Mulch Blog

We're Putting Mulch to Pasture. Meet EWG's AgMag.

2009-10-07T12:57:13Z

Mulch has served well as a forum for EWG's work on biofuels, conservation, farm subsidies and the impact modern agriculture has on the environment. However, we're proud to announce the launch of our new online property, AgMag.

AgMag is Environmental Working Group's online chronicle of agriculture and the environment. We bring you bullet-proof analysis and in-depth investigations into the science and politics of food, water, farming, the environment and the money and politics that make it go. AgMag delivers a clear-eyed and new look at our increasingly complex and global 21st century food system.

The inaugural post for AgMag is on how agriculture has much more to lose with actual climate change than with climate change legislation, detailed in an EWG report entitled Crying Wolf.

This will be the final Mulch post as we move all of our agriculture work to one property. Please update your bookmarks and favorites to AgMag and check the new site for instructions on how to receive updates and posts via email.

California Climate Change Policy Leaves Out Agriculture

2009-09-30T17:32:00Z

State Action Needed to Motivate Vulnerable Sector to Address Emissions

OAKLAND September 30 - California agriculture, which grows roughly 40 percent of America's food, faces grave threats spurred by climate change, including volatile weather, crippling drought and assaults by growing hordes of pests. It also directly generates about 6 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions.

In spite of agriculture's vulnerability and contribution to global warming the sector was practically left out of the state's climate change implementation strategy mandated by the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), according to a new report released today, California's Climate Change Policy Leaves Agriculture in the Dust, from the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

"California agriculture has a lot to lose with climate change," said EWG senior analyst Kari Hamerschlag, author of the report. "It's unfathomable that a state with a $33 billion a year agriculture industry and a history of leadership on climate change is demonstrating such an acute lack of institutional capacity and leadership on the issue."

The report finds that AB 32's implementation strategy failed to establish meaningful emission reduction targets and present an effective action plan for agriculture, missing an urgent opportunity to motivate skeptical farmers to take steps that will both curb their own emissions and help them to better cope with a changing climate.

Hamerschlag's report finds that careful studies have shown that several underused farm management practices, such as cover cropping, conservation tillage and organic fertilization, have the potential to deliver significant carbon sequestration benefits while helping farmers conserve water, maintain yields and resist weeds and pests in the face of climate change.

The report makes ten specific recommendations for addressing the inertia that has prevented California from taking effective action on agriculture and climate change and calls on policy makers to develop programs of targeted research, outreach, technical assistance and financial incentives for farmers.

"As a first step towards swifter action," Hamerschlag said, key state agencies "should establish an inter-agency working group on agriculture and climate change. Federal agencies, NGOs and farm groups all have critical roles to play and should also be actively involved."

Go here for the full report:

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Mandate More Ethanol or We'll Shoot This Dog

2009-09-24T18:58:28Z

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) this week proposed an amendment to an Interior Appropriations bill to cut off funding to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) waiver process unless the agency subverts its own scientific review process and immediately allows 50% more corn ethanol to be blended into the national gasoline supply.

In a word, blackmail.

Fortunately, the amendment did not make it to the final list of amendments agreed upon today by Senate leaders (E and E Subscription Required).

A major hurdle for the politically well-connected ethanol lobby has been proving its fuel is environmentally sound. The debate has raged about Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), technical jargon for factoring in the climate-damaging gases that will be released when forests or grasslands are plowed under and planted with crops to make up for the corn used to make ethanol. When EPA scientists factor in indirect land use change, as they are required to do by law, it turns out corn ethanol likely increases rather than decreases greenhouse-gas emissions.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson effectively neutered ILUC in the concessions he extracted from the House climate bill. The ethanol industry's consternation over ILUC is hard to comprehend, however, since Congress already made sure corn ethanol was protected from any scientific assessment of its impact on the environment when it passed the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.

The real reason for blackmailing EPA is that corn ethanol producers have no market for their 15 billion gallons of grandfathered corn ethanol. Despite lavish federal subsidies and tax breaks, the ethanol industry has struggled to remain financially viable. During the debate over a federal stimulus bill, the ethanol industry lobbied for bailout funds, but withdrew their request in the face of intense media scorn. Senator Nelson's move intends to force EPA into granting a request to increase the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline by 50%, thus dramatically expanding the market for the floundering industry.

