find ways to reduce fertilizer pollution from Midwest farms
because it’s causing environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The task force is looking at ways to stop excess nitrogen from getting into waterways. It hopes to
persuade farmers to reduce the amount of nitrogen they use or plant grassy buffer strips or
artificial wetlands to take up the nitrogen. The idea is to stop so much nitrogen getting into the
Gulf of Mexico. Once there it causes an algae bloom that then dies and depletes the water of
oxygen, causing a ‘dead zone.’
Don Scavia is with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean
Service. He says offering farmers money to sign up for conservation programs is likely the best
route.
“The idea is to try to make the social benefit of reducing the nitrogen load work in favor of the
farmers.”
Right now, many row crop farmers pay the cost of applying more nitrogen than needed in hopes
of getting a better crop. Experts say it’s a gamble that rarely pays off and ultimately adds to the
problem in the Gulf.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Commercial shrimpers and fishers in the Gulf of Mexico cannot find anything alive in the 'dead zone.' Research indicates fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms causes the 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
Farmers and lawn care companies in the Midwest use fertilizer to grow better crops and greener lawns. But excess fertilizer is washed downstream by rain, eventually reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists say once in the Gulf, it triggers a process that causes a so-called ‘Dead Zone.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Farmers and lawn care companies in the Midwest use fertilizer to grow better crops and greener
lawns. But excess fertilizer is washed downstream by rain, eventually reaching the Gulf of
Mexico. Scientists say once in the Gulf, it triggers a process that causes a so-called ‘Dead Zone.’
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
To get better crop production farmers use anhydrous ammonia to increase nitrogen levels in the
soil. To get greener lawns, homeowners use fertilizers that also can increase nitrogen and other
nutrient levels. But excess nitrogen gets carried away by rainstorms. For all or parts of 31 states,
that nitrogen is washed into ditches and creeks and rivers that are all part of the Mississippi River
basin. All of that land drains into the Mississippi and the Mississippi drains into the Gulf of
Mexico.
Tracy Mehan was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for
Water. Mehan points out that’s a lot of runoff that ends up in one place…
“It affects most of the inland drainage of the United States from Minnesota, from Ohio, from
Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. So, we’re dealing
with a tremendously broad system here and with tremendous challenges to protect the Gulf of
Mexico.”
Challenges because the nitrogen and other nutrients cause a problem.
Nancy Rabalais is a professor with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. She says the
nitrogen causes a huge bloom of algae…
“Well, the nutrients stimulate the growth of plants just like fertilizers stimulate the growth of a
corn plant. But the plants in the Gulf are microscopic algae.”
Some of the algae is eaten by tiny aquatic animals and fish. But, with a huge algal bloom… some
of it just dies and sinks to the bottom. Those algae cells are consumed by bacteria that also
consume oxygen. Rabalais says that depletes the oxygen in the surrounding water…
“So what basically happens is that the production of algae is just too much for the system to
handle.”
This oxygen starvation is called hypoxia. Marine life can’t live in a hypoxic area. Fish avoid it if
they can by swimming away. Other life that can’t move that fast dies. The size of the hypoxic
zone varies from year to year. Weather across the nation affects the amount of runoff that ends
up in the Gulf, but the trend has been a dead zone that’s gotten bigger over the past twenty
years… and according to Rabalais’ research it has doubled in size since the 1950’s when nitrogen
started being used extensively in agriculture.
(sound of boat engine starting up)
In Louisiana, the commercial fishers and shrimpers are concerned about the ‘dead zone.’ Some of
the smaller operations find it difficult to travel the longer distances to find fish outside the ‘dead
zone.’
Nelwyin McInnis is with the environmental organization, the Nature Conservancy. Walking in a
marsh area in Louisiana, she talked how important it was to that region that farmers and
homeowners in the Midwest do something to try to cut back on the amount of fertilizer that ends
up in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Certainly any ways that you can reduce the fertilizer runoff would certainly be of value. And I
know each farmer can’t imagine their impact hundreds of miles away in the Gulf of Mexico, but
each one adds up and has an effect.”
