Farmland erosion expands dead zone
Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Agricultural erosion this year in the Mississippi River basin has helped create the third-largest “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico’s history, according to a report released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D. C.-based nonprofit.
The Mississippi River basin drains 40 percent of the continental United States and carries 1. 7 billion tons of eroded soil annually to the Gulf of Mexico, said Matt Roda, water resources program director for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network. Accompanying nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from manure and fertilizer runoff leads to algae blooms that rob the water of oxygen and kill fish in the dead zone, which forms every year at the mouth of the river, he said.
“This massive area — the size of New Jersey — is a prime example of how uncontrolled runoff has an impact not only on the sustainability of our farmland but on one of our nation’s most productive fisheries,” Roda said.
Since the 1985 Farm Bill, farmers receiving federal commodity and disaster payments have been required to control soil erosion on less than one-third of the U. S. cropland deemed to be most susceptible to erosion, said Michelle Perez, lead author of “Trouble downstream: Upgrading conservation compliance.” These conservation provi- sions should be revamped in the 2007 Farm Bill to include all cropland susceptible to erosion and to address the pollution caused by nutrient runoff, Perez said. Increased funding for voluntary cost-share programs and better enforcement and targeting of conservation provisions also are needed, she said.
“Over the last five-year farm bill, farmers came to [the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service ] asking for $ 18 billion worth of help to solve environmental problems in their operations.... Congress was only able to find $ 6 billion to help those farmers,” Perez said.
In Arkansas, for example, more than 1. 3 million acres of cropland are considered susceptible to erosion, but only 161, 000 acres are considered highly erodible and therefore subject to conservation compliance.
Arkansas’ erodible cropland is eligible for voluntary, incentive-based programs, said Kalven Trice, state conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. But these programs are “over-subscribed,” he said. “We have more folks applying for the conservation programs than the dollars that we get here in the state.” Improved conservation programs are particularly important as more corn is grown to produce ethanol, said Susan Heathcote, chairman of the Mississippi River Water Quality Collaborative, a group of 23 clean-water advocacy organizations.
“This year farmers in the U. S. planted the largest corn crop in 63 years, with corn acreage up 19 percent over last year,” Heathcote said. “Expanding and strengthening conservation compliance is one way to help reduce the additional soil erosion and nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that will come from all these new corn fields.”
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