Claims by the ethanol industry that EPA's assessments are unfair are misguided, not only because most ethanol is grandfathered in under EPA rules, but also because ethanol is mandated for use. The real fear is that increasing the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline by 50% will have catastrophic environmental impacts. The rush to plant more corn for ethanol has already choked rivers and streams with toxic fertilizers and pesticides, leading to the growth of the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. Wildlife habitat is plowed under at an alarming rate and air quality is degraded all to produce a fuel that's production in all likelihood contributes to climate change.

It is hard to fathom that at a time of environmental crisis our senators are willing to defund the EPA's effectiveness because the agency won't look the other way and mandate the use of more environmentally damaging fuel. This spurred us to produce the above image, a riff on the iconic National Lampoon cover pasted below.

EWG Dead Zone Speech and Reaction to USDA Announcement

2009-09-24T17:25:14Z

Gulf Dead Zone Cause and Cure Known, Action Still Required

Remarks by Environmental Working Group to the Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force Public Meeting

DES MOINES September 24 - A representative from the Washington, D.C. based Environmental Working Group (EWG) has been asked to present remarks to the Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force Public Meeting held today in Des Moines, IA. In his remarks, EWG Midwest Vice-President Craig Cox provided a clear-eyed and no-nonsense assessment of the state of pollution flowing into the Mississippi River Basin and how it contributes to the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone.

EWG recently opened a Midwest office in Ames, IA to effectively address the growing threat modern agriculture poses to the environment. Cox manages EWG's agriculture programs from the Ames, IA office.

"The fundamental problem we face is not lack of technology or solutions. The problem is poor policy and institutional inertia," Cox said in his remarks.

However, in a move welcomed by EWG and reported by the Associated Press this morning, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack intends to inject $320 million in dedicated pollution clean up funds to the 12 states encompassed in the Mississippi River Basin.

"We commend Secretary Vilsack for bringing more federal support to bear on a region in desperate need of assistance," Cox said. "Coupling an increase in funds with better enforcement of conservation compliance and better policies to mitigate toxic run-off will go a long way to solving the Dead Zone problem," Cox added.

The Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force, consisting of five federal agencies and 10 state agencies, was brought together in 1997 to develop and implement an action plan to reduce the Gulf Dead Zone. Agriculture has been identified as the single largest contributor of pollution flowing into the Mississippi River Basin.

Go here for the full text of Craig Cox's comments: http://www.ewg.org/2009/hypoxia-task-force/dead-zone-action-needed

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Today's Congressional Hearing Underscores EWG's analysis, "Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay"

2009-09-22T15:58:09Z

By Michelle Perez, Senior Analyst

There is a Hearing in Congress today on how the federal government can accelerate clean up of the Chesapeake Bay. You can watch the Hearing online at 2 pm, EST.

In preparation for the event, the staff of the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment released a memo that quantifies what EWG said in our report, Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay:

The federal government's reach over pollution to the Bay is very limited.

The memo shows that the federal government DOES NOT have jurisdiction over:

60% of the nitrogen pollution load to the Bay, 65% of the phosphorus pollution load, and 96% of the sediment load.

Furthermore, the federal reach over the agricultural sources of pollution is just a fraction of the pollution sources:

43% of the total nitrogen load to the Bay comes from agriculture but only 6% is regulated by the federal government.
45% of the total phosphorus load to the Bay comes from agriculture but only 8% is regulated by the federal government.

The facts are undeniable. The federal government cannot solve the problem itself.

A healthier Bay will only be achieved if the state governments step up to the plate.

States have to get aggressive yet creative and fair to develop sensible solutions to the 60% - 96% of the pollution that the federal government can't touch.

EWG's report, Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay begins the discussion of what a fair and sensible regulatory framework should look like. Our report also details how the voluntary policy approach to agricultural sources has failed to get the job done. And, we shine the spotlight on the gaping holes in the few and limited agricultural regulations addressing the problem.

See the pie chart below from the House Subcommittee memo (pdf) detailing the sources of pollution to the Bay:

FP's Grunwald Dispelling the 'Renewable' Myth of Biofuels

2009-09-22T15:00:41Z

The folks over at Foreign Policy are taking a hard look at the US's current biofuels policy. First it was this piece characterizing corn ethanol's patrons in Congress as the "Corn Dogs." Now Micheal Grunwawld, as part of a broader overview called Seven Myths About Alternative Energy, singles out biofuels in two of the myths.

