Fertilizer management, filtering can cut runoff by 45%
Nitrogen runoff could be reduced by 45 percent in the Mississippi River basin - the heart of U.S. grain farming - with adoption of practices that reduce fertilizer waste and conversion of as little as 3.1 million acres of farmland to filter and hold nutrients that now flow downstream, says a research paper. Nitrogen runoff from farms and other sources is blamed for the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.
Cost to reduce Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”- $2.7 billion a year
It would cost $2.7 billion a year to reduce by two-thirds the size of the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico through reductions in nutrient runoff, says a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.