![](https://i.imgur.com/CLvY2jA.png")
21-04-2023, 04:45 PM
By SCOTT McFETRIDGE and MICHAEL PHILLIS
yesterday
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crews buried low-tech systems called bioreactors and streamside buffers that filter fertilizer-borne nitrates from water
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The underground devices work. The question is whether one Iowa county’s promising new approach to an old problem can be expanded enough to finally address nitrate pollution that, for years, has endangered drinking water, made more than half the state’s waterways unfit for fish or humans, and fueled a giant dead zone nearly 1,000 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico.
......
The big challenge now is encouraging counties to launch and fund similar efforts to reduce runoff from Iowa’s 10 million acres of tile-drained farmland and combat the state’s multi-billion dollar problem with nitrogen pollution.
......
Nitrogen-based fertilizers and manure can lead to excessive nitrates in groundwater that can be toxic to livestock and humans. High levels have plagued waterways in Iowa and throughout the Midwest for decades from chemical fertilizers and animal manure sprayed on fields.
......
Too much nitrate and phosphorous in rivers and streams makes great food for algae and other plant growth that cuts oxygen in the water and blocks sunlight. Combined with industrial farming practices that have altered waterways by straightening streams and removing wetlands, that’s bad news for fish that need clear water and slower currents.
It hurts humans, too. Nitrate-contaminated drinking water can cause blue baby syndrome where an infant’s blood doesn’t have enough oxygen. More than half of Iowa’s rivers, streams and lakes are too polluted to properly support aquatic life or fishing and swimming
......
The projected cost of scaling up is staggering. To significantly reduce nitrogen and phosphate runoff, a 2017 analysis found that upfront costs could be as high as US$4 billion. That would include more than 100,000 bioreactors to deal with runoff on two-thirds of tile-drained farmland, as well as other solutions, like cover crops.
https://apnews.com/article/farm-runoff-n...b9dbddfb13
yesterday
......
crews buried low-tech systems called bioreactors and streamside buffers that filter fertilizer-borne nitrates from water
......
The underground devices work. The question is whether one Iowa county’s promising new approach to an old problem can be expanded enough to finally address nitrate pollution that, for years, has endangered drinking water, made more than half the state’s waterways unfit for fish or humans, and fueled a giant dead zone nearly 1,000 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico.
......
The big challenge now is encouraging counties to launch and fund similar efforts to reduce runoff from Iowa’s 10 million acres of tile-drained farmland and combat the state’s multi-billion dollar problem with nitrogen pollution.
......
Nitrogen-based fertilizers and manure can lead to excessive nitrates in groundwater that can be toxic to livestock and humans. High levels have plagued waterways in Iowa and throughout the Midwest for decades from chemical fertilizers and animal manure sprayed on fields.
......
Too much nitrate and phosphorous in rivers and streams makes great food for algae and other plant growth that cuts oxygen in the water and blocks sunlight. Combined with industrial farming practices that have altered waterways by straightening streams and removing wetlands, that’s bad news for fish that need clear water and slower currents.
It hurts humans, too. Nitrate-contaminated drinking water can cause blue baby syndrome where an infant’s blood doesn’t have enough oxygen. More than half of Iowa’s rivers, streams and lakes are too polluted to properly support aquatic life or fishing and swimming
......
The projected cost of scaling up is staggering. To significantly reduce nitrogen and phosphate runoff, a 2017 analysis found that upfront costs could be as high as US$4 billion. That would include more than 100,000 bioreactors to deal with runoff on two-thirds of tile-drained farmland, as well as other solutions, like cover crops.
https://apnews.com/article/farm-runoff-n...b9dbddfb13