Myth #2 - "Renewable Fuels Are the Cure for Our Addiction to Oil."

Researchers used to agree that farm-grown fuels would cut emissions because they all made a shockingly basic error. They gave fuel crops credit for soaking up carbon while growing, but it never occurred to them that fuel crops might displace vegetation that soaked up even more carbon. It was as if they assumed that biofuels would only be grown in parking lots.

Myth #3 - "If Today's Biofuels Aren't the Answer, Tomorrow's Biofuels Will Be."

The latest U.S. rules, while continuing lavish support for corn ethanol, include enormous new mandates to jump-start "second-generation" biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol derived from switchgrass. In theory, they would be less destructive than corn ethanol, which relies on tractors, petroleum-based fertilizers, and distilleries that emit way too much carbon. Even first-generation ethanol derived from sugar cane -- which already provides half of Brazil's transportation fuel -- is considerably greener than corn ethanol. But recent studies suggest that any biofuels requiring good agricultural land would still be worse than gasoline for global warming. Less of a disaster than corn ethanol is still a disaster.

and

But for today, farmland happens to be very good at producing the food we need to feed us and storing the carbon we need to save us, and not so good at generating fuel.

Gorillas in the Bay: Time to Face Facts in the Chesapeake

2009-09-17T20:58:25Z

By Michelle Perez, EWG Senior Analyst

Press coverage last week of the latest federal proposals to clean up the Chesapeake Bay was good. But, an important piece of the puzzle was missing from the discussion.

Yes, it's fantastic that President Obama has asked five federal agencies to propose ways they can do their jobs better to restore water quality in the six-state, 64,000 square-mile Bay watershed. And yes, Senator Ben Cardin's (D-Maryland) draft legislation is crucial to give EPA unprecedented power to compel the states to clean up the Bay and punitive authority if they fail to act.

Anyone have power to manage agricultural runoff?

However, these reports and legislation and the resulting press coverage ignores the 800-pound gorilla in the room:

Unintended albeit harmful runoff from agricultural farm fields.

The federal government's reach over farm pollution - which is the single largest source of the nutrient and sediment pollution harming the Bay - is limited to regulating only the largest animal production farms. This leaves the majority of animal farms and the majority of animal waste unregulated by the federal government.

What's worse, there's a huge loophole in the federal animal farm regulation: the feds have no authority over the manure that gets transferred off the regulated farm and onto an unregulated farm where the manure is applied to land as a fertilizer substitute.

The current system isn't working
EWG released a report last week - Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay - that points out the real gorilla in our midst:

The inability of the six Bay states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York) to cope with the agricultural pollution that the federal government has no jurisdiction over.

Furthermore, EWG's analysis explains why and gives examples of how the voluntary approach that pays farmers to install best management practices that are good for the farm and good for the environment has failed to clean up the unintended pollution.

Here's one way to reduce the farm pollution
Finally, EWG points out that the only way these state governments can show EPA they are truly able to achieve their portion of the upcoming Bay clean-up goals is if they develop a fair and sensible regulatory framework to reduce agricultural pollution.

Read more about what a fair and sensible regulatory framework could look like and find out what agricultural pollution regulations do exist are in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York.

Therefore, We Shouldn't Have Commodity Programs

2009-09-16T17:10:17Z

Special to Mulch from Ames, IA EWG analyst Andrew Hug.

In the September issue of the American Farm Bureau's Ag Agenda, AFB president Bob Stallman penned a post entitled, "A Climate Bill That Won't Change the Climate"

The missive is part of the Farm Bureau's efforts to oppose a climate bill at all costs, though paradoxically they are adamantly for the offsets proposed in the bill.

Participating in an offset program will depend to a great degree on where the producer is located, what he or she grows and if his or her business can take advantage of the program. Not every dairy farmer can afford to capture methane. Not every farmer lives in a region where wind turbines are an option. Not every farmer can take advantage of no-till. And not every farmer has the land to set aside to plant trees."

Therefore, we shouldn't have a climate change bill.

However, if you think about it, participating in a commodity program will depend to a great degree on where the producer is located, what crops his or her soil and climate enables them to grow, and if his or her business decisions about crop rotations allow them to take advantage of the program.