But powerful agricultural interests say the ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico is not caused by
nitrogen fertilizers in the farm belt. The American Farm Bureau has kept up a steady campaign
of denial of responsibility. Reports and essays published by the Farm Bureau question researcher
Nancy Rabalais’ findings. Rabalais says the Farm Bureau can question her all it wants. Her
published work has been reviewed by other scientists in close to a dozen major scientific journals.
“We don’t believe in collecting data and putting it on a shelf. We get it to the scientific public and
we also try to translate it so that the public, including the agricultural community can understand
what it’s saying.”
Whether the agriculture community wants to hear what those data are saying is another question.
However, the government is taking it seriously and is looking at ways to reduce the amount of
nutrients being washed into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Commercial shrimpers and fishers in the Gulf of Mexico cannot find anything alive in the 'dead zone.' Research indicates fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms causes the 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
The commercial fishers in the Gulf of Mexico are hoping the farmers in the Midwest help them solve a problem. The fishers and shrimpers say the farmers could help reduce a so-called ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The commercial fishers in the Gulf of Mexico are hoping the farmers in the Midwest help them
solve a problem. The fishers and shrimpers say the farmers could help reduce a so-called ‘dead
zone’ in the Gulf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico varies in size from year to year, sometimes getting larger
than the state of New Jersey. Scientists say excess nitrogen and other nutrients used to grow
crops and lawns in the Midwest are drained from the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river basins
and into the Gulf. Nancy Rabalais is a researcher with the Louisiana Universities Marine
Consortium. She says the result is a huge algae bloom in the Gulf…
“The nutrients stimulate the growth of these algae and they’re either eaten by zooplankton or fish
and become part of the marine food web or they die and sink to the bottom. It’s the cells that sink
to the bottom that eventually lead to the consumption of oxygen by bacteria.”
Fish and shrimp can’t live in the oxygen-starved area. The researchers say the only thing that can
reduce the size of the ‘dead zone’ is to reduce the amount of nitrogen from the Midwest that drains
into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Loggers and environmentalists fight continually
over the use of national forests. Managers at many national forests
around the country are developing new long-range plans.
(Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Jerry Birchem says the price of his raw material,
timber, has tripled in the last ten years, partly because of
time-consuming environmental reviews of timber sales on federal land.
(Photo
by Stephanie Hemphill)
Sierra Club member Clyde Hanson says the new
plan doesn't provide enough protection for old growth and
wilderness areas. And he worries the 90 miles
of new ATV trails in each forest could ruin the peace and quiet.
(Photo by Stephanie Hemphill).
Loggers and environmentalists are in a continual fight over the use of national forests. One of their battlegrounds is the long-range planning process. Every ten to fifteen years, the U.S. Forest Service designs a new plan for each national forest. Right now, several forests in the Northwoods are getting new plans. The Forest Service says it’s paying more attention to biodiversity, and wants to encourage more old growth forests. Critics on the environmental side say the new plans are just business as usual. Loggers say they still can’t cut enough trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Loggers and environmentalists are in a continual fight over the use of
national forests. One of their battlegrounds is the long-range
planning process. Every ten to fifteen years, the U.S. Forest Service
designs a new plan for each national forest. Right now, several
forests in the Northwoods are getting new plans. The Forest Service
says it’s paying more attention to biodiversity, and wants to encourage
more old growth forests. Critics on the environmental side say the
new plans are just business as usual. Loggers say they still
can’t cut enough trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
(sound of car door closing, footsteps in woods)
Jerry Birchem is a logger. He’s visiting one of his harvest sites on
land owned by St. Louis County, in northeastern Minnesota. The highest
quality wood will be turned into wooden dowels… other logs will go to a
lumber mill… the poorest quality will be turned into paper.
