water quality

For the first time, the USDA would assess the results of its land stewardship programs, such as tons of carbon sequestered in the soil or reductions in nutrient runoff, under companion bills filed in the House and Senate on Wednesday.

Bill Stowe, a central figure in the 2015 lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works that tried to hold drainage districts in three northwest Iowa counties responsible for nutrient runoff from farms, died of cancer on Sunday at age 60. He retired as general manager of the utility on April 2 because of the illness, said the Des Moines Register.

The FDA will soon announce a two-year delay on a rule setting water-quality standards for large produce farms, said Frank Yiannas, the agency’s deputy commissioner for food safety, on Thursday.

In his new book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, FERN contributor Ben Goldfarb makes the case that this widely vilified rodent, which was trapped nearly out of existence in the U.S., is not only making a comeback but could play a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change and other problems afflicting farmers. <strong>(No paywall)</strong>

Voters in the heart of California wine country, by a slim, 42-vote margin, would restrict the planting of new vineyards in order to protect oak trees and waterways, according to the unofficial results of a Napa County referendum.

The USDA says there is now enough room in the Conservation Reserve that, for the first time in months, it will accept applications for high-priority stewardship projects, such as filter strips, that prevent erosion and maintain water quality on fragile land. Enrollment runs from today through Aug. 17 for the practices, which require comparatively small amounts of land.

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 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.

Lake pollution has largely remained unchanged since 1990, despite expanding agriculture, urban development and climate change, says a study of 3,000 lakes in the Midwest and eastern states. Seven percent of the lakes in the study saw increases in phosphorus — a common component of farm runoff that’s implicated in toxic green-algae blooms. Nine percent of those lakes saw improvements.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt stars in a 78-second National Cattleman's Beef Association video that urges farmers and ranchers to file comments about repeal of the so-called Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, "and ...about how to get it right as we go forward." Pruitt's role in the video, which directs viewers to the NCBA website to file comments, "has drawn the attention of experts in government ethics," says E&E News.

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.

A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimates that 139,000 square miles of cropland in or near urban areas rely heavily on untreated wastewater for irrigation, says Modern Farmer. That's far larger than a 2004 assessment that pegged the total at 77,200 square miles.

The attorneys general of 11 states have sued the EPA for delaying implementation of a chemical-spill rule at industrial sites, including fertilizer plants, by two years. “The set of regulations, called the Chemical Accident Safety Rule, would require industrial facilities to take new steps to prevent accidents and also to conduct more robust examinations of the causes of accidents that do occur,” says Reuters.

State officials in Michigan drafted a plan that relies on voluntary action by farmers to reduce phosphorus runoff from fields that eventually flows into Lake Erie, where nutrient pollution feeds algal blooms in the western end of the lake, reports MLive Media Group.