Not every farmer can afford GPS corn planters. Not every farmer lives in a region where cotton or rice are an option. Not every farmer can take advantage of soybeans. And not every farmer has enough land to sustain a family by raising wheat.

Therefore we shouldn't have commodity programs.

Huffpost: Fiscal Conservatives Down on Health Care Costs But Paradoxically Embrace Farm Subsidies

2009-09-14T14:01:57Z

On Friday Vanessa Carmichael posted on the Huffington Post a piece entitled The Payoff Patriots.

The CBO estimates the House's health care bill, H.R. 3200, would cost approximately $239 Billion over 10 years, so it seems remarkable that our country's rural constituency and their government representatives are raising so much hullabaloo over the cost of public option health care when they accepted $177 billion in farm subsidies in ten years. Again more than half of that money went to the benefit of just eight states. Meanwhile national health care is an expenditure that would benefit all states. The central issue of the conflict over health care becomes a matter of priorities when one considers the difference between the farm subsidies budget and the estimated national health care budget is $70 billion over ten years -- that's $7 billion a year, substantially less than what California spends annually on its prisons.
Local growers, small and medium-sized farms that produce fresh produce and meat don't make the cut for big money subsidies. American taxpayers subsidize commodity crops not so we can eat healthier but so that traders on Wall Street have something to play with and corporate farmers can keep prices so low on these crops that they underbid farmers in developing countries. It appears this is one aspect of socialism that heartland America can agree with Europe on.

Read it all here.

Pass the Popcorn: Monsanto vs. Dupont

2009-09-09T19:41:05Z

Special to Mulch from EWG Communications Director Alex Formuzis.

I couldn't resist. When agribusiness's version of The Death Star accuses a competitor of being 'dishonest, disingenuous and downright deceitful', it's too rich to let it go.

On Monday, August 17, Monsanto Chairman, President and CEO Hugh Grant sent a letter to his counterpart and competitor, DuPont board Chairman, Charles O. Holliday, Jr. claiming that the chemical giant's actions "were misleading to the public and a serious breach of business ethics far beyond honest competitor behavior." You can find Mr. Grant's letter along with other documents here.

Mr. Grant went on to demand that DuPont's board investigate its own tactics in its efforts to chip away at Monsanto's near-stranglehold of the genetically altered seed business, which helped Monsanto net over $2 billion in 2008 alone.

Chuck Neubauer, a reporter for the Washington Times, reported that

An attorney for Monsanto said the tactics used against his company included forged letters to Congress, misinformation, attempts to improperly influence public officials and support for a special interest group which opposed Monsanto.

This is not the first time a Big Ag black ops scheme has been exposed.

In the May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair, journalists Donald Bartlett and James B. Steele reported:

As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the "seed police" and use words such as "Gestapo" and "Mafia" to describe their tactics.

Some other highlights of Monsanto's storied history:

'65-'72: Monsanto contractors illegally dumped tons of toxic chemicals in landfills throughout the United Kingdom. As a result, UK government researchers have found components of Agent Orange, dioxins and PCBs in groundwater testing.

'05: Monsanto paid $1.5M for bribing a top official in the Indonesian government in an effort to side step environmental and safety assessments for the company's genetically altered cotton.

The cottonseed subsidiary of Monsanto based in India employed children.

...around 17,000 children work for Monsanto and their Indian subsidiary Mahyco. These children get no education, earn less than 40 Eurocents (Rs. 20) a day and are exposed to poisonous pesticides like Endosulphan during their work.

According to a report by The Center for Food Safety, Monsanto has gone after at least 112 farmers with lawsuits accusing each of "seed patent violations". From the CFS report: "many innocent farmers settle with Monsanto because they cannot afford a time consuming lawsuits".

And, of course we can't leave out Anniston, Alabama, where local farmers were urged by Monsanto to use soil the company knew was contaminated with PCBs.

EWG Report: Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay

2009-09-08T19:05:13Z

For Immediate Release:

Time to Face Facts

Frayed Regulatory Framework and Failed Voluntary Conservation Approach
Handicaps Chesapeake Bay Recovery

WASHINGTON, September 8 -Despite a quarter of a century of effort by farmers, citizens, environmentalists, and government officials to address pollution in the streams, rivers and waterways of the Chesapeake Bay region, agricultural fertilizers, animal manure and soil erosion remain the watershed's single largest source of pollution. Without an ambitious effort to fairly but effectively regulate pollution coming from farm fields throughout the watershed, there is simply no chance that the Chesapeake Bay watershed will recover.

