Dead zone linked to farm subsidies

[depakid]

Louisiana's fishing industry faces an uncertain future after the pounding it took last hurricane season, but fishers know one thing is certain: Sometime this summer, a lifeless expanse of water about the size of Connecticut -- maybe a little bigger, maybe a little smaller -- will form off the state's coast. And there's no point fishing it, because any nets dragged there are sure to come up empty.

Five years after a multistate compact was signed to rein in the sprawling "dead zone" of low-oxygen water that forms annually in the Gulf, the problem has only grown worse, according to federal and state officials and independent scientists. Voluntary incentives to cut down on the pollutants that cause it, particularly fertilizers carried by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers from upstream farms, have failed to put a dent in the largest ecological threat to one of the world's most productive fisheries.

Meanwhile, a new study has traced almost 80 percent of the nitrogen-based fertilizers largely responsible for the low-oxygen zone to a relatively small number of agricultural counties in the Midwest that are heavily subsidized by the federal government to grow their crops.

"In the crudest sense, we're paying people to pollute," said Mary Booth, an ecologist with the environmental group.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1145253572245290.xml

I find this interesting from an economic standpoint. Here we have a market distortion- a subsidy that's putting marginal land (for what's being grown) into production, and it's causing very undesirable externalities other, more valuable resources. It's a situation that just begs for a responsible political solution- and unlike some of the others that get discussed here- one that can probably get significant results in a modest time frame and benefit the overall economy in the process.

As usual- for the sake of "balance," the Times Picayune quotes disinformation from the National Fertilizer Institute, but when you browse the report (which the spokesperson apparently didn't) and look at the methodology, you'll see that it's based on broad, accurate data and sound modeling.

Here's a link to the EWG report Dead in the Water

http://www.ewg.org/reports/deadzone/execsumm.php

[sam sarrha]

1. any idea what the subsidized Crops are...??

[kestrel91316]

3. Corn. So they can give us all Type II diabetes with the

f---ing high-fructose corn syrup they put into ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

[mike_c]

2. essentially the same thing is happening in the Chesapeake Bay...

...although I don't know how much of a role that farm subsidies play. But large amounts of agricultural runoff from farms that fertilize as a matter of course to obtain the highest yields possible, some leaching from home sewage systems and lots more from livestock, the loss of coastal wetland filters, and decimation of the natural filter feeding organisms like oysters combine to increase the biological oxygen demand that results from decomposing phytoplankton so much that water below the thermocline becomes anoxic. Once again, we know exactly why it happens, and we can easily determine where the excess nitrogen and phosphate are coming from, but no one has the will to do anything about it. Instead we hide behind private property traditions and put profits before environmental protections. We could fix this fairly easily, just by putting some farmers out of business, or making them do something else with their land, or at least holding them accountable to real environmental non-point pollution standards.

[kestrel91316]

4. As the cost of fertilizer (produced with NG) goes through the roof

maybe will see the dead zone shrink?

A girl can dream...............

[Oerdin]

5. The anwser seems to be what California already does.

California sets water quality standards for run off from all owned properties in the state and levees hefty fines from those who break the limits. Those farmers are simply using way to much fertilizer so the run off is entering streams causing an algee boom which sucks up all the oxygen causing a dead zone. Create and enforce water quality standards for run off and then this problem will go away. I suggest a fine of a couple hundred thousand dollars and automatically being kicked out of the farm subsidy program for two years.