agricultural runoff

A day after the Ohio EPA declared the western end of Lake Erie to be an impaired wateryway, agency director Craig Butler said, "The time has come that we can't rely on voluntary programs" to reduce nutrient runoff that feeds algal blooms in the lake, reported Associated Press. To address the problem, the state announced a set of new proposals to reduce runoff from farms and wastewater plants.

A coalition of 55 environmental, agricultural, and food-safety organizations signed a letter urging the Iowa General Assembly pass a moratorium on new and expanded factory farm development in the state. Iowa currently houses nearly 23 million hogs, a record for the state and the highest number in the country.

The algal bloom in Lake Erie this summer, fed in part by agricultural runoff, was roughly the same size as in 2013, the third-most severe bloom in 15 years of federal records, said the Associated Press.

More than 200 of Iowa’s community water systems struggle with agricultural runoff, periodically issuing “Do Not Drink” orders because of high levels of nitrates. “The good news is that researchers have a pretty good handle on how to solve Iowa’s water problem,” reports Elizabeth Royte in FERN’s latest story, with National Geographic. (No paywall)

The annual Plowprint report by the World Wildlife Fund estimates 2.5 million acres of virgin grasslands in the Great Plains were converted to cropland, or energy and urban development last year. While it's a smaller loss than the 3.7 million acres of 2015, the perennial loss of grasslands is a threat to water quality and wildlife habitat in the Plains, which stretch from Texas into the Canadian prairies.

Planting thin strips of native grasses and flowers at the edges of cropland delivers a broad range of conservation benefits— from reducing soil loss and runoff to attracting pollinators — according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Pierre Omidyar says he wants to build a dairy along the coast of Kauai to reduce Hawaii’s reliance on imported milk, but locals worry that runoff from such an operation, as well as the flies and odors it would bring, would hurt the island’s crucial tourism business, reports The New York Times.

The synthetic pesticides and fertilizers used illegally to grow marijuana in national forests produce far more pollution than previously thought, says Reuters. "Thousands of acres" of national forest in California are "waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the hospital."

A mandated interstate "pollution diet" intended to reduce nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay is paying off, while voluntary measures to reduce nitrogen levels in Mississippi River have failed, writes a University of Michigan professor at the site The Conversation. "From my perspective, when we compare these two approaches it is clear that voluntary measures are not even making modest dents in nutrient pollution," says professor Donald Scavia, who has worked on the issue of "dead zones" for four decades.

North Carolina is second to Georgia as the largest poultry-producing state in the nation and a new report by state environmental officials says the poultry industry produces more animal waste than they expected, says public broadcaster WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem. Not only is it more than officials expected, the nitrogen and phosphorus runoff tops hogs or cattle. In one river basin, the Yadkin-Pee Dee, it was six times more.

Although President Trump has signed an executive order to roll back the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, the Supreme Court decided that it will continue hearing a legal challenge of the 2015 EPA rule. Justices denied a Justice Department request to halt work on the case while the administration decides whether to rewrite or rescind the rule, said E&E News.

Women make up two-fifths of the agricultural work force in developing countries yet are often at a disadvantage in gaining access to land, credit, training and "inputs" such as seed and fertilizer, says the Farming First coalition. A research paper underlines that point by looking at differences in fertilizer use by women and men farmers.

Days after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works against farm runoff, the City Council voted to support a bill in the Iowa House allowing regionalization of the water utility, said the Des Moines Register. The chief executive of the Water Works says the regionalization bill, sponsored by a legislator who is a hog farmer, is retaliation for the lawsuit, which wanted to apply water pollution laws to agricultural runoff.

Four of every 10 miles of U.S. rivers and streams are in poor condition because of nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, said the EPA in its latest National Rivers and Streams Assessment.