An Environmental Working Group (EWG) report released today, Facing Facts in the Chesapeake Bay, details how a frayed regulatory framework and dependence on voluntary action has done little to mitigate the damage from agricultural activities in the six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Facing Facts is in advance of the Obama administration's release of Executive Order Reports from seven federal agencies proposing updates to their existing regulatory authorities and to target existing cost-share funds to accelerate restoration of the waterways in the watershed. These reports will identify ways to expand existing federal regulatory authority over agricultural pollution.

EWG examined the reach of existing federal and state regulatory programs aimed at water pollution from agriculture in the Bay States. Taken as a whole, it is a regulatory framework shaped by political expediencies and more notable for its gaps than its coverage.

- Just one state has regulations addressing soil erosion and sediment pollution on all of the cropland within the state.

- Just 35 percent of the livestock animals (dairy, beef, swine) in the 5 Bay states with permitting programs are under clean water permits while nearly 80 percent of the poultry animals (broiler meat chickens and egg laying hens) are permitted or about to be permitted.

- Just two states have regulations addressing manure application on land by farms generating the manure and by farms using the manure.

- Just two states have regulations addressing the use of agricultural chemical fertilizers.

"Voluntary programs that pay farmers to implement the minimum conservation practices have only gotten us to the half way point of what is needed to reduce the unintended farm pollution," said Michelle Perez, senior EWG agriculture analyst and the report's principal author. "EWG has and will continue to work hard to increase funding for voluntary programs and to target those funds more effectively" said Perez, "but it is time to face the fact that voluntary programs alone won't save the Bay."

Facing Facts reminds us that that as early as 1985 and then again in 1999, the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the EPA, respectively questioned whether a voluntary approach was sufficient to achieving the agricultural practices necessary to improve water quality.

Though Facing Facts shines a bright but sobering light on the inadequacy of the existing voluntary and regulatory approaches to restoring the health of the water in the Chesapeake watershed, there are reasons to be optimistic about the future. The Obama administration's Executive Order reports should set the stage for an uptick in action and attention to the pollution problem. Additionally, Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) is leading the way to reauthorize the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program in the Clean Water Act to give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the regulatory power to compel states to submit clean -up plans and punitive powers if states fail to act.

"The next crucial step after the Obama administration's report and Senator Cardin's bill is for the General Assemblies in the six Bay states to craft legislation requiring the agricultural pollution reductions over which the federal government does not have jurisdiction," said Perez.

Go here for the full report.

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Re-Heated Corn Dogs

2009-09-01T15:15:21Z

On the heels of last week's piece in Foreign Policy on the "Corn Dogs," David Rothkopf gives an update on the ethanol industry's push back on his assertions.

As interesting to me was that the Renewable Fuels Association, which is not like many things in Washington what its name suggests and does not support all renewable fuels just those produced by its members, saw fit to issue a press release going after me and Andrew Sullivan who graciously picked up some of what I had written on our corndog friends. They accused me of being an international consultant (true) who has worked closely with Brazil (also true). It helps to work with different parts of the world to actually know what's going on in them. In fact they characterized me as a Brazil nut. This hurt. Because I actually am not a big fan of Brazil nuts.

and

So let's toss the ball right back at them. Please find a credible expert who believes that corn is the best possible feedstock from which to make ethanol or that corn is actually a more efficient source of energy than other feedstocks like sugarcane or likely next generation feedstocks. Once you've done that we can move on to the idea that subsidizing an industry with an unsustainable model is in the U.S. national interest or that having U.S. consumer pay more for fuel in the current economic environment is a good idea or that protectionism is really the answer. Or better yet, perhaps we can move the discussion on to why the U.S. continues to lavish subsidies on the ag business that distort world trade and, very often, primarily offer a payday to corporate farms and well-to-do larger farmers.

Read it all here.

If Commodity Crop Subsidies Are So Vital, Why Complain When Identified as Beneficiaries?

2009-08-31T16:08:29Z

The Agriculture Lobby, representing the biggest recipients of federal crop subsides, often claim that their clients are entitled to the subsidy payments. They assert that without the government checks, or with limits on the payments, American farms and farmers would collapse, rural communities would disappear, and people might starve.