Birchem tries to get the highest possible value from each tree. He says in the last ten
years, the price of trees has tripled.
“We have to pay more for timber and the mills want to pay less, and we’re caught in the
middle of trying to survive in this business climate.”
Birchem likes buying timber from the county, like at this logging site. He hardly ever
cuts trees from the national forest anymore. He’d like to, but the Forest Service doesn’t
make much of its land available for logging. The agency says it doesn’t have enough staff
to do the environmental studies required before trees can be cut on federal land.
Jerry Birchem says loggers need the Forest Service to change that.
“You know there needs to be processes set in place so you know, it doesn’t take
so long to set up these timber sales. I mean, they’ve got to go through so
many analyses and so many appeals processes.”
Birchem says it should be harder for environmental groups to get in the way of timber
sales. But not everybody agrees with Birchem.
Clyde Hanson lives in Grand Marais, on the edge of Lake Superior. He’s an active
member of the Sierra Club.
He says it’s true loggers are taking less timber off federal lands in recent
years. But he says the Forest Service still isn’t protecting the truly special
places that deserve to be saved.
He says a place like Hog Creek should be designated a wilderness area, where no trees
can be cut.
(sound of creek, birds)
“Very unique mixture, we must be right at the transition between two types of forest.”
Red pine thrive here, along with jackpine and tamarack. It’s rough and swampy country,
far from roads. So far, loggers have left these trees alone.
But with the value of trees skyrocketing, Hanson says the place will be logged eventually.
Forest Service planners made note of the fact that the Hog Creek area is relatively
untouched by humans. They could have protected it, but they decided not to.
“And we think that’s a mistake, because this is our last chance to protect wilderness and
provide more wilderness for future generations. If we don’t do it now, eventually there’ll
be enough roads or enough logging going on in these places that by the next forest plan
it’ll be too late.”
But the Forest Service says it is moving to create more diversity in the
woods. It wants a forest more like what nature would produce if left
to her own devices.
The agency says it will reduce the amount of aspen in the forest. Aspen has been
encouraged, because it grows fast. When it’s cut, it grows back quickly, so loggers and
paper companies can make more money.
The trouble is, an aspen forest only offers habitat for some kinds of animals,
such as deer and grouse. Other animals, especially songbirds, need older trees to
live in.
So the Forest Service wants to create more variety in the woods, with more old trees than
there are now. But how to get the forest from here to there, is the problem.
Duane Lula is one of the Forest Service planners. He says fires and windstorms are nature’s way of producing
diverse forests. They sweep the woods periodically, killing big stands of older trees, and
preparing the soil for pines and other conifers. Jackpines, for instance, used to be more
common in the northwoods. Lula says the only practical way for man to mimic nature is
by cutting trees down.
“We can’t have those fires anymore just because people live here, there are private
homes here. There’s no way that we could replicate those fires. Timber management is one way of regenerating those jackpine stands in
lieu of having major fires.”
But Lula says the main purpose of timber cutting in the new plan is to move the forest
toward the diversity the agency wants, not to produce wood. And he says that shows the
Forest Service is looking at the woods in a new way.
“The previous plan tended to be very focused on how many acres you were going to
clearcut, how much timber you were going to produce, how much wildlife habitat you
were going to produce, and this one is trying to say, if we have this kind of desired
condition on the ground that we’re shooting for, then these other things will come from
that.”
As it does in the planning process in other national forests around the Great Lakes, the
Forest Service will adjust the plan after hearing from the public. Loggers,
environmentalists, and everyone else will have a chance to have their say. A final version
will be submitted to the Regional Forester in Milwaukee early next year. It could then
face a challenge in court.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Although government programs offer incentives for farmers to plant grassy buffers between farm fields and waterways, many farmers don't bother with the voluntary efforts to reduce nitrogen. A new push to reduce nitrogen runoff is in the works in an effort to reduce the size of a 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico believed to be caused by excess nitrogen runoff from Midwest farms. (Photo by Lester Graham)