So it seems incongruous at best that they would complain that farmers are somehow being "demonized" when they are identified as beneficiaries of those worthy payments.

In Minnesota, Farmers Break Law by Planting to the Water's Edge

2009-08-24T17:39:38Z

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has an excellent story by Tom Meersmen. It centers on a local dentist and conservationist who rightly thinks farmers shouldn't be planting to the water's edge.

Farmers are thwarting the law by planting corn and soybeans to the edge of the river and its tributaries, Klampe said, violating pollution rules that require a 50-foot buffer of permanent vegetation to protect streams and lakes from soil and chemical runoff.
The consequences ripple all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, where government scientists reported Monday that excessive fertilizers washing into the Mississippi River have created an oxygen-deprived "dead zone" that threatens marine life in about 3,000 square miles of ocean.

"I have nothing against farmers, but they need to respect the environment just like everyone else," Klampe said. "Rivers and streams belong to the public, not to the farmers."

Klampe's complaint -- complete with aerial photographs -- puts the spotlight on a widespread problem in rural Minnesota.

A state study estimated that more than 30 counties have 1,000 acres or more being cultivated within the required buffer area. The total acreage being farmed illegally is at least 300,000 acres and could be two or three times that much, said Tabor Hoek, a private lands specialist with the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources.

The massive inequity in farm program payments -- billions and billions lavished on only five crops while conservation programs are chronically under-funded is part of the problem. Farmers have gov't check backed incentives to plant corn and soybeans anywhere they can, up to stream banks, on marginal and highly erodeable land, on the roof of Minneapolis's Metrodome...

But its conservation compliance and enforcement that is more the issue. Who is watching to ensure that farmers are not only not planting up to the river's edge, but what toxic fertilizers and pesticides are slathered on adjacent to a main water source?

Are these farmers receiving taxpayer funded subsidies to break the law?

Dead Zones Kill Fish and Common Sense

2009-08-21T17:31:57Z

Lots of news on the Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone" front so I'm jumping right into the oxygen starved water.

First from the from the editorial page of the Times Picayune, which represents the Louisiana gulf community -- the community most affected by the chemical fertilizers that run-off agriculture lands in the Mississippi River Basin -- comes a call for increased support from the government for conservation programs.

Reducing the size of the Gulf "dead zone" relies on a reduction in fertilizer and wastewater runoff into streams as far up river as Minnesota. Even with the best strategy and execution, that is a massive undertaking.
The National Research Council pointed out that reversing damage to the Gulf and other bodies of water will take years. Its report suggested launching 40 conservation projects on Mississippi River tributaries that have high levels of nutrients so that it will be easier to monitor what cleanup methods are successful.

There are others asserting that we need to change our strategy for agriculture run-off. In this Des Moines Register piece, experts commented in advance of a hypoxia federal task force set to meet about the Dead Zone in Des Moines.

Nancy Rabalais, a chief dead-zone scientist with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, noted that there is no official goal for cutting phosphorus and nitrogen loads in the Mississippi. The federal task force that will meet in Des Moines wants loads cut by 45 percent by 2015 to reduce the zone to 2,000 square miles.
In the Black Sea, levels of nitrogen and phosphorus spiked in the 1960s through the 1980s, Rabalais said. A dead zone grew from virtually nothing to more than 15,000 square miles, she added.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a huge drop in crop fertilizer use because of price spikes, and nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the lake dropped by half. The dead zone disappeared in six years, but fisheries have struggled to revive, Rabalais said.

Rabalais expects the Louisiana dead zone to shrink significantly in five to 10 years if the Mississippi contaminant loads are cut by nearly half.

"Fisheries have struggled to revive," would be a big worry. If through some Herculean effort we are able to adequately fund conservation programs to the point where they were able to restore balance to a Mississippi River Basin inundated with chemical fertilizers, and if we're able to enforce conservation compliance with those farmers who engage in the practices, we still have the problem of restoring devastated fisheries.

But some are putting forth the notion in the comment section that residential lawn run-off is a bigger contributor to the Dead Zone than ag. That's simply not true.

The USGS identified agriculture by far as the biggest contributor of nitrogen and phosphorous to the Gulf of Mexico, 66% for nitrogen and 43% for phosphorous with corn and soybeans as the main culprits from ag. Urban and population sources, i.e. lawns, account for only a small fraction at 9% for nitrogen and 12% for phosphorous.